If God were to ban acronyms and abbreviations today, by tomorrow the US Armed forces would cease to operate. ps: in communications listening and transmitting mirrors each other in importance.
Many organizations are moving in the wrong direction in terms of the technology they implement: wireless headphones, networked radios, force trackers, automatic location reporters, "digital battlefield". Meanwhile the adversary is going to be dropping grenades with DJI Phantoms and finding your location with $15 SDR dongles.
This might be useful for the software inclined: Write a program that runs on your laptop and monitors your frequency of interest as shown by your SDR, and simply record date, time of day, and length of transmissions. Do this for several weeks and you have a model of what "normal" looks like. Then use the model for comparison, and if current time window of transmissions for this time of day exceeds the norm by some measure, alert the user that something is going on.
At year 8 of the NATO war of aggression, the Russian Federation could detect puppet troops massing by triangulating cellphone signals. Large number of cell signals close to the front meant AFU troops massing.
This method is roughly how the Stingray catcher works - you drive around and direction find your local towers and grab their IDs, then you look for one that "suddenly pop up".
@@Fede_uyz you are not even aware that the deep state through Biden funded a military coup in Ukraine in 2014 using local nazi (not neo, nazi) groups to carry out the regime change So who the f are you to even be commenting on this subject let alone having your own opinion? Sit down kid.
Used to listen to LE, Fire and EMS frequencies in my area. Then the Sheriff's Dept went totally encrypted, and local LE did likewise. Now, there's nothing to listen except Fire and EMS, and they are now all digital. I think the public has a right to hear non sensitive transmissions.
I got into radios in the 70s. Everything was opened then. We developed are own code/nomenclature so that we could talk on radios and nobody would know what we were talking about. We employed low tech ways to direction find. As time moved on , scanners became more common. I would spend hours listening. Tracking police, fire, EMS. Listening to aircraft over head. Cell calls. Public works etc etc. I gained a lot of information. Some have some pretty crazy back stories. Life took a different turn and I didn't have time for it anymore. But now I'm back at it. Bought a few new radios, along with vhf/ufh twoway for mobile ops. Considering a remote pirate repeater. Remember, the number one low tech listening device is your ears. People love to talk and they give you all types of free Intel. But that's called humint.
What do you mean SA? Signal analysis, security assistance, San Antonio, or is it Société anonyme (S.A.) is a French term for a public limited company (PLC)? ... I give up
A few weeks ago I heard an unusually large helicopter fly over my house so I went to ADSB exchange because they will show you birds with no callsigns. Well for 3 nights in a row they flew over my house under 500 feet to just south of the South Carolina boarder where I know there are large tracts of land that are empty. Well on the 2nd night at the same time I saw the no call sign bird flying towards my house so I went outside and it was a Chinook with an winch fitted. Fucker had to be flying around 300ft agl. The only reason ADSB exchange caught him is because there are a few people in our county who upload their SDRs.
Northeast Georgia? If I had to guess, they are supporting the Ranger School training at Camp Merrill near Helen. I think they range pretty far and wide in their exercises. Fairly routine, makes for great practice!
@@PatrickKQ4HBD No it was norther south carolina. They popped on radar right above the concord/charlotte area, then fell off around a place called taxahaw where there are huge areas of no people. However they could have also been going somewhere else and just flew to low for any ground station to pick it up. We do have them come around during Robbin Sage training but this was in a totally different place. Which is why it was weird, I always watch the sky and in the past 10 years the only time military helicopters flew over my house is when a hurricane is hitting and they are moving all the birds, but never seen them below 500 ft agl.
I watched a search plane circle over my house on a flight app one night. A LEO had been shot and the bad guys got away, the command HQ was less than 100 feet from my home, but they had not searched around my house, where there are places to hide from thermal imaging. Sometimes relying too much on tech can be a problem.
Would have been running a mtm suite, stingray / dirtbox... Which is basically a warrantless dragnet search of an area, vot to mention the permanent mil sig int baloons up over Tex, California, Florida, etc.. & this dosebt includes any hale style solar dromes that are powered & can stay up for literally weeks..
Like the old saying goes the best place to hide a leaf is in the forest. Sometimes standing out in plain sight is more concealing than trying to hide. For instance in an area that has a lot of homeless it might be more concealing to just blend in. Of course you'd have to really be careful not to get sick or stumble upon a dirty needle. 😬 Also you can dim screens or use veils to cover up screens.
Having traveled a lot, and been in some less than stellar areas, I can say that I've seen homeless people with full on gaming laptops hooked up to the outlet in a McDonald's or something. Extension cords and everything running from local outlets on the street, they don't care. So blending in with just a phone or something shouldn't be too difficult I imagine
Back in my day, an Intercept Platoon in a division (like 337ASA Co, 1st In Div which later merged with 1st MI Co to form 101st MI Bn (CEWI)) had a larger antenna footprint than a Brigade HQ.
A good SDR can be run by a tiny Raspberry Pi3 or Pi4 with a small battery and a 20W folding solar panel. Man portable, small footprint, and an incredible SIGINT resource for perhaps $150. Some SDRs are not just recievers, but are transcievers. I have ponderd the possibility of engineering one that would give the complete functionality of SINCGARS (including crypto) but would be only slightly larger than a paperback book. This is doable, but is a nontrivial task. Another interesting and very useful device for intelligence gathering is a good frequency counter, especially when paired with a handheld Yagi antenna. The frequency counter is a special "dumb" reciever than only locks onto and literally "counts" or displays the transmitting frequency of anything transmitting nearby. These are superb at locating wireless listening devices (bugs) and the more expensive units with a hand held yagi can pinpoint the location of clandestine broadband networking routers. Going up in cost and logistics support would be something like a HP or Tektronix Spectrum Analyzer which with a good antenna can locate a clandestine drone operating even miles away from your OP/LP. Going further down that rabbit hole of money and resource expenditures you could add a full Microwave Generalized Signal Generator, a Microwave Power Amplifier (to boost the signal output to tens of watts) which when coupled with a spectrum analyzer gives you the ability to identify and jam or interfere with those signals. With such a suite of ($200K to $500K) you can have the basics of a legitimate electronic warfare setup. Playing electronic tag is not cheap by any means!
FreeDV code can be hacked, with a GPS timing souce and rolling code, good voice at 1200 b/sec feed into HF SSB or FM radio sorta secure only need laptops to provide FreeDV modem
If you use an RPI, you'll need moar than one. Even the Pi4 doesn't have enough horsepower to run the transceiver and waterfall at the same time. You have to set them up in a client/server relationship, where one unit transceives and the other provides the user interface. Also, a 20W panel is not enough to keep an RPI charged and running 24/7.
