nospamPlease wrote in message ...
I am thinking of purchasing a hand held radio (tranceiver).

Can anyone recommend one ? I am a student pilot.

Please reply to this newsgroup and not via email.

I bought the Yaseu/Vertex VXA-700 (The company changed it's name).
It's got the LiON battery with a nice long battery life, it was the
only handheld with a LiON battery when I bought it roughly a year ago.
It's small enough and light enough that I don't hesitate to carry it
- which is the point in a back up radio.

It receives VOR and COMM frequencies, weather radio in the US, and FM
commercial band as well as VHF 2 meter band. (So, if you're in CAP,
it can get their freqs too.)

I bought it when the DC ADIZ was set up, and used it when on a student
cross country with radio problems. Neither comm would work. Pretty
much a serious situation here. I plugged my headset into the handheld
(with the adapter I'd bought with the radio for that purpose) and was
able to re-enter the ADIZ and get back to home base.

(With the wisdom of more hours now, I should have landed outside and
phoned home. But having the extra radio is a good thing these days in
any case.)

Note that any handheld won't work as effectively as the plane's radio
since the antenna's not as good. Altitude helps of course, as does a
relay. I've seen people with their own plane put in an extra antenna
that can be plugged into the handheld too. But, you need your own
plane first... grin

-Malcolm Teas