Hubby has been a ham since he was 12 years old and built his first rig. He built a Heathkit rig at one time. Do you remember those? It was fascinating to listen to him when he was on it talking to people all over the world.
My first lowband rig was a HeathKit SB-102. Loaded with fire bottles. I sold it to a ham in Mira Mesa and purchased my Icom 22S mobile rig. My house is full of HeathKit gear. H8 computer, H19 terminal, disk drives for H8, phone patch, CW auto keyer, HF wattmeter, RF dummyload (in a paint can), 6802 trainer and more. I started my interest in electronics at age 6 while in kindergarten. Show and tell included wiring up the bell/buzzer circuits. By 2nd grade I was assembling tube based amplifiers and simple radio circuits. Nikola Tesla was someone I really respected at that point. I never had the money to get into ham radio until I graduated from college in 1976. I earned a First Class Radiotelephone License with Ships RADAR endorsement and my Extra Class amateur radio license. Not exactly what you would expect of the molecular biologist, but you need some variety in life.