Glad to meet ya. Licensed ham since '91. FCC first class 'phone and radar endorsement since '77.
Still a lot of the older analog 800 MHz. trunks around here. And the state highway patrol still loves their low-band VHF towers. And as the munis move to 800, their old 400 repeaters are being adopted for other purposes. NBFM will be with us for a while.
But if you can't afford the equipment and license fees, Nextel is probably the way to go -- especially if you want to get away from the scanner listeners.
Nice to meet you too ... first rig here was a 1965 Motrac purchased in 1975 complete with manual - a model U43HHT1100E (last of the all-tube exciter series). 40 Watts from a 6146 PA tube ... I later retrofitted that rig with a VHF Engineering "Synthsizer II" so I could work the entire 2 Meter band ... also added a switchable (via a bypass relay) dual-gate MOSFET RF preamp in front of the helical-resonator front end ... what a radio! (And I've still got it!)