[ChuckMcM]

Exactly this.

Too many people get funneled into this trap by the ARRL who understandably push "get on the air today!" type articles which haven't been updated since the 80's and have people getting HF radios and hunting for repeaters on the 2M band. And the grumpy old guys who are pissed off it isn't the 80's (or 70's or 50's, few seem to be nostalgic for the 60's) anymore.

In the digital radio space its a lot more open, and just being able to work with radio has become pretty easy these days. I've got a bunch of SDRs now, and I agree the ADALM-PLUTO ($100) is the most cost effective way to get a nice xmit and receive SDR. The RSP2 from SDRPlay is another one that is good for the low bands through 2G (its like $200) then the next step up is the HackRF-1 ($300) or LimeSDR ($300) or LimeSDR Mini ($170). Above that you start getting into the Ettus/National USRP radios ($3000 and up).

Small WHSPR (whisper) radios like the article mentions are inexpensive to build and fun to play with as well, not a lot of chatting but tagging beacons and getting tagged. Or putting lightweight radios in a balloon and flying it around the world (https://www.mchsarc.com/?page_id=13)

[StudentStuff]

Those grumpy guys pervade the web too, in some places when I talk about OpenWRT I'll get mobbed by people that view it as evil, linking it to dead forks of the early 2000s that were popular for blasting RF. These same people love to hate on the GPL, over squabbles that happened decades ago. Highlighting that GPLv3 fixes the permanent license revocation loophole of GPLv2 goes in one ear and out another with 'em.

When I point out the dozens of watts some HAMs are blasting in part of the 5Ghz band, these same asshats are all over that shit. It makes me want to have zero involvement with this toxic community, since many active members can't handle basic logic.

For now I'll stick to the ISM bands, Part 15 is good for many applications.

[sliken]

I've searched this space looking for a decent RX/TX SDR that does a few watts. It's surprisingly hard. Seems like the 5 watt $30 HTs (that are SDR based) are extremely common, but as soon as you add any flexibility it's $1000s.

[ChuckMcM]

Those two constraints are easily separated. Radio and separate power amplifier. You will find that a really wide band power amp is expensive so a lot of people will have two to five PAs and an RF switch to select between them

[franciscrick1]

See also http://www.picospace.net/, or http://www.leobodnar.com/balloons/.