One of the most useful things I can think of that can help you make the most of your limited time is RECORDING. When combined with a scanning plan or a scheduler such as you’ll find featured in SDRPlay, these tools can help you distill hours of monitoring down to a fraction of that time in recorded material that you’ll have to listen to, and although it is less timely than listening live, it can still help you get a sense of longer-term activities going on around the listening post. Even better, with multichannel recording, you won’t miss a thing, because it will record simultaneous channels that you would miss if you had to monitor your targets in real time. Recording also allows you to log and review the communications as many times as you like, and heck, you might even be able to employ PC software to do a voice to text for you at some point, negating the need to have to listen to the recordings. The other nice thing about this automation is that you can set up any number of target or task-specific listening posts requiring different locations, antennas, etc. Set them up with a low-cost low power Raspberry Pi, well concealed, self-powered, and let them run unattended. I wish I had some programming skills because there is so much cool stuff that can be done, and unfortunately, many of the tools out there now fall short in one way or another, or are unreliable, cumbersome or simply lack the particular features one might need. Sure, this is next-level stuff I’m thinking about and probably only available to intelligence agencies, etc. But one can imagine the possibilities nonetheless. Imagine automating sensors, drones, cameras, radios, alert systems, etc etc. Cool stuff indeed. Edit: just after I wrote this I continued watching the rest of this video and you basically just said everything I just described in a couple of sentences. Great minds think alike. :)
The tech prepped on CZcams had a really great series on SDR’s. One thing he was doing is setting up remote monitoring on a chosen band/frequency. Then when he got back to his system they all played back while removing empty space because the recording was set up to be voice activated. The software maker he was using is planning on integrating that capability in a future build.
I use the sds100 by uniden the record feature is amazing, I could never have another radio without that. It records all day and I listen to all the chatter every night before bed. A rec feature is a 100% must nowadays.
An analog radio CAN STILL BE USEFUL. With a yagi antena, which can be built out of tape measure, tape and any cable in like an hour with no soldering at all you can take bearing of an intercepted comm. If they keep transmitting andthey are relatively static, and you can move 2-3 k you can get a new bearing. With that you plot in a map both LPs and bearing, and intersecting will be a rough area of where the transmission comes from. This can spot bivouacs, patrol bases, even covert bases with poor ish counter SIGINT protocols. With an analog radio, encrypted or otherwise undecipherable comms will turn in a spike of noise able to cut through your squelch. No need to listen in. Just by knowing someone transmitted you can locate them
@@brownj2 by using a yagi antena the side lobes will be small enough that any meaningful movement on the terrain will exclude having the enemy caught in the side lobes. plus distance unless the signal is hyper cristaline as to assume it's near enough, you can still figure out a rough location
Many amateur radio operators (hams) enjoy fox hunts. Small radio transmitters are hidden and transmit for 20-60 seconds then go quiet for several minutes. Get a bearing then change your location to get another bearing. The fox is found within 1-2 hours. Sometimes within 30 minutes. During special events youngster 9-12 years are taught the basic principles and turned loose. So if you don’t want to be found, transmit your message as quickly as possible then move, move, move.
oh man I wish more and more my grandfather had talked about what he did in ww2. from letters we found hidden in the house, he did radio stuff, smuggeling them from place to place, listening and communicating with London.
Same here. My grandfather apparently built a home made radio and hid it in another music listening device so most people couldn't decern what it was. He would listen to the different information and relay it back to people so that they could know what was happening in the world around them, in a time when it was illegal to so. I only found out after my other grandfather died that he had signed a 50 year nondisclosure agreement with the gov't. He was involved in communications on the north American side and appearently he was privy to things that to this day remain a secret, at least to me. 😉😂
The 1962 Steve McQueen war movie “Hell is for Heroes” has a lot of SIGNIT and LP/OP major scenes where they make the Germans believe their squad is a battalion or larger size. They even make a hero sound like multiple different war machines such as tanks so the German LP’s report back the enemy has large support. It’s a great representation of some of the stuff you’re talking about and also a great movie. Stay safe!
I'll have to watch it to find out if they were doing ICD (Imitative Communications Deception) or MCD (Manipulative Communications Deception - sending a lot of communications traffic which appears to be a larger entity to foreign intercept operations). My favorite scene (since I was a 98B (Cryptanalyst - Code Breaker then later a 98G4HRUC8 - Russian voice intercept operator) was in Midway when the Captain (in his smoking jacket) tell Adm Kimmell that they had broken the Japanese code and were reading 12% of their traffic. Adm Kimmell replies you're only reading 1 word out of every 8 - Hell man, that is guesswork. The Captain replies - we prefer to call it analysis Admiral.
@@ColdWarPrepper they found a listening device in a bunker the Germans left behind after they retreated back across the zigfried line. They had a private who was lost going to the rear (Bob Newhart) sit in there and pretend he was talking on the field telephone like it was battalion HQ. They took his Jeep and put the chains on and made it backfire like a Sherman. It’s a great movie
@@ColdWarPrepper I was just a combat engineer so I barely speak English! I always took care of the intel guys at base camp or FOBs because you guys always had either internet or a sat phone! The new Midway movie exceeded my expectations compared to the 1976 one. Makes me want to watch it again tonight
You have no idea what they can do with your phone NOW. My niece was missing for two weeks so we went to file the report. They were able to locate her phone, he said it was turned off. A few mouse clicks and we could hear EVERYTHING in the room her phone was in. A few more clicks and we could see from her iphone, it was just the ceiling, he then turned her phone on remotely and sent her a message saying her family was looking for her and missed her very much. He then says there was another device nearby, he ID'd the owner and sent him a text saying she was only 14 and the police were now involved. Within 15 mins he kicked her out of his car in front of her house then peeled out! I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't seen it. It was awesome and scary at the same time.
For utilizing the ADS/B, traffic pattern recognition of normal civilian traffic might help; if the pattern changes for some reason, it MIGHT (and this a big might) be because the Government has requested the change so drones or other spy traffic can fly. There might be other indicators.
@@lowercasehandle As I understand it, it is listening to a certain frequency with one antenna, then listening to the reflection of that frequency off of objects? I'm not an expert, nor have I gotten it to work. There are videos on it though.
Awesome video. Makes me want to spent a couple hours after work today setting up my SDR on a spare laptop or bring it to work and set it up better during down time.
I think the most valuable listening post for an individual would be to monitor what's happening around their house. For instance, using an SDR to monitor the number of mobile devices (radios, cell phones, etc.) proximate to their home, and potentially even using two or three for some rudimentary direction and range finding. Ideally it would attempt to fingerprint the collected signals and record those fingerprints into a database. Is an unfamiliar device scoping the neighborhood? Maybe you should save your surveillance video from that night in case they were exploring without a cover or disguise to help identify them in the future. Or perhaps if they return you can set an alarm and maybe catch them in the act. Are there multiple unfamiliar devices staged near your house? This could be the Stasi getting ready to kick your door down, or it could be a multiple-assailant burglary. I keep poking around at the idea but then life comes up and I work on other projects.
