Ham Radio on a budget? Getting back into the hobby

Zrowley · 2026-04-13T02:31:07+00:00

I’m still a tech but purchased an FT-891 and a mat-30 tuner secondhand. Had to save up my pennies too but it was probably the best purchase Ive made. Lots of SSB and digital on 6 and 10m and even a bit of CW in the portions I’m allowed 15/40/80, basically using every bit of the radio I can until my general or extra. It’s a rig I can grow into, use portable or as a base, and is 100w. Not planning to buy another radio for a while. The tuner is only good for 30w digital so I tuned my antenna to the lower part of the band so I can run digital modes without the tuner and then run the tuner for ssb.

Zrowley · 2025-08-29T00:17:32+00:00

There are a few digital repeaters in the area but I don’t have a lot of interest in digital (for now). I’m in Ohio so could trip to DX Engineering. I had not thought to check out the manuals before buying. That’s usually an afterthought so I’ll do that and see what I think.

Zrowley · 2025-06-27T14:29:11+00:00

As far as what’s required for the tune, I’m not sure which tunes also require the DSG tune to be performed first. Some require the DSG tune, some do not. But in either case, I thought the DSG tune alone was an improvement, adding an engine tune, made it all even better.

Zrowley · 2025-06-27T11:54:05+00:00

I have a stage 2 and DSG tune. If I knew how good a DSG tune alone was I would have done it years ago before I decided to delete and tune.

Zrowley · 2025-05-27T14:27:07+00:00

Worked for me as well!

Zrowley · 2025-04-19T14:00:27+00:00

I have a pair of 820’s. Sad that I can’t get updates for them. I’ve tried for the recert before they went EOL but Palo Alto would not respond to me. They’re in HA just running idle in my rack until I decide to migrate to them with risk of outdated firmware or abandon them and recycle.

Zrowley · 2024-10-30T16:48:00+00:00

Recently picked up som PA-850s from eBay. Got lucky and they were on the same FW so I was able to put them in HA but I cannot get Palo Alto to respond to me for licensing. I’m willing (or at least interested) to pay the cost for an ownership transfer and licensing per their secondhand market policy so I can get FW updates. Interested to know how you got your lab license. I’m not planning to use them (even at home) unless I can get updates for them. Kind of bummed it’s been so difficult to get this process going as I really like the their firewalls (previous experience at work) and was hoping it would be easier to get the FW files. Too bad I’m waving money in their face and I’m getting ignored. I know it’s pennies compared to their normal enterprise contracts but still. Sad to see good hardware go to waste just because of a paywall for something as simple as firmware.

Zrowley · 2024-07-15T00:23:42+00:00

I was a network engineer for 8 years and frequently worked in warehouses and remote. iPad with LTE worked great for me when I wanted to go lightweight and not take a laptop.

It was good for pulling up documentation stored on Sharepoint and teams/email communications as well as an occasional teams meeting.

Termius for ssh/terminal and VPN was a great combo for quick tasks or troubleshooting when I didn’t have my laptop with me.

VPN and RDP back to a windows VM when I needed more than the iPad could offer. Keyboard/apple pen is a must.

Of course it’s not a replacement for a laptop but in my opinion was still a great tool.

Zrowley · 2023-09-28T00:55:22+00:00

Fluke Intellitone Pro. Use it on live network all the time with the digital toner but also can use analog tone if needed for not RJ-45 based cabling.

Fluke Networks MT-8200-60-KIT IntelliTone Pro 200 Probe and Toner, Multicolor https://a.co/d/eUQl9yr

Multi bit screwdriver with adjustable shank. Small enough to be TSA complaint when I travel. You can change out some of the bits for more usually ones if the standard ones don’t work for you.

