I can second the good charger recommendation. I have a handheld ham radio that came with a nicad battery and walwart charger. I purchased an independent smart charger and a higher capacity nimh battery. The nimh battery turned out to be defective but the smart charger easily doubled the run time on my stock nicad that came with the radio.

Varuscelli - I have seen some mixed reviews on the older model Maha chargers on eham.net product reviews so I went with a W&W charger that is unique to ham radio. A charger is a charger so the "unique to ham radio" comment is only relevant in that the OP could not consider the W&W for his use. I use the Ray-O-Vac charger for "regular" batteries.