@@badxradxandy with software and software defined radio. Maybe a hackable wifi access point too. A lot of pieces of this solution are floating around on the net in the form of research papers and code snippets that could be integrated to form such a system. Part of the headache is the diversity of the research. E.g., one prototype snippet that runs on Windows written in C# leveraging an electrical engineer's knowledge of RF to read one particular network protocol is non-trivial to generalize and combine with another piece written in C on Linux. Another issue is the more infamous data leaking techniques get patches to the mobile operating system and networking chipsets that mitigate their usefulness.
On the southern border, we regularly (almost daily) use adsb exchange to monitor where BP and state police helicopters are chasing groups of IAs that are on foot. LE won’t take the time to give residents a heads up that they’re chasing a group of 20 people your direction, or through your backyard. But if you hear a helicopter, and it’s not too low, you can see where the people are.
Some Androids apps new folks might find useful: Ham Solar: find out if the sun is grumpy today. Gives you the listening conditions for shortwave and ham bands. Ham Bands: color chart showing where hams hang out and what modes are used in a particular. But you can listen in just about anywhere. Don't considers band plans as limiting for RX. Skywave Schedules: Frequency Database for SWL and "utility" stations, and logbook. (I liked this one enough to buy the upgrade.) NCDXF Beacon: worldwide beacon system that lets you chack band conditions. Useful, educational (compare against Ham Solar), and wildly entertaining if your a comms geek. DroidNavTex: Decode maritime weather. Costs money. HF WeatherFax: Weather maps Amateur Radio Toolkit: a bit of everything Antenna Theory: Buckle up, Dorothy. Day&Night Map: Just what says. Dipole Antenna Calculator: ditto Helical Antennas: likewise. Signal ID: purportedly identifies digital signals. I'm still working on it.
Having discipline it's one thing. But it's much easier to do when you're single and you don't have a family. When you need to help cook and clean also spending time with family is sometimes something that's not negotiable
As a young single guy, that's understandable. That's why you find likeminded individuals (in this context, single people) in your relative area that can fill in those gaps and roles, as a team would
To add to Fighting Lion's reply, Finding a likeminded spouse, and raising likeminded children would be a HUGE benefit, and probably be a rather fun family and friends activity.
An interesting video full of good information, but I feel in your focus on the direct operational application of SDR you undersold some of the additional benefits of an SDR which in all kinds SHTF situations can be really beneficial. That's is that it can pick up such a wide range of traffic, not just the usual hand held coms or overhead aircraft. It's ability to also pick up traffic from overhead satellites so you can get independent weather imagery is great. Knowing if that storm system is moving on or coming your way can be highly useful. Picking up long range radio channels so you can hear independent news from other countries much like resistance fighters did listening to BBC world service during nazi occupation. Listening to HAM radio bands for information on the larger picture etc. All of that can be done without emissions too, just receiving. Keeping your immediate area under surveillance for situational awareness is important, but looking longer term for a way out of your situation you need to also know the bigger picture and SDR gives you a range of options there
OMG! The # 1 thing that im told by the family is how can you just sit there for hours listening to all that static...But with a few adjustment to the volume and stepping the levels that they are set makes it easy for me. i can usually catch traffic just by the way the static sounds. My wife has been more than once amazed that what starts out as just static turns into traffic . Anyway ive always enjoyed listening and yes i do talk too but i tend to listen more than talk. I think that some people cant stand the sounds that come over the radios and quickly move on but i guess im lucky i have sharp ears. So if i could get paid to sit and listen all day that would be a dream job LOL. serious Dream Job.. well moving along love the video as always well presented. Thanks so much.
Add a directional antenna to the pack, need to know where the comms are coming from. Even if encrypted, can still monitor the simplex or input frequencies to get a direction and signal strength.
Also keep a spair USB drive and OTG cable. The USB will have Phone and PC back up software incase you need to ditch the interface device (phone/PC) and replace it later.
This is all so fascinating to me. Just starting to get into radio and don't even have a license yet but like you said. baby steps. I like messing with online SDRs and listening to the number stations lol. its just fun. Pretty sure I live near a DOD listening post. We have one of the massive VLBA antennas here and right above that on a plateau is a massive 80+ antenna array. DOD says it is for "mission critical DOD and important mission air traffic control". think it's called the Brewster Teleport.
22:58 "I understand radios arent exciting" buuuuullllshit. Radios are fucking awesome. I've willingly sat and listened to 3 hours of blank radio noise or data transmissions on websdr just because it was there. Im starting to get into HAM myself love that you're covering radios and signals intelligence and can't wait to see what else you put out.
Agree. Somewhere between smoke signals and an analog cell phone. Maybe a point A to point B, crypto-secured, connected over POTS, with some old computers outfitted with 56K modems. Or just using dial-up BBS's in a clever way. It wouldn't be surprising if the tech to surveil "landlines" has either been discarded, is obsolete regarding interfacing, or the people with the knowledge/skill to do it are retired.
@@theinvisibleman6147 Agree that it is possible and, given enough time and effort, they will figure out a solution in some way. Based on personal experience in government, they would never coax people out of retirement to solve a problem like that. It would make good drama in a movie, though. On a digressive tangential note, if you're interested in my assessment of U.S. government employees: there are a tiny TINY fraction-of-a-fraction who are _extraordinarily_ competent, a significant amount who are basically future organ donors, and a vast majority of pure mediocrity. If I had a dime for every time I thought/said, "If the public only knew..." Hah hah. Best Regards
@@RodCornholio this is where politics comes in and why I don't deal much with either group. the intellectuals either down play or refuse to acknowledge the political and ideological aspect of a given goal or instruction and the foreman and/or white collar types couldn't be arsed with the technical aspects. so i just do my own thing. not only is something like that possible, much more difficult was achieved. look at operation paperclip for example and a similar project the soviets had around the same time. both these groups, after gutting germany in the 1940s, took all their brainpower and used it to end up in space. the goveenment didn't care that the technicians, scientists and engineers they brought over spoke a different language, grew up in a different culture and knew they'd be pressured to work for the people who just finished the dismemberment of their home country, they knew they would pressure or convince them to work for their new host country. if that can happen, and that is what indeed happened, bringing people out of retirement can and will be done once there is political and ideological will behind it.