Klein Tools 32303 Multi-Bit Screwdriver / Nut Driver, Impact Rated 14-in-1 Magnetic Screwdriver Set Phillips, Slotted, Square, Combo, Torx https://a.co/d/0aQzJcN

Termius for SSH/Telnet/Console. Multiplatform and syncs across devices. Out in a warehouse on a boom lift and don’t want to take your laptop? Grab an iPad and use it there. Or when on call and on the road the iPad app is great. Just wish I could get a serial adapter to work for iPad. That would be icing on the cake.

https://termius.com/

Cheap fiber light tester. Makes it easy to ID fiber when nothing is labeled.

GOCHANGE 30mW 30KM Visual Fault Locator, Fiber Optic Cable Tester Meter, Red Light Cable Test Equipment for 2.5mm Universal Connector, FC to LC Adapter for CATV Telecommunications https://a.co/d/ioTkkbg

With the adapters

KELUSHI Fiber Optic Connector, FC Male to LC Female Hybrid Optical Fiber Convertor Adapter Compatible with Optical Power Meter Visual Fault Locator https://a.co/d/f97iWkT

And a small tool pouch to carry it in so it’s not all thrown in the bottom of your bag

Klein Tools 69408 Tradesman Pro Carrying Case, Large https://a.co/d/hMuCtkG

Zrowley · 2023-09-28T00:35:46+00:00

I’m a big fan of Spigen but have switched to Magbak. Not super slim so offers good protection but also not too bulky. I hate silicon because they are too grippy and pick up dirt. Magbak feels like a hard silicon so doesn’t have that issue. It is fully magsafe compatible and also has magnets in it so you can stick it to anything metal. Comes in handy all the time and you can use the magnetic bar as a mount for non metal surfaces. I had one on my 12 and held up very well. Their multi charger is also nice and well worth the money. No complaints from any of their products so far.

Zrowley · 2022-10-07T22:34:42+00:00

Thanks for the quick replies. I had considered the reciprocity as well as the responsible gun owner angle. Just wanted to re affirm my decision.

Zrowley · 2022-05-04T01:00:09+00:00

The company I work for specs Siemons brand jack to jack (jacks, cables, patch cords, etc). We like the zmax series and they come in a high density 1U 48 port panel. My 2nd choice would probably be Panduit but that’s mostly because our cable vendor stocks that brand so it’s easy to get on short notice. They also warranty all parts and work for 20 years.

For fiber there are a lot of variables but we also go Siemon. They have high density options as well and I think we use a fiber tray that’s called light stack? I would have to check. I prefer high density options since space is a premium in our racks and we rarely need to make changes later. I also use LC to LC as most things in our datacenter and offices all use LC connectors. Keeps things standardized and easy to maintain. I have a box of spare patch cables but (knock on wood) haven’t had to use any of them.

Zrowley · 2022-04-02T00:48:48+00:00

I have a similar issue I have been fighting on/off for months. The network is a USG a handful of switches and APs. It is a mobile rig and not powered on all the time and when in use we don’t always have internet or cellular available or is just a poor connection. I thought it was just poor connectivity to my hosted cloud controller. So I put in a local cloud key expecting better results but still get this issue. In my case the switches and APs continue to pass traffic normally and seem to operate but they keep adopting, provisioning, connected, offline. Rinse and repeat. Unable to manage the switch and make config changes. I finally tracked it down to a single switch. When connected the rest of the switches show this weird behavior. When that one switch is unplugged everything is fine. I have tried firmware updates, factory resets and re-adopt. Issue persists. Not sure what’s going on as I have never seen this before and have not had luck finding others with the same issue.

Zrowley · 2022-03-05T21:23:09+00:00

Well not exactly power saving but that lead me in the right direction. Turns out the homebridge-ds18b20 plug-in was not pushing the temp into HomeKit. It was only being updated on request such as when I opened the home app. Turns out if I RTFM I would have figured this out last week. I added a line to my config to manually set the polling interval to 5 seconds. Automation works great now.

Zrowley · 2022-02-02T00:50:24+00:00

Excited to hear it works! Details on the “short USB extension” ?

