Our collection of products that you might find handy – as used by the Essex Ham team.
Due to some changes at Amazon, our old kit page isn’t working, so this is a temporary list:
Note from Pete M0PSX – I have personally tried and own all of these items. I’m happy to bring them along to an Essex Ham field event if you’d like a demo
| RTL SDR Dongle | 
USB dongle that’s very powerful for the price and can use used as an SDR, aircraft tracker, APRS iGate, DAB receiver and Freeview TV tuner. |
Go to Amazon |
| Raspberry Pi 3 | Powerful mini-computer. Now comes with wi-fi and 4 USB ports, so ideal as a movie player, cheap web browser, and much more, as well as an SDR, aircraft tracker and APRS iGate when used with the RTL SDR dongle | Go to Amazon |
| Repeater Timeout Kit | Simple project kit to get audio and visual alerts before you hit the repeater timeout. More | Go to HAMtronics |
| Timeout timer | Very handy for making sure you don’t hit DA’s 2-minute timeout” | Go to Amazon |
| Baofeng UV-5R | Not the world’s greatest radio, but hugely popular, and a great handy for getting started | Go to Amazon |
| Calculator for the “Full” exam | This was one of the best recommendations I was given – Allows you to type in the formula as you see them on paper – much easier to get to grips with, and allowable at GCSE and for RSGB/Ofcom exams | Go to Amazon |
| TYT 380 DMR | Great DMR handheld for use with local DMR plus analogue 70cm repeaters | Go to eBay or Go to Amazon |
| Lightning detector | Worries about your antenna getting a bolt? Get an alert when there’s lightning in your area | Go to eBay |
| HDMI to VGA | Little adapter to get a Raspberry Pi working with a monitor with an old VGA socket | Go to Amazon |
| Weather Station | We use one of these to provide a local forecast and live data via APRS. I use the Watson W-8681-SOLAR | Watson W-8681-SOLAR at Amazon, or see Weather stations at Amazon |
| RavPower Power Bank | A must. I’ve got the 13,000mAh 2-port USB version which will charge two devices (such as phones) and will power a Raspberry Pi on battery. Runs up to 2.4A | Go to Amazon |
| Amazon Alexa | Yes – I’m in love with Alexa. See what she can do for your shack here: Amazon Alexa video | Go to Amazon |
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