In Canada the UHF ham bands are 70cm, 33cm and 23cm.
I have no 23cm gear at present but I do have radios for the other bands.
70cm (430-450 MHz)
I first got into 70cm mostly to give DMR a try and because I believe that it’s a ham’s duty to get on as many bands as one can and work ’em. Use them or lose them. Many commercial interests covet the spectrum allocated to us. And of course there are many repeaters on 70cm as well.
On the subject of DMR, I find listening to DMR to be unpleasant. The vocoder (audio CODEC) used by DMR is AMBE++ (AKA AMBE+2) and it sounds like a fart smells: awful.
By comparison, the vocoder used in P25 phase 1, IMBE, sounds great. Yaesu Fusion also uses IMBE and although I’ve not heard it myself I am told it sounds excellent, as one would expect.
Along with Motorola, many other manufacturers of digital communications gear use the stinkin’ AMBE CODEC: Kenwood’s NXDN, Icom’s D-Star and P25 phase 2 all use AMBE++ and they all sound nasty. Listen for yourself and tell me I am wrong.
For 70cm I have one of these in the shack. These are fantastic radios!
2020: Motorola XPR4550 (70cm)
33cm (902-928 MHz)
This is a band that interests me. Mostly because it’s largely unused and a bit harder to get into. There is no off the shelf ham equipment, one must purchase commercial gear and often modify it to make it work. A bit of software and hardware hackery sounded like great fun to me so in the hopes that a 33cm repeater would spring up in the area I purchased two excellent candidate radios for 33cm experimentation.
2021: Kenwood TK-981 (33cm)
I first bought one of these due to it’s ease of use on 33cm. It’s a high quality unit and small, too. I have this one all programmed up and ready to go. I just need someone to talk to. And an antenna. There’s that.
Then I thought, well, I may need a second 33cm radio one day. Base station, mobile, you know. So I bought another excellent radio that is easy to get going on 33cm with.
2021: Motorola GTX (33cm)
I have not yet begun work on this radio to get it on the air but it’s in great shape and didn’t cost much to acquire. And it’s a Motorola. I am looking forward to this project when it’s time has come.
23cm (1240-1300 MHz)
I have no 23cm gear at present. Perhaps one day.
And that is the extent of my UHF radios in the ham shack at present. I do have some handhelds for portable operation. You can read about my portable under the “Portable” heading above.