Well an external antenna makes a huge difference, up to 10 times from being inside your vehicle. I'm getting one! And a lisence. I notice my signal has a huge drop inside the truck to the nearest repeater. These things can throw a signal really far from outside the vehicle or using an antenna, next project is designign a mount for the utility track. That Ic-v85 looks nice but $200 you can buy a Yaesu dual band, but if you get a deal the lithium ion is nice for battery. I do like to be able to use AA's though in a pinch so I'll probably buy the AA adapter and some high capacity NIMH for the 170.
Thinking about getting this one myself for the truck and keeping my hand held170 for the banshee / outside of the truck.
Good deal if you only need single band.
http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/fm_txvrs/2800.html
For offroad use and local use do I need more then single band? I am gonna spend some time looking into this some more. Can you pick up the cb guys also or no? They do a aa battery pack and a 12 ADAPTOR FOR THIS RADIO