You should do an updated "First Steps" video 📹 with suggested gear ⚙️. Basically, for people like me who are new to all of this but want to have fun 👍 building a good kit.
you guys have all the goodies, i am very much envious. also I'd love to see a video on Drone/UAV usage for the individual/small team, specifically related to Surveillance and recon
Damn right listen way more!! I would NOT immediately PTT & Tx on radios of any kind to get “help”, there won't be any. Just folks looking to take what you have. Rely only on those you already know in your circle, etc. Instead I'd use a scanner to listen to what the outside world is doing and what's happening - all in 1 handy radio to monitor it all. I have all bands/channels & active frequencies in my area programmed now. I also use the 'signal stalker' feature on another scanner to pick up 'danger close' radios & personnel, ie, those that may encroach my farm fence lines. I don’t use Ham radio etc, to talk to pple 200 miles away; it’s pointless, they can’t help…can you help them? Nope! Do I have CB, FRS, GMRS, MURS, 2M, 70cm, marine VHF transceivers, etc? Sure! I’ll Tx on them IF I really, really, REALLY need to com outside the family, but only as a last resort. To talk to family all over the ranch when SHTF, we're considering a part of the HF band no one uses, so no one is listening either. We're looking at HF radios built for .5W to 2W ERP with off-channel freq's. All the usual CB, FRS, GMRS or MURS, etc, is like waving a white flag at your front door! Imho.... comments??
SDR's are my achilles heal. I don't make much money a month, only my 20% VA disability, so when I say in my world, I've spent a small fortune on different sdr's and antennas trying to get them to work. I've tried different sdr's, different antenna's, different software packages, and just can't get them to work. The only frequency that I could get it to come in is (I believe it was 128.000mhz) I couldn't get the sdr to scroll up or down the frequencies. Which is a bummer because I find it very fascinating.
Excellent topic. During the riots the participants used PTT Apps to communicate. They had another individual who set himself out of jurisdiction and established a LP . This individual monitored the non crypto interop talkgroups that were being used and relayed info to the on site participants over the PTT app. This LP individual in his "down time" compromised himself by generating malicious interference to businesses in the area he established his LP at. Movement to a crypto talkgroup ended the riot within less than 24 hours. Thanks for sharing !
very interesting topic..... we have a couple of folks who listen to scanners a large part of time... listening to police and fire operations leads to a bunch of information like the puma that was sited by LE this last weekend IN TOWN again... a couple of years ago one was caught and relocated and over the last 5 years several have been sighted. 4 years ago we heard [and went out to see] a black bear across the street from us IN TOWN.... a lot of things never make it into the news media.... keep up the good work!!!
In the simplest form, I guess you could call us a listening post, but, we prefer the term intercept site because SIGINT (both ELINT & COMINT) is quite different and requires totally different skills than the combat arms listening post. For example you mention getting an LOB and reporting it and the freq, if you have abilities in the target language, a callsign is extremely beneficial. You are right about intercept sites being a target / artillery magnet - the AN/FLR-9 at Field Station Augsburg (Germany) was lovingly referred to as a SCUD target. Yes, we never shared technical data with the operational commander, although we did report the intelligence derived from intercept.
This channel is SO UNDERRATED! You're literally giving out life saving information. Are there other channels out there like this? I'm a mechanic but I can see the writing on the wall.
Amateur radio leads you to this naturally, if you have a curious mind. Pretty soon you're tracking planes, hams, seeing all the signals flying around, and tracking them. Also helps you to navigate Part15 where that still makes sense. I often hear aircraft from inside my home and want to know why. Sometimes I see planes or hear planes on cameras and have found there is no telemetry (at least not at 1090mhz). In my opinion, we have to track ALL THE THINGS because someday soon there will be zillions of hostile unmanned craft orchestrating our death. Read the book _Kill Decision_ by Daniel Suarez if you haven't. It'll get you thinking. Great video, btw, learned a few terms.
I find all this fascinating. I found this channel in wake of the Pandemic as I was looking to learn more about the supply line so I could plan for what might be needed. Since then I've seen and watched a lot of this - but I have 0 experience in the military and was a "normie" pre-pandemic. Is there a good starter place for a normie who wants to start taking this more seriously?
It’s hard to say, not knowing more about you. Find a CZcams channel or internet site that focuses on teaching, not fear. While fear is a great motivator, it has its obvious downsides. Realize that fear is the main tool of the enemy. Stay away from extremes. Do not post anything on socialist media (sic) that you don’t want coming back on you in the future. Stick to quality where it matters. Have at least one concealable pistol, one rifle, and maybe a shotgun. Dried beans and rice are cheap for now, and are relatively light and store almost indefinitely. Plan on sharing. Get to know your neighbors and plan to work with the ones that are like minded. Avoid wearing camo and appearing “tactical”. Be a gray man. Undercover agents have beards and drive pickup trucks, just like most red necks. Life is hard, but it’s harder if you are stupid. So don’t do things that you know are wrong. Be a regular person with interesting and varied hobbies.
Yes, start with gardening, even if it's just a single bucket. S2 often says, it's the boring stuff that results in a win or loss, and he's absolutely right. 1. Food. A-Learn how to grow it, produce it, and store it long term with minimal resources like electricity. B-Learn how to find and make trustworthy water. 2. Clothing. A-Learn how to be comfortable in bad weather of every kind. Bad weather is a good friend. B-Learn how to pick really good footwear. 3. Shelter. A-Permanent, make your residence a little more secure against weather and bad humans. B-Portable. A small travel trailer, a tent, a large tarp shelter... C-Emergency. Backpacking gear, a poncho tarp, a mylar bivy, a lean-to... 4. Transportation. A-high efficiency like a cheaper EV. B-high capability in bad conditions like a Jeep. A good e-bike ticks both of those boxes for me. 5. Intelligence and Communication. A-Shortwave Listening channels on YT are going to be better teachers than HAM radio channels. B-Itemize news sources by ownership and point of view. We all know that there are no neutral news sources anymore. Even propaganda is information if you can see through it. C-Get out and network with people. Build allies. This will keep you busy for a lifetime. Take it in small bites. Hope this helps. Blessings!
If you are interested in some basic military training you might want to look into One Shepard Leadership Institute. They offer military training to all who want it, but it does have a cost for the multi day courses. You have to supply some of your own gear, but you get a chance to participate in a simulated engagement with MILES gear. MILES gear is basically laser tag with blank firing rifles used by the military for clarification. I haven't done it myself, but assuming everything doesn't collapse around us in the next year or two I'm going to do it. Too much on my plate right now with getting the basics covered from Patrick's quality post above, lol.
For local comms, you don't want to use "standard" frequencies or radio services like ham radio, GMRS, FRs, etc. Ham and GMRS required a license and callsign. FRS / GMRS are frequencies that are easily monitored. MURS is less used but still common. A good solution would be the 900 MHz ISM band. Motorola makes a series of radios that use ISM with FHSS which makes it almost impossible to monitor. And since it uses FHSS, it is also hard to direction find your location. If the Motorola units are too expensive, the Retevis RT10 is a DMR 900 MHz ISM radio. It doesn't use FHSS but it does have encryption.
I'll have to dig up my old scanner that I bought decades ago when I used to have a radio at work and change the channel to listen to the emergency traffic instead. I found it so interesting that I bought my own scanner back when it wasn't that expensive.
