Cheaper than a cheap CB.......it even comes with a battery and two aerials!

Those are the kind of prices which encourage people into trying a new hobby.

Spare batteries cost almost as much as the rigs but still great value compared to the likes of Kenwood/Trio etc.

Along with others I took my class B in the mid eighties (G1YMC) though have not sparked up the Yeasu for several years.

Oddly, now looking to take a marine radio exam so I can listen to the ships and boats from my new vanatge point.

When I were a lad you had to make everything yourself. What joy to read Radio Constructor, Short Wave Magazine, Practical Wireless and of course the American ARRL annual handbook was bordering on pornography for the pleasure it gave!

A decent ex gov receiver in the late 1950s (R1155, CRO 80 etc) was even then the equivalent of a very decent second hand car. Its amazing just what you can get for your money nowadays.

I think that if you only listen to 2m FM, you're likely to find things declining. Mobile phones more than the internet have killed it off--where you might have once called up your mates through the local repeater, you can now just give them a ring for a few pence and not have half the town's radio amateurs listening in to you.

But on the HF side of things, it's never been busier. Have you heard the pile-ups trying to work stations like T32C in Kiribati, and ST0R in South Sudan? I talked to people in Taiwan, Djibouti and New Zealand yesterday over the radio, all on 10m. It's in rude health.

I have not got any HF gear - I might give it a go.

I just stumbled across this thread and a quick update, due to my health not being so great I've really got back into ham radio these last three or four years,

Equipment might be expensive but you can get bargains and you might use the same radios for years with no significant additional costs. Virtually all other hobbies have continual costs like Golf Club subs. Other the years some hobbies must cost folks thousands of pounds.