10 meters is probably not the way to go. When it's open it goes around the world. When it's not open you're hard pressed to talk across the county. 10 meters is my favorite band but it is unpredictable and often not open. Particularly when the sun spot cycle is at a minimum.
40 meters or 75 meters would work much better for fairly local communication.
However, I can't imagine being any where that you can't reach someone on 2 meters. I travel all around my part of VA and WV into places that have no cell phone coverage. I'm usually within 100 miles of my house. I can always talk to my wife back home on some repeater. You just have to know where they are and which one to use.
As for a rig, I would keep the HF and VHF/UHF radios separate. It's nice to be able to operate both at the same time. Or both VHF and UHF at the same time. If you want to use one VHF frequency for voice and another for APRS you can't do that with an HF all in one radio. Nor can you set up cross band repeat. That requires a separate dual band rig.
40 meters or 75 meters would work much better for fairly local communication.
However, I can't imagine being any where that you can't reach someone on 2 meters. I travel all around my part of VA and WV into places that have no cell phone coverage. I'm usually within 100 miles of my house. I can always talk to my wife back home on some repeater. You just have to know where they are and which one to use.
As for a rig, I would keep the HF and VHF/UHF radios separate. It's nice to be able to operate both at the same time. Or both VHF and UHF at the same time. If you want to use one VHF frequency for voice and another for APRS you can't do that with an HF all in one radio. Nor can you set up cross band repeat. That requires a separate dual band rig.
