HAM radios

To keep it simple, I'm interested in getting an amateur radio license, and would like to know where to start and what the absolute first thing I should do is. At the beginner level, is it recommended to homebrew radios or antennas?

its a fun hobby, do what you want. An easy toy to start with is a baofeng radio, you can hook it up to a variety of antennae, listen and chat very easy. You can also get a SDR like an RTLSDR thats an easy way to scan around and listen, but maybe you want to be more oldschool or whatever. Theres a fair number of hamfest type events where you can often buy old decent equipment from people who just want to get rid of it to a good home, some great deals there if you're on a budget (of course you might have to travel so...)

>>13072 >you can hook it up to a variety of antennae, listen and chat very easy. Pray, is it not against the law, my most esteemed orb?

>>13073 rules around this stuff vary by country but you can listen to anything you want in the US and you can transmit if you're licensed, according to your license, in certain bands and power levels. I dont really recall any rules about antennae types

Seems like LoRa devices would be better because it isn't a felony to encrypt data over them and the government can't raid your home for any reason like they can with ham radio.