/diy/ - Do It Yourself

>>2571974
There's plenty of DIY, here's my DIY slinky antenna and balun. You don't need to reinvent the PC before you can be a programmer. Handheld 2m stuff is mostly boring tho aside from that guy that was trying to setup an alarm system with some baofengs.

https://w1sye.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/NCRC_PixieOperation.pdf

That's a basic transceiver. You can expand on it by using a PLL instead of the crystal. Using relays on the output to switch between different band filters.

High power RF transistors/mosfets are expensive tho. Probably looking at $100-$200 for the one in a normal radio. https://www.rfparts.com/sd1446.html . Spurious emissions and whatnot can get you in trouble if you don't add enough filtering and you're kinda just guessing how bad it is until you actually measure it yourself with expensive equipment.

Shit like baluns, antennas and manual tuners are where the bulk of the DIY is. Just a modest assortment of torroids cost me like $300 to buy.

>>2570551
The brown crap is solder flux. Brush and alcohol will clean it off.