Never played around with those brands. Went in heavy on Yaesu’s w/ a 6800, 757D, & VX-6R. Bought a Kenwood V71A for a poor man’s repeater and to monitor multiple frequencies.
Discussion
DMR is popular around me and yeasu isn't really an option if you want to play with the DMR guys. TYT was the cheapest DMR radio when I started. Anytone is supposed to be the nicest. Opengd77 is a third party open source firmware that many of the cheap DMR radios support.
Never messed with DMR. I’ll give it a look. I bought just for ruggedness of gear & basic point to point comms.
It’s amazing that there’s always new stuff to explore under the banner of #hamradio
I would look at the opengd77 project and pick a radio off their support list as a first try it out radio. The CPS is easiest by a mile. The programming and CPS is the biggest hurdle for someone used to FM.
If you are looking at Hotspots, buy cheap. Bridgecom prices are just markup and marketing for the same device as the cheap ones on Amazon.
Appreciate it mate, might hear you on the air someday