I have just voided my warranty for my ham radio HAZZA!
So for about a month me and a close bud were looking at what HAM radio to buy.
We were mostly looking at handhelds as later this year we plan to explore some local national parks and the HAM radio would come in handy!
So after many hours on the ball busting machine (the internet)
a big thing is baofang, well heres my hot take.
Everybody i see talk about it is paid or says the words "best starter radio"
And heres the thing it is a good radio for $35, but its a $35 radio.
If i get a $100 bottle of wine and a $2.56 can of $BRAND Light its not that the $BRAND Light is bad but in a different bracket of price to premium ratio.

So another ongoing thought that ties in with this little write up was dead internet theory.
enter my theoretical

in olden times before the intra or internet.

If i said "i thing this can of beans is the best food ever"
people may disagree and say "beans are hardly a food!"

so for every one opinion there is a person.

i said beans are the best, now it doesn't mean im wrong or right because its an opinion.
And there may be other people who agree or disagree.

But majority metric for this is 1:1 ratio
me as an individual and only say this one thing and try to convince others to my opinion are plausible but because its directly connect to me people very easily can write me off as being biased to an opinion.

ENTER THE MODERN INTERNET

i go on a forum and say "i think beans are the best food!"
people may disagree but it doesn't matter, i can change accounts, make new ones fill the internet and every forum with the opinion NEIH FACT. That beans are the superior food!
And none of it is traceable to me to the average Joe, yes on technicality you could look for common spelling mistakes and email addresses. But what does it really get you?

Now take my example and replace the food aspect lets say cheap Chinese radios or any brand name!

I think this makes alot of sense for how the modern day internet works for certain products.
And just for the added tidbit in no way am i saying there should be age verification's or real IDS to shitpost or use the internet. Its a violation of everything the founders of the internet wanted.

But back to radios!
so me and my dear friend went to a semi local radio club to ask the big wigs what do they use?
I mean yeah you can ask people on forums and watch youtubes videos but nothing with ever match the pickiness and gripes of senior users.

To give you the short stick,

ICOM was the first to implement D-star a really kinda odd protocol for radio which lets you HAM over the internet as-well as text and send images. NO THIS IS NOT A PHONE!!
i mean its basically is. ICOM is a Japanese company, there interface is "easier" which is directly quoting a ICOM user.

Yasue Was the first to make HT portable radios, they have been around for a long time and majority of there lineup of products are analog. The interface is also "easier than icom"
once again quoting a yaesu user.

These 2 are what my local ham club recommended now the funniest part of this was alot of the club argued on which had the better UI and it was really funny. Because when i and my friend were headed home he asked "so which had the easier UI?" and i just cackled "your talking to a VIM user i dont give a shit i can learn the keybinds!"

So we ended up with the Yaesu 65R

ive been playing around with it over last week and its a nice little radio, and MAN you can hear alot of VHF i heard a local town talking about a powerline that got blown over. 20 MILES AWAY!

Now the biggest gripe!
WHERES THE USB C?!?!? it uses a 12v 1A power plug which the dock then converts it to 8v to charge the radio.

Now i wanted to make the radio be chargeable over USB C so i can in emergency charge my radio off a USB-c power bank that can be charged with a solar panel.
So i read up on what pins do what on a barrel jack and de-soldered it. got a USB PD board soldered it to 12V then 3d printed a little case for the board and glued it to my charger.
It works really well and honestly the only gripe i have had with this radio is it not being USB C, its 2026 and im so tired of having a laptop brick a phone charger, soldering iron charger, earbud charger, headphone charger.
So USB-C it is :)