alt Hacker NewsIndeed, the dark arts of RF engineered components persist long after other technologies change.
Mostly, expensive tools became more accessible like TinySA, LiteVNA64 and NanoVNA.
For the amateur Ham hobby, it has been a bit of a golden age with <$50 rtl-sdr SDR kits. =3
Also for a student: I was at university 20 years ago and there was no possibility to "hack" RF devices. Right now, with less than 200€ (a NanoVNA and a good SDR), you can do almost everything.