Thanks Gary for the informative reply. As should be obvious, I am
unfamiliar with radio frequency band allocations and exactly where
they split. I probably picked the wrong newsgroup for asking this
question.

One possible...the Icom H16....VHF commercial HT, keyboard programmable, and if
it fails, use it as a hammer. I have the UHF version of it (U16), good ole
HTs.

A