That cost is steep. For people willing to trade time for money I bet you could get fab and BOM for a fraction of the price from a place like OSHpark and do assembly yourself.

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NoiseBert69 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Depends on your tariffs. In Europe JLCPCB is always an option for PCBs. But as soon you order things with components placed on them you'll go into a different tariff regime and it will be $$$ quickly.

	▲	willis936 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Yeah duties are the silent killer for assemblies. Safest to go with "local" assembly houses that subcontract and make the true cost transparent. While $100 a unit isn't bad, the $500 buy in is a tough pill to swallow for a solo hobbyist. This doesn't look super fun to hand assemble either though.

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8bitsrule 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Looks like a project that Adafruit Electronics would have the capacity and experience to put together a great parts kit for. Else, ouch ... power "around 5dBm"? For those of us used to thinking in watts, that's around 0.003 w. ... of UHF.

Thanks to the availability of kits (mostly Heathkit), I got my start in Ham radio (and computing). Learned a lot - and kit prices helped me to afford that.