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what books to study? where to take tests? best entry level radios for the$$$$$

I will echo those questions. My radio experience is from driving trucks with various private radio systems. Would be interested in a base system as where I live I should have excellent reception. Hope someone can put together some basic guide or links to them.

I started another thread just to answer those kind of questions,
and I hope I opened it by starting with a few right answers.

ditto scottys answers yaeseu makes a good little brick called the ft270 hand helds are good mstly for a paper weight or if you have a decent repeater system for short distances i bring mine to work and do my net check ins where everi'm at i alse expanded the transmit range and programed work frequencys in to it so 1 radio can do it all for a base or mobile application the little alinco dr135 od big brother dr235 duel band are good bang for the buck they are full of features and work well with max power of 50 watts once you have studyed up find a local ham club they will have a groupe of people who can do the test most try to hold a test session once a month the no code tech is pretty simple i took 10 practice tests and passed it that night at 100% now i also have a pretty extensive back ground in electronics and work with math triangles all the time radio boot leg or otherwise has always been a hobbie all you have to know is some simple circuts a few resistance and voltage drop computations and ohms law and the rest is procidures and how to use the radio if you are setting up a base setup than antennas can be fabricated and i will be getting ahold of fubar shortly for a materials list and then i will post my sleeved diapol project for a base antenna with pictures for those like Big Al who like looking at pictures .