Everything on this page is gear I personally own and use. No fluff, no aspirational purchases — if it’s listed here, it’s on my bench or in my shack right now. I’ll update this page as my setup evolves.
Some links may be affiliate links. See my affiliate disclosure for details.
Radio
Baofeng UV-5R — My first radio and still my daily driver for local 2m/70cm. Cheap, works, and I’ve learned more from manually programming this thing than I would have from a nicer radio with easier menus. If you’re getting your first HT after passing your Technician exam, this is the move.
Midland Walkie Talkies — A basic pair for GMRS. Not repeater-capable, but functional for short-range family use.
Planned purchases: Icom ID-5100A (dual-band mobile, D-STAR), Midland MXT500 (GMRS base/mobile), Icom IC-7300 (HF, after General).
SDR
RTL-SDR Blog V4 — My only SDR dongle right now. Runs SDR++ on tkraspi for monitoring, satellite tracking with Gpredict, and soon rtl_433 for ISM band decoding. Great value for what it does. If I add a second dongle for dedicated rtl_433 use, it’ll probably be a cheap generic RTL-SDR since it doesn’t need the V4’s improved filtering.
RTL-SDR Wideband Dipole Antenna — The antenna kit that came with the V4. Good enough for getting started across a wide range of frequencies.
Mesh Networking
Heltec LoRa32 V3 — My Meshtastic node. Runs on the NWA mesh. Currently exploring getting a second one to dedicate to running Meshbot_weather while keeping one for personal mesh presence.
muzi.works 17cm 915 MHz Antenna — Upgraded from the stock Heltec antenna. Better range on the NWA Meshtastic mesh.
Computing
Raspberry Pi 5 (“tkraspi”) — The heart of the shack. Runs Docker with Meshtastic web UI, SDR++, Gpredict, Mosquitto MQTT broker, and various projects. Connected to an Onn Roku TV as a monitor. Currently evaluating NVMe HATs (Geekworm X1001 vs official Pi M.2 HAT+) to get off SD card boot and fix swap thrashing issues.
WD My Passport External Drive — Mounted on tkraspi for archive storage. NTFS formatted, auto-mounted via fstab with ntfs3 driver.
MacBook Air — My main development machine. PyCharm for coding, Homebrew for everything. This is where I write hamlog, blog posts, and plan projects.
Software
SDR++ — SDR receiver application running on tkraspi. Connected to the RTL-SDR V4.
Gpredict — Satellite tracking, connected to SDR++ for automated pass tracking. Used for NOAA APT satellite passes.
Docker — Runs most services on tkraspi including Meshtastic web UI.
Tailscale — Mesh VPN for accessing tkraspi remotely from anywhere.
Hugo — Static site generator that builds this very blog.
Licenses
Amateur Radio: Technician class, callsign KJ5PEJ. Working toward General.
GMRS: License WRYS604.
Last updated: April 2026. This page is a living document — I update it as gear changes.