(joke)
Antenna Test Range (actually, any nearby park or field will do)
Faraday Cage / Anechoic Chamber
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Also, a DDS chip and some means of controlling it can serve as a cheap and versatile signal source, for much less than a "signal generator" with similar tuning range.
It seems to me that if you can only afford one of the two, the DDS is the more essential one.
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Also misc. useful things to have:
Directional coupler
Bias-tee
Broadband (MMIC) Low noise amplifier(s)
DC block? (the commercial ones are expensive for what they are, tho')
Filters (I make them myself)
Attenuators (same as above)
Prototyping supplies: (note I am a beginner, so please offer suggestions)
This is what I have found useful up until now.
Pieces of PCB with SMAs or BNC females soldered to them for whatnot.
Wire.. teflon "bodge wire". (I can never have too much of that, ideally in different colors. I need better ways to store things, especially wire that gets used frequently.)
Solid copper wire, insulated wire in various forms, Coax, for building things micro RG174 and or RG316 coax cable for internal wiring in projects. Solid dielectric type and not foam type.
Headers. PCB scraps. Trimmers. Variable capacitors. Trimmer style and volume control style potentiometers. Multi turn pots are handy. I have one vernier style knob ten turn pot, that I use for things, I need to get more. Super useful for working with varactors.
Varactor diodes.
Collection of toroids of different sizes - for HF and VHF 2, 6, 31, 43 and 61 mixtures are popular.
HF binocular balun cores (#43) VHF/UHF balun cores (smaller, #61 mix)
Magnet wire
A nibbling tool or "Harbor freight 25000 lb hole puncher" or other means of making small pieces of PCB to act as support for parts in old school prototype projects. You can also chop up the ('vero board') that has one side covered with copper, or stripboard is good for busses, one sheet of such board can make hundreds of little supports.
An old school high wattage soldering GUN.
super glue
Flashing copper in sheet form. (extremely useful)
Double sided tape. Conductive copper tape in various widths. Styrofoam posterboard (good for temporary experimental antennas)
Laser printer (for toner transfer PCB making)
Etchant. (can use vinegar, hydrogen peroxide + salt- and then a tiny bit of nail polish remover to get the black stuff off at the end)
Feed through capacitors. Junk box with previous projects to scavenge for parts.
Good collection of passives in some kind of organizer. (Loose leaf binders are useful for storing flat/small/tiny passives in.) Although I shouldn't I just store a lot of (non ESD sensitive parts) in ziplock bags.
Conformal coating? I have never used it although I should, as I can see how old homemade PCBs oxidize. What should I use?
Solder resist.
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Question on transistors for RF folks. What are your nominations for non-BJT transistors most useful for the modern radio project builder. (cheap and low noise!) Modern ones with better specs that can substitute for a lot of older ones. Particularly useful cheap, non-BJT RF transistors. (I dont have any FETs in my parts box at all for example.)
I have a very few in mind but I don't know if they necessarily are good choices or just ones I have seen a lot.
Also, PIN diodes.
Arduino(s) (several)
Cheap Computer with monitor to have at your bench that that runs the programs you use.
Raspberry Pi (can also use it to generate arbitrary frequency square waves, with high accuracy, although I have not done this yet, it looks extremely useful. Has anybody made a bench-useful siggen program yet, around this capability?)
RTLSDRs. Both unmodified and direct sampling are useful. Direct sampling can sample down to VLF. Good for finding HF noise.
Can get a higher level of accuracy on frequency using Linrad (
http://sm5bsz.com ) with its parts per billion adjustment.
Big piece of steel (you can use magnets to hold things) or copper and big piece of static foam you can rest collections of devices connected with multi adaptors on so they wont be mechanically stressed and will have a good ground plane. Collection of small antennas for testing. Clamps/helping hands. Lots and lots of patch cables.
Coaxial switches and splitter/combiner.
Coax crimper. Dont do what I did and buy crap. Anybody know of a good second hex crimper, which will basically be my first working one, one that works well for all sizes of coax? I basically need to redo half of my patch cables because the cheap crimper I have been using is just very bad.
Cost is why I bought the first one and I was forewarned and so I regret the purchase but at the same time although in both the abstract and practical sense, of course, I can clearly see its dumb to buy a cheap one but- money is an issue now and the ones that are clearly good seem SO overly expensive 'for what they are' physically. I just cant bring myself to spend >$100 on what is basically a glorified pair of pliers.
That kind of thing, especially, is where mentoring is invaluable and irreplaceable.
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