[usconservative]

I envy you ... skills such as yours (being able to build from scratch, program, etc..) are rapidly becoming a lost art in the amateur radio community.

I can do basic restores of older tube equipment but this newer stuff, forget it. Specially the surface mount stuff. Probably just as well, the arthritis in my hands is getting bad enough that I struggle to solder on a PL-259 half the time.

[Bobalu]

Anyone can learn to handle sm in a few days. It’s nice to have a good hot air rework station if you do a lot of it though, and a little refrigerator to store your solder paste in.

Handling BGA (ball grid array) ICs is a pain... takes a special workstation with a microscope to do it well.

I have always hated soldering PL-259 connectors to coax.