[mmaunder]

Oooh that's a tough one. I haven't been in the market for a while, but even used gear like the Kenwood TS2000 which is now about 18 years old is still pricey. And a Yaesu FT817ND which is a low power HF radio comes in at around 800 bucks.

I really would like to hear from others, but I would look at getting an SDR that can handle HF frequencies down to at least 7Mhz if you want to have some serious DX fun.

I have a HackRF One, but it retails still at around $300 bucks. I have a feeling if you use the google and shop around, you may find a SDR and converter combo that'll get you down to 7Mhz with low power.

Then building your own antenna is trivial. Because you're using very low power, you can actually build a dipole antenna that doesn't even need a balun. I've used stealth antenna wire which is super slinky and nice to work with to create a low power antenna (in ham speak, we call low power 'QRP'). It's basically just coax that splits the core and shield into left and right branches. You use the stealth wire for the branches and you calculate the length based on frequency. So it's locked to a specific frequency like the 7Mhz band. But they're super effective as long as you string them in a tree. The whole kit can be bundled up into a backpack, taken for a hike and when you get to your destination, have a picnic, string up the antenna in a tree and make a few DX (long distance) QRP (low power) contacts on your laptop. Yeah, it's a geeky hobby. [insert joke about preparing for the end times]

But again, I'd love to hear from other hams on here re developments in low power low cost HF SDRs.

[scarhill]

I use the RS-HFIQ, a 5 watt 80-10 meter SDR transceiver[1]. If you don't want to mess with sound card configuration you can add the Pi SDR[2] which adds an Orange Pi and sound card to give you an ethernet-connected radio.

[1] - https://hobbypcb.com/rs-hfiq [2] - https://www.pi-sdr.net/pi-sdr/index.php/pi-sdr-projects/pi-s...