So about a year ago, I tested for my technician and general and passed. But I wasn't sure what I wanted to get out of ham radio, so I didn't set up my shack.
Now that I'm a year in, I think that I know what I want to do with ham radio. The person that got me interested was a ham for many years. He's in his 70's and started when he was a teen. He always talked about building his own equipment and making contacts around the world. That peaked my interest and I added ham radio to my bucket list. That was 30 years ago and I just realized what interested me in ham radio.
I want to build my gear and make use of the lowest spec gear as I possibly can to make contact. I may want to sit in my basement and make contact. Or I may want to hike to the top of a mountain and do a SOTA contact. Or just put a ham rig in my camper to use when I'm camping.
So that brings me to QRP. I've read many articles and watched many videos. They almost always say that QRP is not the recommended for a new ham. But that's what interest me in ham.
I am building my bench power supply. I ran into some snags early on and put that on the back burner, but will be building more this winter. I bought the uBitX version 5 kit and built that for the most part. I've also purchased and built one of the QRP guys antennas.
Needless to say, I like building my equipment.
Anyone make use of QRP? what gear are you using? Any suggestions for gear that I should add to my "shack" or go bag? It doesn't need to be DIY.