can someone recommend me a good scanner?

I'm in the market for a handheld scanner. Ideally I'd like one that
can both receive and transmit on the 108-136 "airband", as well as be
able to receive ATIS and CTAF broadcasts from military airports, which
I believe are UHF and in the area of 276 MHz. Apparently, such a
device is illegal (that can transmit and receive on two different
"bands"), so I guess I can live with a unit that can only receive
those frequencies, but can't transmit. I've been trying to do research
on which unit to get, but it's all very confusing. I guess there are a
bunch of different "modes" of transmissions, (AM, FM, WFM, etc) and
military airplanes only transmit using one of those types, yet most
scanners only decode AM (or something). As you can tell, I'm not a
radio expert, so I was hoping if someone out there knows their stuff,
they could point me in the right direction. I'm looking to spend about
300 bucks or less. Thanks.