Finding out who else is out there after SHTF - SDR

[daedalus]

A while back I was trying to imagine what I would do in the aftermath of a SHTF once I had established a degree of security.

Knowing what is going on and who else is out there would (for me ) be of high importance.

I realised that being able to scan big chunks of frequency across all bands would be desirable, also to be able to do this quietly. This led me to think a panadaptor waterfall would fit nicely (if the power consumption can be managed) and to be able to scan from ELF all the way up to the satellite GHz.

The only solution I found for this was SDR (Software Defined Radio) , the traditional "super heterodyne" receivers would only do sections of the spectrum and the waterfall bandwidth was not great (for this purpose)

What amazed me further was that the radio hardware was only $30 ! I have only just started exploring the area of SDR for disaster prepping but I see a lot of potential , I'm possibly late to the game but hopefully there is enough time left for me to get a working SDR setup.

Would be very interested to hear what Radio Preppers think about SDR, we have a dedicated section now

[gil]

I made a video about this... Something I call "knowing your RF landscape."

Gil.

[Sparks]

I made a video about this... Something I call "knowing your RF landscape."

I guess it must be this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HARDgWHPrE
"Preppers, Know Your Radio Frequency Landscape."

[gil]

Yep!
Gil.

[Tom Line]

For my journey back into 2-way radio I give great credit to the low cost and highly educational nature of software defined radio.
All one needs is a $25 dollar USB SDR receiver for your pc, and a piece of scrap wire. My favorite software is free and learning was totally at my own control.
Dongle used: RTL-SDR
Software: SdrSharp (sdr#)
Other software works too, but sdrsharp has worked best for me.
Even after getting my ham ticket, I still make great use of my SDR setup to visually see what's on the air.