Ed-
I'm an avid home-brewer, but family, work, grad school, and volunteering has gotten in the way of me getting a real satellite station on the air.
I have a mostly-built 23cm FM rig (http://www.pe1jpd.nl/index.php/23cm_nbfm), which I bought as a first-pass attempt at getting on 23cm. Just needs to be buttoned up into a chassis and we're ready to roll.
I've also duplicated a few preamp designs (https://www.n0zgo.net/lna), and started building a SatNOGS v2 rotator using laser-cut mounting plates (https://www.n0zgo.net/satellite/satnogs/rotator_build).
Some day, I'll get this stuff done and on the air. :-)
I hope more amateurs build their own equipment. So many diagnostic aids (SDR, o-scopes, spectrum analyzers) are available for cheap compared to 20 years ago!
--- Zach N0ZGO
Zach, all,
You'll also need an antenna. Surprised that's not been mentioned in this drift into homebrewing...
Before I got my 30 element Beam at a swap meet, I was using a homemade 17 turn Helix. It was easy to make, and worked quite well. I would not say that the beam was any better, especially since the helix is circularly polarized. I still have it, and may swap it back into service some day.
Greg KO6TH