The biggest issue now, especially for police monitoring, is that they are encrypting their radio systems and they are using 256 bit encryption to do it.
First step is make a baseline of known emmissions, compare against the unknown results in a smaller amount to resolve.. Baselines take time and expertise and are sometimes shared between agencies/teams. There is an internet project somewhere which encourages SDR users to collaborate worldwide with spectrum grabs over a period of time.
Adding chokes to power cords of utilities, tv’s and computers can drastically quiet the rf noise levels in your home. You can use your SDR by shutting down all curcuit breakers in your home and checking your noise floor for offending devices. It takes a bit of work up front, but it can drastically lower the noise floor in your home, making couch sigint gathering possible.
I use bone transmitted headphones, like aeropex. You sacrifice maybe 20% of your ambient sounds and zero of your situational awareness. I heard the guy at the register quietly inform me I was walking off a dollar short, while listening to this brief.
This guy I know had a polished satellite dish in his back yard. It was maybe 4 to 5 feet in diameter and he to keep it covered at all times. If angled appropriately with the sun it could light 2x4s on fire by waving them in front of it. You could also use it to listen to neighbors conversations across the street AND talk back! It would sound like a disembodied voice was whispering in your ear.
I wish you'd covered old tech... specifically parabolic microphones, which I think would be useful for when I hear sounds but can't hear them well enough to determine if they are a threat. Are there any out there that aren't just toys, but still won't break the bank?
I remember using a snow disc as a half assed parabolic mic, but with my ear as the microphone, as a teen, but the concept still holds. If you are looking for something portable (note: not concealable) a plexyglass one can be made by softening a pannel over one of those giant mormon-family-reunion-sized salad bowls to a sufficient depth, then use some sticks of whatever material to aim a microphone back toward the center. Aiming can be done by looking through the plexyglass at whatever you are trying to listen to. Not great, but usefull over short ranges. Now, I suppose you can get a "nature show" grade directional mic (shotgun mic) for a larger outlay, but that is also going to be rather obvious, and in the dark, or by someone who tant tell the difference, could be mistaken for an actual gun.
For the tidbit on 'Hearing your surroundings', ENC, or electronic noise canceling, also works in reverse. You see this with most operator radio comms headsets. It will dampen sounds of certain Dbs, and increase volume of lower Dbs while maintaining that level of normal hearing.
23:27 “we’re not going to be embracing the suck because some NCO told us to” Yeah, that’s why I embrace the suck on my own accord, ie running, listening to radio chatter while I cook and clean, learn when I can… I mean FFS, I’m listening to this at 0119 because sleep insomnia, might as well make it (the suck) useful.
I'm a big fan of CubicSDR software. Overall even if your not a TX station, radio operation is a perishable skill that if you don't practice you will become rusty. Just like shooting a fire arm you need to train it. Many people overlook this aspect of radios and there operation. I use vhf/UHF hts for my area FDs and EMS and a SDR for my area PD. Best bet don't leave them on where you sleep unless you want some gnarly dreams in my experience.
I think it needs to be an iterative process of resolving goals and examining the resources (mostly people) that you have to work with. It does no good to come up with a plan that requires the team members to be special ops when in fact all you have to work with are retirees. The main question must be: "What useful things can we accomplish with the people we have to work with?" Prioritize the list, then plan, then train.
If you have retirees to work with, at least they will have a lot of time on their hands, so there's that. Retirees can also look unobtrusive running a DF setup out of their golf cart, and disguise an antenna in a golf bag.
There is something that you have not covered in this video. During war time the governments were able to track down radio receivers by listening for the IF frequencies in radios. The quality of shielding of the local oscillators in receivers is extremely critical. They tend to radiate RF and can even leak it to the antenna. The cheaper the radio usually the worse they are for radiating LO RF.
Being an old 2/2 myself its not too hard to guess at your past MOS. I was never a Comm guy, but we worked closely with them. Don't get me wrong, we wouldn't drink with those POG's , but we'd occasionally pick them up a 6 pack or two . It was easier to handle squirters when Achmed used Nokia phones....
If you could get grandpa or grandma to listen in on this while doing their thing how beneficial that would be. I know someone already doing this and it works. Grandpa makes a note of time and unusual transmission.
@S2 Underground Isn't it wild that you can search in CZcams, `Listening Posts: An Intro to SIGI` leaving out the `NT` and your video does not show up in the search? Much Wow!
Caution on that HackOne RF device. The US State department and other agencies may be tracking those shipment. You could have feds knocking on your door 5 minutes after UPS does.
I'm really enjoying your channel. I'm former military (Army - Gulf War) and like your intelligence gathering and field practical approach to comms. I'm taking my Technician's test on Friday. Wondering what area of the country you call home. I'd really like to connect with people like you.
This is awesome......... good refresher and knowledge. Alot people in tactical community think weapons, armor, tactical kit but overlook surveillance and information/intel gathering a lot dynamics and complex methods to make an operation go.
working in afghanistan with SF ODAs ant SOT-As, I was so fond of the 18 E's and the 18F. Watching how we gathered intel and used that intel to plan our missions and using that intel to dictate the tactics we would implement for that mission - I realized intelligence gathering was probably more important than anything we were doing. I tell everyone who comes to me wanting to know more than just shooting and cool CQB tricks and I tell them - learn how to gather intel before you learn anything else. What are you to do without intelligence on your adversary?
Note on the scanner part: we had a benchtop EMS scanner unit. Cost about 50 bucks, but if you opened it, the whole thing was a bit bigger than a playing card, inside a box the size of a game console, and it ran on a 9V wall adapter. Easy enough to shrink the case, and run it through earbuds.
some SIGINT gear i find useful are the "DopeScope from warcollar industries which is really just a handheld, standalone directional wifi scanner. it's handy for both active and passively scanning wifi signals to find a phone or base station. the other two from HAK5 are the WiFi pineapple which can also serve as a wifi for when you don't want to be right next to your sensors or you can use it with a cell phone or laptop to listen to wifi transmissions. the other from that vendor is the SIGOwl which when used with a computer or cellphone lets you hook up and manage multiple SDR's and automate them slightly. after all if you can get close enough to a threat to collect PCAPs from them, you have a wealth of intel. especially when so many common apps transmit valuable data in cleartext.
As an old photojournalist and intel fan, I've been thinking of methods which may support stringers during a regional news event. Examples: Ferguson, MO riots (2014); Two radicalized shooters in San Bernardino, CA (2015) ; Officers killed in Palm Springs (2016); Riots in El Cajon (2016). These were hours long, sometimes days, and multiple scenes to cover. What I imagined doing was equipping/kitting a few vehicles to support stringers. Things like a GMRS Group radio system near a scene or a discrete mobile media camp/command post providing battery charging, water, drinks a bunk, bicycles, etc. I'm retired, so the imagination needs something to do.
