Of course your range is going to be limited by the Wattage your using to Transmit.
There are Repeaters,and Amplifiers ,but your still limited to the 1500 Watts allowed for use of the Ham Bands that the FCC has assigned to this type of Broadcasting.
US Amateur Transmitter Power Limits
At all times, transmitter power must be the minimum necessary to carry out the desired communications. Unless otherwise noted, the maximum power output is 1500 watts PEP. Novice/Technicians are limited to 200 watts PEP on HF bands. Geographical power restrictions apply to the 70 cm, 33 cm and 23 cm bands; see The FCC Rule Book for details.
There are in fact hand held units , but they are limited to their output and rely on Repeaters to archive any real distance as a Transceiver.
But they can be attached to an Amp and be used as well as any base station.
Some of them are simply limited to the 2 meter Ham Band ,and others can operate as well as any base station with an Amplifier.
As far as a receiver , they work as well as any that are in their size range ,and their price isn't real bad either.
Years ago the ALCON was used in Africa , it was Both a SW Transceiver , and a long range Telephone.
Plugged into the Phone jack at your Home , you could carry your Home Phone anywhere you wanted.
The one i played with would work more than 20 miles away just fine.
The Problem was they were Illegal in the U.S. , The one i had would transmit at 100 Watts ,and the Battery would heat up well enough to warm up a Burrito.
For a Wireless Telephone that exceeded the then legal limit of 3 Watts , and it would mess up Television reception with no problem.
I was using it one day and a Tower at an Airport called me and asked what i thought i was doing ???
I boxed it up real fast after that.