The Best Ham HTs for 2024
2024 Best Ham HTs
Opening
As 2024 comes to a close, many of you are thinking about things to put on your holiday shopping list, so it’s probably time to take a look at some of the best new Ham HT radios for 2024.
There have been several new releases in late 2023 and here in 2024 that deserve your attention. I’ve reviewed several of these radios so be sure to check out the Ham radio playlist I’ll link on the end card if you want more information.
We’ll also mention a couple of options from last year’s list, as they remain solid choices.
Price Ranges
The radios on this year’s list include those in the budget category as well as a couple higher priced, premium HTs.
That means some sell for around $20 to $40 dollars and include the standard features of large channel memories, FM broadcast reception, NOAA weather channels and faceplate keypads to program the radio without using a CPS.
The more expensive premium radios range from about $170 to over $700 dollars. These include GPS receivers and at least some APRS capability, and a couple have digital modes.
The radios on my 2023 list remain good choices, but these are some of the newest ones in the Ham marketplace.
I ‘ve purchased several of these radios and been given others to review, but let’s use the radio’s sales pages on Amazon or other retailers web sites to keep things moving. I’ll have affiliate links to some of these radios in the video description below and just vendor links to the others.
Let’s get started.
The first couple are budget class radios from Baofeng. These are available for sale from US vendors so the expectation is they have FCC ID numbers. In many cases, these radios use the ID of models they have certified as being electrically identical to previous models.
One of Baofeng’s sales strategies seems to be putting the same radio circuitry in a variety of cases giving us as consumers a lot of choices in appearance while not having to engineer dozens of different radio circuits.
That’s not a criticism, just a statement to avoid those, “What’s the best Baofeng?” questions that always seem to come up. In most cases, the answer is, “the one you like best.”
In my tests using consumer grade equipment, I’ve found some of these models fall a bit outside the FCC limits for spurious emissions in the 2-meter band. Do with that as you will.
Whether you’re looking for you first Ham HT as a new Technician or looking to upgrade to a radio with GPS or a digital mode, you’ll do well with a radio on this list.
Radios on last year’s list are also good choices and since they’re now a bit older, you might be able to find a bargain or two this shopping season.
