Getting Kitted Up with Amateur Radio

Foundations of Amateur Radio

Launched into your amateur radio adventure you're faced with figuring out what you need to fly. If you have a web browser, you can start listening to a massive array of online radio sources .. today.

Beyond that, a handheld radio is often the first purchase for a new amateur, more often than not followed by the acquisition of a more advanced radio and associated paraphernalia, antenna, coax, power supply and the like.

A video of forging the "Most Iconic Swedish Axe", by Torbjorn Ahman, a Swedish Blacksmith, started off with making several tools, before the axe forging itself got underway. It reminded me that in the amateur radio community we often talk about radio with rarely any mention of any toolkit.

Spend six seconds thinking about this and you'll likely come up with a soldering iron and a multimeter as your next investment, but what happens after that?

While not universal, truth be told, my soldering iron has very little use, though half a century ago it was probably essential. My multimeter gets more use, even though it really doesn't do any radio tricks. Its most used feature is continuity testing.

One proper bit of test gear is an antenna analyser that we use most times anyone plays with antennas.

Several years ago, I was given a lovely NanoVNA which gets a regular workout though calibration is a bit cumbersome. I was also given an inline power meter that provides all manner of battery health information. I take it to every portable operation.

Gadgets aside, the tools I use more than all of these put together are a quality wire cutter and an Anderson Powerpole crimper with all the connector housing colours. There's also a comprehensive set of screwdriver bits, enabling access to more equipment than I have time to investigate.

A 15 Watt dummy load, good to 150 MHz, gets regular use, and to complete the picture, underneath my desk is a HP 606A signal generator that I'm scared to restore. Last time I went near it, I managed to trip the house RCD for reasons I still don't understand.

There's other stuff in boxes and drawers, but I clearly don't use them enough to come to mind.

Unremarked is my computing infrastructure. Until a couple of years ago that consisted of a 27" iMac, vintage 2015. Expanded to 64 GB of RAM, it ran all my software using VMware, sometimes a dozen or so virtual computers simultaneously. It died in 2024 when the power cord managed to short itself on my portable desk, yes, that too tripped the