Another good radio is a desktop, Icom R75 at $500 from Ham Radio
Outlet, complete with UTC 106 option, none other needed to make it
comparible to much more expensive radios.

The utes nowadays can be decoded with freeware software which cables
from radio speaker jack into computer soundcard. So, $500, plus an
antenna, can be all that's necessary to go first class

And chanches are you allready know Morse code (multimode/RTTY freeware
will provide the narrow bandwidth for listening to CW, not just for
decoding it). If not, freeware learning programs are available and very
SWL needs to learn copying CW by ear. Was too easy, not difficult like
touch typing for me .