Nice. This helps some on understanding more of the WW2 K0 SOS RQ part of Kryptos. X the nod to station X. But in substitution part. O,L comes out also along with. ( SOS O,U .Slowly underground see. Slowly see underground between rule) RQ ( Radio illusion, to removed illusion. Between rule and K3. Basically, cross-check rules. O,L lines up, but not sure. It seems to fit the theme/style. Thank you for sharing.
North of a town I used to live in 50 years ago there was a listening post out in a farmers field on the top of a ridge. It was a small empty concrete room with wires cut off coming out of the concrete walls. Unsure of the age but could have been a WW2/Korean conflict or Cold War post.
The phone your're on is a listening and observation post
Alexa
Easy to prove too.
Indeed
Listening and observation post for us or against us?
Like Moses wielding a staff?
This may be the most underrated and highly important topic to date. Monitoring (listening) is far more important that transmitting.
If God were to ban acronyms and abbreviations today, by tomorrow the US Armed forces would cease to operate.
ps: in communications listening and transmitting mirrors each other in importance.
You have two ears and two eyes. Only one mouth. Hmmm. Is there a reason your eyes and ears work first as a baby? Look and listen.
"The quieter you become, the more you are able to hear."
Many organizations are moving in the wrong direction in terms of the technology they implement: wireless headphones, networked radios, force trackers, automatic location reporters, "digital battlefield". Meanwhile the adversary is going to be dropping grenades with DJI Phantoms and finding your location with $15 SDR dongles.
Whisper for a little bit... Then bam have a kitchen fight with your son and little brother
This might be useful for the software inclined: Write a program that runs on your laptop and monitors your frequency of interest as shown by your SDR, and simply record date, time of day, and length of transmissions. Do this for several weeks and you have a model of what "normal" looks like. Then use the model for comparison, and if current time window of transmissions for this time of day exceeds the norm by some measure, alert the user that something is going on.
At year 8 of the NATO war of aggression, the Russian Federation could detect puppet troops massing by triangulating cellphone signals. Large number of cell signals close to the front meant AFU troops massing.
Pretty easy to do with a couple simple bash scripts.
I'd be surprised if there weren't already something on git for this.
This method is roughly how the Stingray catcher works - you drive around and direction find your local towers and grab their IDs, then you look for one that "suddenly pop up".
@@TheBelrick hey, so cool to find a russia puppet
@@Fede_uyz you are not even aware that the deep state through Biden funded a military coup in Ukraine in 2014 using local nazi (not neo, nazi) groups to carry out the regime change
So who the f are you to even be commenting on this subject let alone having your own opinion? Sit down kid.
Used to listen to LE, Fire and EMS frequencies in my area. Then the Sheriff's Dept went totally encrypted, and local LE did likewise. Now, there's nothing to listen except Fire and EMS, and they are now all digital. I think the public has a right to hear non sensitive transmissions.
It's expensive, but a uniden sds100 can listen to p25 systems. You won't get police (maybe) but you will hear other transmission.
uniden home patrol 1 or 2
@@2genders Why shouldnt we be able to monitor what we pay for?
@@6Six6Six6Bruh It doesn't matter who pays for it. It's secret. YOU CAN'T LISTEN TO IT.
@@user2C47 bootlicker much? I have every right to know what those who claim authority over me are saying.
I got into radios in the 70s. Everything was opened then. We developed are own code/nomenclature so that we could talk on radios and nobody would know what we were talking about. We employed low tech ways to direction find. As time moved on , scanners became more common. I would spend hours listening. Tracking police, fire, EMS. Listening to aircraft over head. Cell calls. Public works etc etc. I gained a lot of information. Some have some pretty crazy back stories. Life took a different turn and I didn't have time for it anymore. But now I'm back at it. Bought a few new radios, along with vhf/ufh twoway for mobile ops. Considering a remote pirate repeater. Remember, the number one low tech listening device is your ears. People love to talk and they give you all types of free Intel. But that's called humint.
Ditto, I got into radios and listening to Russians in the 70's & 80's
"If it is not immediately convinient and effortless, people just will not do it."
Legend
New Daily SA and an S2 Underground, today is a good day!!
Whats SA?
What do you mean SA?
Signal analysis, security assistance, San Antonio, or is it Société anonyme (S.A.) is a French term for a public limited company (PLC)? ... I give up
@@mr.matthews67 i'm wondering if it's another channel like S2 so i can go watch it.
A few weeks ago I heard an unusually large helicopter fly over my house so I went to ADSB exchange because they will show you birds with no callsigns. Well for 3 nights in a row they flew over my house under 500 feet to just south of the South Carolina boarder where I know there are large tracts of land that are empty. Well on the 2nd night at the same time I saw the no call sign bird flying towards my house so I went outside and it was a Chinook with an winch fitted. Fucker had to be flying around 300ft agl. The only reason ADSB exchange caught him is because there are a few people in our county who upload their SDRs.
I need to start logging ADSB around here- we’re getting a TON of .mil air traffic over the last few months.
Northeast Georgia? If I had to guess, they are supporting the Ranger School training at Camp Merrill near Helen. I think they range pretty far and wide in their exercises. Fairly routine, makes for great practice!
@@PatrickKQ4HBD No it was norther south carolina. They popped on radar right above the concord/charlotte area, then fell off around a place called taxahaw where there are huge areas of no people. However they could have also been going somewhere else and just flew to low for any ground station to pick it up. We do have them come around during Robbin Sage training but this was in a totally different place. Which is why it was weird, I always watch the sky and in the past 10 years the only time military helicopters flew over my house is when a hurricane is hitting and they are moving all the birds, but never seen them below 500 ft agl.
@@terrydavis8451 eh, the caralonias are close enough to bragg to make almost anything a possible training exercise.
@@danielboatright8887 Yeah we get them here all the time. They might have been heading down to Ft. Jackson.
I watched a search plane circle over my house on a flight app one night. A LEO had been shot and the bad guys got away, the command HQ was less than 100 feet from my home, but they had not searched around my house, where there are places to hide from thermal imaging. Sometimes relying too much on tech can be a problem.
When deployed most of the combatants used land lines or runners.
Would have been running a mtm suite, stingray / dirtbox...
Which is basically a warrantless dragnet search of an area, vot to mention the permanent mil sig int baloons up over Tex, California, Florida, etc.. & this dosebt includes any hale style solar dromes that are powered & can stay up for literally weeks..
glad you got away. Stay frosty
@@brosef4154 same
Like the old saying goes the best place to hide a leaf is in the forest. Sometimes standing out in plain sight is more concealing than trying to hide. For instance in an area that has a lot of homeless it might be more concealing to just blend in. Of course you'd have to really be careful not to get sick or stumble upon a dirty needle. 😬 Also you can dim screens or use veils to cover up screens.
