May and all, if by portable radios you're referring to 2meter and or
2meter and 70CM hand held transceivers, there, of course, are a number
out there.  I'm one of the ones who likes very much, the Baofeng
UV-5R.  Price, $45-70 depending on where bought, ease of programming
by we sight challenged/blinder than bats,/IE,EG, programming PL tones
_Simply, 71.8=718, at the proper menu setting,/no lists or codes to
remember, etc.
Size, Build quality, and lots more.  ******There _Are some drawbacks,
programming software not blind friendly, although some use the Chirp
software successfully, but the programming from the keypad's not bad.
One other thing I like, is if you're monitoring a ham or pother
frequency for activity, and want to listen to a favorite FM station in
the meantime, when there's activity on your desired channel, it
unseats the FM station for as long as activity lasts, then returns you
to the FMBC signal.  It's not the radio for everybody, but I'm more
than satisfied---my favorite before this one had been the Icom IC-t90,
mainly because of its' CW read out, and WX alert.  But to give you a
receiver comparison, using stock antennas, I got 1 to 2, NOAA wx freqs
from here with any of the t90s I've had.  Where as I get 4 to 6 with
the Baofang.  My radio at least,/bought new for $65 from
Importcommunications.com in NC, came widebanded for transmit-receive
use on Any frequency/ham,PSB, MURS, FRS, In fact, any freq it hears,
except of course for broadcast FM. There's a lot of info about this
radio, much because of Buddy Brannon and co-operation with several
others to produce the accessible docs. Finally, Edd Griffen at import
communications, is very committed to working with us and manufacturers
with a view/excuse the play on words,  to more blind accessibility.
HTH, and if I can be of help to any of you on this unit, please let me
know.  ***THE UV-5R, is the only one of the chinese HTS I have
experience with, and I'm glad I waited.  Sold a t90 with lots of acs
and bought one of these, and haven't looked back/although I'd love to
find a t90 with blown finals and or broken SMA connecter for an a
projectt.


On 10/3/12, May <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Thanks Gary. I'll check out that radio.
>
> 73
> May, VA3AWL
> www.canadianlynx.ca
> On 2012-10-03, at 11:05 PM, Gary Tillinghast <[log in to unmask]> =
> wrote:
>
>> May,
>> Many on this list are using the Baeofeng UR5 radios for portable use.  =
> They=20
>> run about $45 or around there. 73. Gary KB2YAA
>> ----- Original Message -----=20
>> From: "May" <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>> Sent: Wednesday, October 03, 2012 10:24 AM
>> Subject: accessible portable radios
>>=20
>>=20
>> Morning everyone.
>>=20
>> I was wondering now what the best accessible portable radio out there =
> =3D
>> is?
>>=20
>> It's been a while since I've been active so a bit out of the loop on =3D=
>
>> what's good now.
>>=20
>> Thanks.
>>=20
>> 73
>> May, VA3AWL
>> www.canadianlynx.ca=3D=20
>