Getting back to the radio hobby, it's relatively cheap, but I think it can be as expensive as you make it. If you insist on the latest and greatest, that's where the expense comes in, but depending on what you want to do with your radio, you may not need a newer one. My Icom R6 is the only scanner I own; I bought it a year ago to replace a previous scanner that had bit the dust. For shortwave I'm still using an Icom R75 that I bought roughly 21 years ago. There's no need to upgrade, because it does everything I want it to. I also bought a portable shortwave radio 3 years ago to gain independence from AC power, but I don't take it anywhere these days, so now it only serves as a backup radio.