I’ve talked about this before; the need for Signals Collection and Analysis is EXTREMELY important. No, it may not be a sexy AR-15 or actions-on kinda deal, but it’s value is many times more important.
What you need at a minimum:
- 4 motivated guys, with a bit of radio experience
- Noise cancelling headphones
- 3, at a minimum, devices capable of scanning a large portion of the spectrum
- At least one scanner P25 digital capable
- A standalone scanner antenna
- Your Data Book
- A notebook and pen
Knowing this, and heeding this advice (by putting the radio in your pocket, no need for it to be out in the open exposed to the elements and on display) is getting ready to be very, very important.
Taking advantage of open sources, such as this, and this, you’ll be able to at least get an idea of where to look. The first task is known as a spectrum sweep; search the whole spectrum for any and all traffic; next pin down areas of interest from both our open sources and what we hear; then set a couple of our monitoring devices specifically to the areas of highest activity.
The train is moving folks, faster everyday. Time to get serious.