Having traveled a lot, and been in some less than stellar areas, I can say that I've seen homeless people with full on gaming laptops hooked up to the outlet in a McDonald's or something. Extension cords and everything running from local outlets on the street, they don't care.
So blending in with just a phone or something shouldn't be too difficult I imagine
Everyone is walkign around with earbuds and phones in hand on the street nowadays anyway. so that is not consipicuous at all anymore
Back in my day, an Intercept Platoon in a division (like 337ASA Co, 1st In Div which later merged with 1st MI Co to form 101st MI Bn (CEWI)) had a larger antenna footprint than a Brigade HQ.
A good SDR can be run by a tiny Raspberry Pi3 or Pi4 with a small battery and a 20W folding solar panel. Man portable, small footprint, and an incredible SIGINT resource for perhaps $150. Some SDRs are not just recievers, but are transcievers. I have ponderd the possibility of engineering one that would give the complete functionality of SINCGARS (including crypto) but would be only slightly larger than a paperback book. This is doable, but is a nontrivial task.
Another interesting and very useful device for intelligence gathering is a good frequency counter, especially when paired with a handheld Yagi antenna. The frequency counter is a special "dumb" reciever than only locks onto and literally "counts" or displays the transmitting frequency of anything transmitting nearby. These are superb at locating wireless listening devices (bugs) and the more expensive units with a hand held yagi can pinpoint the location of clandestine broadband networking routers.
Going up in cost and logistics support would be something like a HP or Tektronix Spectrum Analyzer which with a good antenna can locate a clandestine drone operating even miles away from your OP/LP. Going further down that rabbit hole of money and resource expenditures you could add a full Microwave Generalized Signal Generator, a Microwave Power Amplifier (to boost the signal output to tens of watts) which when coupled with a spectrum analyzer gives you the ability to identify and jam or interfere with those signals. With such a suite of ($200K to $500K) you can have the basics of a legitimate electronic warfare setup.
Playing electronic tag is not cheap by any means!
Cool, can you make a video about it now for the dumb dumbs out there?
FreeDV code can be hacked, with a GPS timing souce and rolling code, good voice at 1200 b/sec feed into HF SSB or FM radio sorta secure only need laptops to provide FreeDV modem
that’s awesome. thanks
Ettus research makes some more expensive, but extremely capable SDRs. They are amazing at all sorts of tasks.
If you use an RPI, you'll need moar than one. Even the Pi4 doesn't have enough horsepower to run the transceiver and waterfall at the same time. You have to set them up in a client/server relationship, where one unit transceives and the other provides the user interface.
Also, a 20W panel is not enough to keep an RPI charged and running 24/7.
One of the most useful things I can think of that can help you make the most of your limited time is RECORDING. When combined with a scanning plan or a scheduler such as you’ll find featured in SDRPlay, these tools can help you distill hours of monitoring down to a fraction of that time in recorded material that you’ll have to listen to, and although it is less timely than listening live, it can still help you get a sense of longer-term activities going on around the listening post. Even better, with multichannel recording, you won’t miss a thing, because it will record simultaneous channels that you would miss if you had to monitor your targets in real time. Recording also allows you to log and review the communications as many times as you like, and heck, you might even be able to employ PC software to do a voice to text for you at some point, negating the need to have to listen to the recordings. The other nice thing about this automation is that you can set up any number of target or task-specific listening posts requiring different locations, antennas, etc. Set them up with a low-cost low power Raspberry Pi, well concealed, self-powered, and let them run unattended. I wish I had some programming skills because there is so much cool stuff that can be done, and unfortunately, many of the tools out there now fall short in one way or another, or are unreliable, cumbersome or simply lack the particular features one might need. Sure, this is next-level stuff I’m thinking about and probably only available to intelligence agencies, etc. But one can imagine the possibilities nonetheless. Imagine automating sensors, drones, cameras, radios, alert systems, etc etc. Cool stuff indeed.
Edit: just after I wrote this I continued watching the rest of this video and you basically just said everything I just described in a couple of sentences. Great minds think alike. :)
The tech prepped on CZcams had a really great series on SDR’s. One thing he was doing is setting up remote monitoring on a chosen band/frequency. Then when he got back to his system they all played back while removing empty space because the recording was set up to be voice activated. The software maker he was using is planning on integrating that capability in a future build.
I use the sds100 by uniden the record feature is amazing, I could never have another radio without that. It records all day and I listen to all the chatter every night before bed. A rec feature is a 100% must nowadays.
limesdr is the best you can get nowdays . it can listen and transmit at the same time and does every band
An analog radio CAN STILL BE USEFUL.
With a yagi antena, which can be built out of tape measure, tape and any cable in like an hour with no soldering at all you can take bearing of an intercepted comm. If they keep transmitting andthey are relatively static, and you can move 2-3 k you can get a new bearing. With that you plot in a map both LPs and bearing, and intersecting will be a rough area of where the transmission comes from. This can spot bivouacs, patrol bases, even covert bases with poor ish counter SIGINT protocols.
With an analog radio, encrypted or otherwise undecipherable comms will turn in a spike of noise able to cut through your squelch. No need to listen in. Just by knowing someone transmitted you can locate them
Unless you know your beam width and the location of the side lobes this is not a accurate way of doing anything.
@@brownj2 by using a yagi antena the side lobes will be small enough that any meaningful movement on the terrain will exclude having the enemy caught in the side lobes. plus distance unless the signal is hyper cristaline as to assume it's near enough, you can still figure out a rough location
Many amateur radio operators (hams) enjoy fox hunts. Small radio transmitters are hidden and transmit for 20-60 seconds then go quiet for several minutes. Get a bearing then change your location to get another bearing. The fox is found within 1-2 hours. Sometimes within 30 minutes. During special events youngster 9-12 years are taught the basic principles and turned loose. So if you don’t want to be found, transmit your message as quickly as possible then move, move, move.
oh man I wish more and more my grandfather had talked about what he did in ww2. from letters we found hidden in the house, he did radio stuff, smuggeling them from place to place, listening and communicating with London.
Dang!! Old men, share your stories with your families!
Same here. My grandfather apparently built a home made radio and hid it in another music listening device so most people couldn't decern what it was. He would listen to the different information and relay it back to people so that they could know what was happening in the world around them, in a time when it was illegal to so.
I only found out after my other grandfather died that he had signed a 50 year nondisclosure agreement with the gov't. He was involved in communications on the north American side and appearently he was privy to things that to this day remain a secret, at least to me. 😉😂
Excellent topics. Funny how the moment you stop talking about rifles, night vision and body armor that the audience thins considerably.
It takes a thin edge to cut precisely.
😂 people want easy excitement not fulfilling satisfaction through hard earned exceptional victory
It's analogous to separating the wheat from the chaff, friends.
