I’m trying to decide what radio to buy first, and frankly, the choices are overwhelming. I’ve spent weeks reading articles, product reviews, considering what my needs are, and I’ve learned a few things. I’ll outline the information that was helpful to me, and then give the factors that went into my decision and the radio I chose.

Manufacturers:

There are three major players in the amateur radio game: Icom, Kenwood, and Yaesu. All three make great products. If you stick with one of the major manufacturers, the decision of which is going to be largely stylistic and personal. I’ve never used a Yaesu product. I’ve used Kenwood radios at work as a “professional land mobile radio user” and found them to be boringly predictable and useful, but with uninspired feature sets and utilitarian interfaces. I’ve only played with Icom products, I really like the look and interface of their products, particularly the newer base and mobile radios.

There are a few budget players in the game too, notably Alinco, Baofeng, and Wouxoun. I don’t know much about Alinco, and the Baofeng and Wouxoun devices have reputations for being cheap, with corresponding feature sets and durability. My budget isn’t huge, but I’m also not on a shoestring. I’d prefer to spend money on a quality product that will last for a while, so I’m only going to look at the three major players.

Right now my amateur radio interests are all over the map — basically, I want a chance to try out everything: digital modes, APRS, satellites, you-name-it. And as a volunteer firefighter in a rural community, emergency communications is a top priority. So I’m looking for a pretty full featured device. Specifically, I know that I want the following:

• Dual band for both the 2m (144MHz) and 70cm (440MHz) bands
• An integrated TNC (terminal node controller) for packet modes
• GPS and APRS (automatic packet reporting system)
• Full duplex for satellite contacts
• Front panel programmable
• Plenty of memory for tons of stored frequencies/tones/etc

I’m pretty enamored with the Icom mobile and base station radios, so I looked first at the Icom handhelds, but none of them had the feature set I was looking for. I have literally zero experience with Yaesu, so that took me to Kenwood.

Kenwood offers three amateur portables: the K20, D72, and D74. I knocked the K20 out of consideration right off the bat, because it’s a monobander for the 2 meter (144MHz) band. That left the D74 and D72. The D74 is a tribander that handles the 144MHz, 220MHz, and 440MHz bands with a really nice, color display with most of the features I wanted, except full duplex capability. This is really only important for working amateur satellites, where the uplink and downlink occur on different bands, and it’s useful to be able to hear, in real time, whether or not your voice is being re-transmitted on the downlink. You can accomplish this with two radios, but why use two radios when you can do it with one?

That left me with the Kenwood TH-D72. The display is simple but functional, and it fulfills all my requirements. I found it for $399 (not including shipping) from GigaParts. So while it’s one of the more expensive handhelds on the market, it gets high marks for overall build quality, features, and reliability. I read a few reviews that indicated the durability leaves something to be desired, but we’ll see.