Quote History Originally Posted By SperlingPE:
Both.
Are there single radios that are good at both local and nationwide?
Or is it more of a single radio dedicated to each?
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Some radios will cover multiple bands but most are either HF or VHF/UHF. Generally speaking, HF is for longer distances and VHF & UHF are for local. That's not a hard and fast rule but the radio waves on different frequencies behave differently.
The other day I talked to a guy in Barcelona, Spain on 40 meter with my HF radio, but I've tried without success to talk to someone in Omaha on that same radio. HF signals bounce off the ionosphere, and depending on your antenna that bounce could go almost straight up and back down, allowing you to talk locally (this is called NVIS, Near Vertical Incidence Skywave) or it could take off at a shallow angle, letting you talk thousands of miles away but shooting right over the head of someone just down the road. Arfcom has a Tuesday night HF net on 40 & 80 meters that's run by Gyprat.
VHF and UHF are generally line of sight, so they don't travel over the horizon. You can use a repeater to extend your range - the local club here in Lincoln has a publicly available repeater that anyone can use. They also have a nightly 2 meter net on that repeater that anyone can check into.
HF radios are usually a lot more expensive and the antennas take up a lot of room. Nothing wrong with starting out with a basic 2 meter radio to see if you like it, and if you find that it's a fun hobby you can always buy more gear.
Then there's DMR, which is digital radio. My handheld TYT can talk to a local digital repeater or a UHF hotspot I have set up in my house and then via the internet I can talk to anyone around the world who is on that same network. It's kind of a mashup of ham radio and VOIP. There's a Thursday night Arfcom DMR net, too.
I've only had my General license a little over a year and I'm definitely not an expert. The Ham forum in the outdoor section is full of very helpful guys so if there's anything I don't know they can definitely point you in the right direction.