A starting list of the companies amateurs in the United States actually buy from. Nothing here is an endorsement, none of these links pay us anything, and no list like this stays current on its own — check prices, stock and shipping yourself, and tell us what we have missed or what has closed.
Buy in this order if your money is limited: antenna, feedline, then radio. A modest transceiver on a good antenna beats an expensive one on a compromise.
Full-line dealers
The stores that carry most brands, take trade-ins and will talk you through a purchase.
- Ham Radio Outlet — the largest US chain, with stores you can walk into
- DX Engineering — deep stock of antennas, coax, connectors and station hardware, and a technical support line worth calling
- GigaParts — full line, with a large presence at hamfests
- R&L Electronics — long-established full-line dealer
- Main Trading Company — new and used gear, and a large used inventory
- KJI Electronics — full line, Northeast
- Texas Towers — antennas, towers and rotators as well as radios
- Array Solutions — station engineering, switching, filters and measurement gear
- BridgeCom Systems — repeaters, DMR and system integration
Transceiver manufacturers
- Icom America, Yaesu USA and Kenwood — the three that make most of the HF and VHF/UHF radios in service
- Elecraft — US-built HF radios, amplifiers and tuners, several as kits
- FlexRadio — direct-sampling SDR transceivers driven from a PC or a front panel
- Apache Labs — open-hardware ANAN SDR transceivers
- Alinco — mobiles, handhelds and power supplies
- Xiegu and lab599 — small, inexpensive portable HF
- QRP Labs — very low-cost HF kits and the QMX/QDX transceivers
- AnyTone and Wouxun — analog and DMR handhelds and mobiles
Amplifiers, tuners and filters
- Acom and Expert Linears America — HF amplifiers, solid state and tube
- Elecraft KPA series, and Icom and Yaesu house amplifiers
- Palstar — antenna tuners and wattmeters, US-built
- Hardrock-50 — 50 W HF amplifier kits
- Array Solutions and DX Engineering — band-pass filters, common-mode chokes and station switching
- MFJ, and its Ameritron, Hy-Gain, Cushcraft and Vectronics brands, wound down most manufacturing in 2024; product and parts availability varies, so check before ordering
Antennas
- Comet and Diamond — VHF/UHF mobile, base and dual-band verticals, and the mounts to go with them
- Arrow Antenna — portable VHF/UHF Yagis, including the handheld satellite antennas
- PAR Electronics — end-fed wires, filters and receive antennas
- Mosley Electronics and M2 Antenna Systems — HF and VHF/UHF beams, rotators and mast hardware
- SteppIR — motorized adjustable-element beams and verticals
- Hustler, Alpha Antenna, Chameleon Antenna, Buddipole and DX Commander — portable and multiband verticals and wires
- MyAntennas and Alpha Delta — end-fed and trap wire antennas, arresters and switches
- Tarheel Antennas and Scorpion Antennas — motorized HF screwdriver antennas for vehicles
- Larsen and Laird Connectivity — NMO mounts and commercial-grade mobile antennas
- Spiderbeam and Max-Gain Systems — fiberglass poles, wire, and light portable beams
Towers, masts and rotators
- Rohn and US Tower — the two names most amateur towers carry
- Yaesu, M2 and Alfa Spid — rotators from light azimuth to satellite az/el
- DX Engineering and Texas Towers — hardware, guys, thrust bearings and everything you forget to order
Towers are the one part of the hobby that will kill you if you get it wrong. Read towers and masts first, and get experienced help.
Coax, connectors and cable
- Times Microwave, Messi & Paoloni and ABR Industries — low-loss coax, made up or by the foot
- Davis RF and The Wireman — coax, ladder line, antenna wire and insulators
- RF Industries and Amphenol — connectors, if you would rather buy the real thing than the cheapest one
Power, Powerpoles and parts
- Powerwerx — Anderson Powerpole housings, contacts, crimpers, distribution blocks and supplies; the de facto standard for 12 V connections in the hobby
- Quicksilver Radio — Powerpole parts, adapters and small station accessories, much of it aimed at portable operation
- West Mountain Radio — RIGrunner distribution, battery analyzers and sound-card interfaces
- Astron and Samlex America — linear and switching power supplies
- Bioenno Power — LiFePO4 batteries and chargers for portable work
- DigiKey, Mouser and Jameco — components, when you know the part number
- All Electronics — surplus parts, hardware and enclosures
Kits and building
- Elecraft, QRP Labs, Pacific Antenna and 4 State QRP Group — transceiver, antenna and accessory kits at every level of difficulty
- HobbyPCB and TAPR — amplifier, SDR and digital project boards
- Digirig, Masters Communications and Tigertronics — sound-card and CAT interfaces for digital modes
A club evening spent building coax jumpers or a ground plane costs almost nothing and teaches more than any of this — see kits and building and our club meeting ideas.
Receive-only and SDR
- RTL-SDR Blog, SDRplay and Airspy — $30 to $300 wideband receivers
- Great Scott Gadgets and Ettus Research — transmit-capable SDR platforms for experimenters
Badges, QSL cards and station identity
- Ham Crazy! — callsign badges, magnets and club name tags
- KB3IFH QSL Cards, UX5UO Print and Global QSL — QSL card printing in small and large runs
- QRZ.com — where most people will look you up, so keep your page current; see logging and QSLs for what to do with the cards
Used equipment
Most operators buy at least some of their station second hand, and radios hold their value.
- QRZ.com swapmeet and QTH.com classifieds — the two busiest amateur-to-amateur markets
- eHam classifieds — long-running, with reviews of nearly everything on the same site
- Hamfests and swapfests — the best prices in the hobby and the only place you can turn the knobs before you pay
- Estate sales through a local club: when an operator becomes a silent key, clubs are often asked to help sell the station. Ask your club how theirs are handled
Buying used: ask for the serial number and photographs of the actual radio, ask why it is being sold, and be wary of a price well under the going rate. eHam reviews will tell you what a model's known faults are before you send money.