Hi Matt,
There's nothing wrong with the Baofeng and Nagoya. I've currently got a Zastone ZT-501 with a Nagoya 771 antenna. The fellas at the club didn't believe me when I told them I only spent AUD$32. I'm yet to get myself a HF rig as well. I've currently got a Yaesu FT-847 I'm lending from another amateur who has since told me he'd consider an offer. Not sure though as I need to assess my personal finances. The Yaesu works quite well connected to my 9:1 unun transformer connected to a random length wire.

My longest contact in the VHF/UHF field day was 39km (~24 Miles) with the average distance being 24km (~15 Miles). I'm quite proud of my effort considering I had only be licenced for about 2 months. Especially considering I was using the Zastone with only a whip.

Have you had an experiment with working the FM satellites?