AG6PO here. I became licenced during my second year at university. It has actually been one of the most important parts of my professional path to this point.
If you haven't yet, buy a basic hand held radio and get transmitting. The Baofengs are actually tolerably good radios and super cheap. Getting on the air is the best way of participating in the community and growing in the hobby/skill.
Then yes, absolutely start homebrewing. I find antennas to be easy and and fun to experiment with. The Rigol's 100 MHz limit won't actually be much of a problem for you. It is plenty enough to analyze all the baseband signals and also the intermediate frequencies used in many radio designs.
If you haven't yet, buy a basic hand held radio and get transmitting. The Baofengs are actually tolerably good radios and super cheap. Getting on the air is the best way of participating in the community and growing in the hobby/skill.
Then yes, absolutely start homebrewing. I find antennas to be easy and and fun to experiment with. The Rigol's 100 MHz limit won't actually be much of a problem for you. It is plenty enough to analyze all the baseband signals and also the intermediate frequencies used in many radio designs.