RE: Handheld

David,
I am not familiar with The Tulsa area but am sure there are many repeaters in your area.
As far as a handheld I would suggest you look for something that can be ran on a cigarette lighter adapter.This will help out if you want to work mobile,I am thinking that Tulsa will have some decent coverage repeaters so any thing over 5 watts is really inappropriate.Also invest in a quater wave antenna for your car with a bnc to pl259 adapter gives you better coverage in your repeater area,You will find these at your local radio shack they are very inexpensive.I have owned almost every manufacture of Hand helds and
really liked all about the same I would suggest you stay away from Radio shacks hand helds they are really hard to program in comparision to the other manufactures.I would also suggest you get an extra set of batterys for whatever rig you want to buy nothing is more frustrating than your batterys going dead in the middle of a conversation congratulations on picking out such a fine hobby and remember without cw it would only be cb.
Yours Truly
AE4NR
VE/VEC
Rich Marsteller
by the way do not be afraid to email me with questions I will attempt to explain any thing you would like to know
email rmarste855@aol.com