What you really need is a service monitor.  A decent one is about $1000.  But they have all the individual test gear items built in and on the whole are cheaper, better, and take up a lot less room.  Search for Communications service monitor... and watch out for the fine print, the options are quite important and make the difference between one that's hardly usable to a real winner.  Of course the price usually goes up and up along with the option list length.

First, you need to decide how you are going to be organized. Most states, the law requires a non-profit corporation as the entity.  Where you go from there is wide open.

We have adopted a new format here.  We have a non-profit corp, with a board, and the only people who get to vote are those who are "vested".  Vesting means contributing $10,000 of time (at $10/hr), donations of materials, office space, equipment, etc.

This does several things.  First, the few among us who have invested, well, we really respect each other, and the whole thing operates a lot differently than when you have every yahoo with or without a license paying $15 and getting the same legal rights to control things as someone who has invested decades and thousands of hours.

Next, we only have one business meeting a year.  We depend upon our board of directors for decisions, guidance, and so on.

You get on the board by being voted there by the members who have already contributed at least $10k.

Regular members pay $1 and get a certificate of membership, and are able to participate in our classes, projects, and activities.

We manage the organization (we don't like the word "Club") by a management team, and use an email list to manage the business, and keep those discussions private.  So, there's not any "business" to the meetings.  The guys that are paying the bills make the rules, and none of this democratic committee stuff that is such a waste of time and energy.

Teams work on projects, by funding the project among themselves, and doing the work.  Leaders emerge as the ones who can really lead.  There aren't any voted titles, so if you can't do it, taking about who is going to do it doesn't get you anywhere.  

We let anyone in as a member who has good character and a license... perhaps in the past that would have been an issue for some of us, but what we require is "good Character" from here forward to be a member.  The board of directors make the character decision.  If you have $10k invested in something, you should be able to say, no 3 time felons, no one who has been going in and out of the psychiatric hospital, no one who has a history of disrupting and dead keying...  we have better things to do than deal with a few individuals problems all the time.

The emphasis is on teaching.  By teaching we make newbie knobologists into builders and can do people.  We offer complete hf stations, an amsat station, an electronics lab, many repeaters, and  when you walk in the door, you know that there is value to being a member of this organization.

People are willing to step up and reach down deep when it comes back around.  The hard part is getting a few individuals together and creating that initial high value that causes everyone else to say, "man, I really want to join that organization".

Gary
NZ5V