Radios I want

I'm looking into different types of radios now that I'm this close || to being a licensed amateur radio operator. So far I've been searching for the "holy grail" of radios: the single radio that can be set up in a house and used as a base station that can also be mounted in a vehicle to be used as a remote station. I've got a lot of time to think about such things as I am flat broke at the moment (which is probably why I'll end up with 2nd hand hand held radio, at least I can listen to that at work).

Trouble with hand-held radios, as has been pointed out to me, is they lack enough power to reach repeaters from distant locations. Given my home address in Youngsville and my beach address in Rodanthe (and the drive between the two) I'm not likely to spend any measurable amount of time close enough to a repeater to even bother considering a hand held radio. So, once again, I'm back to searching for a single radio that can "do it all" and for some time to come (a new hobby is an ok thing at Chez Brown, but a "new EXPENSIVE hobby" is not).

Enter the Yaesu FT-897D. This radio looks like a contender though it's somewhat large to use in the vehicle. Looks like a good home/beach base station, though. I'm going to have to get very creative with antennas at the beach as my condo has exceptionally strict regulations regarding ANY deviation from standard exterior modifications (down to the color of and materials used in your front door). But I'll worry about that later.

Back to the home radio search. I think I'll visit that guy out off highway 98 south of Wake Forest. I used to purchase CB radios from him back in my 4x4 days. He was all too eager to clip them for a small fee and increase the power output. I wonder if he's still in business.