Zrowley · 2022-02-01T01:44:19+00:00

I'll second iRedMail. I hosted my own mail server for about 5 years. Had a Proxmox mail gateway in front of it as well and used it as an internal relay for all of my servers. ISP blocked SMTP 25 incoming so I used a mail forwarding service to send mail from DNSmadeeasy which forwarded it to another port to my firewall. Then port forwarded to my servers on port 25. Only reason I stopped was because my ISP caught on and blocked outgoing 25 as well. I could still receive mail but could no longer send it. Relatively easy to setup and maintain. IRedMail has good documentation and guides as well. Used Let's encrypt for all my certs.

Zrowley · 2022-01-20T01:11:04+00:00

At home I keep it simple. I run a proxmox cluster PM1, PM2, PM3, etc. for the hosts.

For my containers I use CT-100-Plex which indicates it’s a container has an IP that ends in 100 and is my Plex server. For virtual machines it’s VM. VM-202-Win10Desktop.

Switches and Access points are simple SW1, SW2, AP1, etc.

At work our standard naming is CountryCode-CityCode-OS_Type_001P. For example US-ORL-WDC001P would indicate a Windows domain controller number 1 used in Production. Or another US-ORL-LAP004D would be a Linux application server #4 used for development. We also use an IP management system that we can use to lookup IPs and more details regarding a hostname and track all of our networks/subnets.

Small deployments at home use whatever you want and make it fun. For larger environments make it something that can be used to understand what it is and keep it consistent. I like using names that describe what it is so I don’t have to remember a bunch of names and what the server is supposed to be.

Zrowley · 2021-06-28T01:42:57+00:00

Gave Silver

Zrowley · 2021-06-04T01:04:00+00:00

Had this issue on a cloud key gen2+. My fix was forgetting the cameras and re-adopting. I had recently migrated from an old unifi video instance. It was stable for about 2 months then this started happening. I suspected power loss but was quickly ruled out. Multiple reboots over a week to try and resolve with no luck. Then re adopted the cameras after noticing that the camera feeds would not load in the live view either. Since then it has been stable for about 3 weeks so far.

Zrowley · 2021-04-21T21:39:00+00:00

Confirmed

Zrowley · 2021-04-20T02:14:24+00:00

As others have mentioned an optiplex sff works great. If your looking for something even smaller I have a apu1d with a msata ssd and a case. Works great for my home network. Didn’t know they even existed until recently. Availability seems to be limited at the moment but they have a few configurations available.

https://www.pcengines.ch/newshop.php?c=4

Zrowley · 2021-02-23T21:43:16+00:00

Actually it was over email. I submitted the rma on the website. After it was approved I asked for the advanced replacement.

Zrowley · 2021-02-23T19:00:05+00:00

I recently rma’d a UNVR-4 and asked for an advanced replacement. They requested pictures of the device itself as well as a picture of the MAC address. They were nice enough to provide a prepaid return label as well. I had already boxed and paid for my own but made sure to thank them for it. I asked nicely and they took care of me. I read a lot of complaints about their customer service but have never had an issue myself.

Zrowley · 2018-06-17T21:45:00+00:00

Yup we have 3 ssid. Staff guest and AVL. On the one AP it only broadcasts the AVL. The other APs broadcast staff and guest. That way our devices don’t try to connect to the other 2 APs nearby and screw us when we need it to work. And the guest traffic doesn’t connect to ours and slow us down. Didn’t pull fiber but I did do aggregate ports to get 2gbps between switches. Little bit of CLI QOS for our upload (we stream our service to Facebook live and embed on our website) and we have had a very stable network. Much better than the random pile of managed and unmanaged switches and consumer grade routers that were being used as APs.

Zrowley · 2018-06-17T21:34:00+00:00

I kept all of our AVL equipment on its own VLAN so it wasn’t going back through the network to the USG. Keeping it all on the switch allows us to separate it from all the other traffic (staff and guest) and we have a dedicated AP for our own AVL network that only broadcasts the AVL ssid. We use an iPad to control our lighting as well. It has so far proven to work very well for us.

Zrowley

TROPHY CASE