Analog

Well, being that I mostly work with the digital side of things and my professional exposure to analog electronics is minimal, I thought that I could fulfill that part of my experience via delving deeper into amateur radio.

Part of the problem with longer-distance radio communications is the need for lower frequencies (at least below VHF), which requires more expensive equipment and antennas.  Some people build their own antennas, but for the HF noob, perhaps pre-built ones are more accessible.  Buckmaster has an off-center-fed dipole antenna that covers seven bands, which may be where I should start.

One thing about ham radio is being able to find active frequencies.  To that end, I've poked at using Airspy with an RTL-SDR to find conversations to eavesdrop on.  Ultimately I'd like to get a portable, self-contained setup on a Raspberry Pi with a display to run all the time, or at least on a timer.  On that note, RPi projects for ham radio, I found a project site that has some useful information.

Lastly, while looking for SDRs, I found Analog Devices' learning toolkit for SDR, ADALM-PLUTO.  More interestingly, they have a 25 MHz oscilloscope device called the ADALM2000 that plugs into a USB port, for only $200, along with an analog electronics learning package.  That would sure be fun to poke at.