Ironically that's exactly the reason I'm here. I've explained to my crew that this stuff is far more of a weapon than anything that shoots bullets.
@@KidCorporate The 2 most dangerous people in any unit ar an O-3 with a US senator's personal number, and a pissed off E-4 with a map and radio.
The 1962 Steve McQueen war movie “Hell is for Heroes” has a lot of SIGNIT and LP/OP major scenes where they make the Germans believe their squad is a battalion or larger size. They even make a hero sound like multiple different war machines such as tanks so the German LP’s report back the enemy has large support. It’s a great representation of some of the stuff you’re talking about and also a great movie. Stay safe!
I'll have to watch it to find out if they were doing ICD (Imitative Communications Deception) or MCD (Manipulative Communications Deception - sending a lot of communications traffic which appears to be a larger entity to foreign intercept operations). My favorite scene (since I was a 98B (Cryptanalyst - Code Breaker then later a 98G4HRUC8 - Russian voice intercept operator) was in Midway when the Captain (in his smoking jacket) tell Adm Kimmell that they had broken the Japanese code and were reading 12% of their traffic. Adm Kimmell replies you're only reading 1 word out of every 8 - Hell man, that is guesswork. The Captain replies - we prefer to call it analysis Admiral.
@@ColdWarPrepper they found a listening device in a bunker the Germans left behind after they retreated back across the zigfried line. They had a private who was lost going to the rear (Bob Newhart) sit in there and pretend he was talking on the field telephone like it was battalion HQ. They took his Jeep and put the chains on and made it backfire like a Sherman. It’s a great movie
@@ColdWarPrepper I was just a combat engineer so I barely speak English! I always took care of the intel guys at base camp or FOBs because you guys always had either internet or a sat phone! The new Midway movie exceeded my expectations compared to the 1976 one. Makes me want to watch it again tonight
@@echo5delta And our equipment had air conditioning for the equipment but they always seemed to be a popular hangout
@@echo5delta I was talking about the 1976 one - I was a SSG in 337 ASA Co, 1ID, Fort Riley KS when it came out
Once again, the most important channel on CZcams.
Steve Wallis is a great channel to watch for stealth camping. He's not a prepper or anything he just does it for fun, but you can get ideas.
You have no idea what they can do with your phone NOW.
My niece was missing for two weeks so we went to file the report. They were able to locate her phone, he said it was turned off. A few mouse clicks and we could hear EVERYTHING in the room her phone was in. A few more clicks and we could see from her iphone, it was just the ceiling, he then turned her phone on remotely and sent her a message saying her family was looking for her and missed her very much. He then says there was another device nearby, he ID'd the owner and sent him a text saying she was only 14 and the police were now involved. Within 15 mins he kicked her out of his car in front of her house then peeled out! I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't seen it. It was awesome and scary at the same time.
X
For utilizing the ADS/B, traffic pattern recognition of normal civilian traffic might help; if the pattern changes for some reason, it MIGHT (and this a big might) be because the Government has requested the change so drones or other spy traffic can fly. There might be other indicators.
Yep. It's important to know what normal looks like.
Always love your content and appreciate the comm based content. Thank you and keep it up.
A note: Some SDRs can use existing radio waves to act as a form of very simple radar.
Edit: Passive radar.
All of them. You need multiple.
is this referring to timed delay of arrival geolocation
@@lowercasehandle As I understand it, it is listening to a certain frequency with one antenna, then listening to the reflection of that frequency off of objects?
I'm not an expert, nor have I gotten it to work.
There are videos on it though.
@@FelixUmbra could ya link one
Awesome video. Makes me want to spent a couple hours after work today setting up my SDR on a spare laptop or bring it to work and set it up better during down time.
I think the most valuable listening post for an individual would be to monitor what's happening around their house. For instance, using an SDR to monitor the number of mobile devices (radios, cell phones, etc.) proximate to their home, and potentially even using two or three for some rudimentary direction and range finding. Ideally it would attempt to fingerprint the collected signals and record those fingerprints into a database.
Is an unfamiliar device scoping the neighborhood? Maybe you should save your surveillance video from that night in case they were exploring without a cover or disguise to help identify them in the future. Or perhaps if they return you can set an alarm and maybe catch them in the act.
Are there multiple unfamiliar devices staged near your house? This could be the Stasi getting ready to kick your door down, or it could be a multiple-assailant burglary.
I keep poking around at the idea but then life comes up and I work on other projects.
How TF do you do any of that
@@badxradxandy with software and software defined radio. Maybe a hackable wifi access point too.
A lot of pieces of this solution are floating around on the net in the form of research papers and code snippets that could be integrated to form such a system.
Part of the headache is the diversity of the research. E.g., one prototype snippet that runs on Windows written in C# leveraging an electrical engineer's knowledge of RF to read one particular network protocol is non-trivial to generalize and combine with another piece written in C on Linux.
Another issue is the more infamous data leaking techniques get patches to the mobile operating system and networking chipsets that mitigate their usefulness.
On the southern border, we regularly (almost daily) use adsb exchange to monitor where BP and state police helicopters are chasing groups of IAs that are on foot. LE won’t take the time to give residents a heads up that they’re chasing a group of 20 people your direction, or through your backyard. But if you hear a helicopter, and it’s not too low, you can see where the people are.
Some Androids apps new folks might find useful:
Ham Solar: find out if the sun is grumpy today. Gives you the listening conditions for shortwave and ham bands.
Ham Bands: color chart showing where hams hang out and what modes are used in a particular. But you can listen in just about anywhere. Don't considers band plans as limiting for RX.
Skywave Schedules: Frequency Database for SWL and "utility" stations, and logbook. (I liked this one enough to buy the upgrade.)
NCDXF Beacon: worldwide beacon system that lets you chack band conditions. Useful, educational (compare against Ham Solar), and wildly entertaining if your a comms geek.
DroidNavTex: Decode maritime weather. Costs money.
HF WeatherFax: Weather maps
Amateur Radio Toolkit: a bit of everything
Antenna Theory: Buckle up, Dorothy.
Day&Night Map: Just what says.
Dipole Antenna Calculator: ditto
Helical Antennas: likewise.
Signal ID: purportedly identifies digital signals. I'm still working on it.
Can't thank you enough for the time and effort that you put in to this. Is it so very much appreciated and shared often.
Well… sounds like we need an extremely detailed SDR how-to video.
Having discipline it's one thing. But it's much easier to do when you're single and you don't have a family. When you need to help cook and clean also spending time with family is sometimes something that's not negotiable
As a young single guy, that's understandable. That's why you find likeminded individuals (in this context, single people) in your relative area that can fill in those gaps and roles, as a team would
To add to Fighting Lion's reply, Finding a likeminded spouse, and raising likeminded children would be a HUGE benefit, and probably be a rather fun family and friends activity.
@@Operator8282
I think you're most certainly right about that.
Great rundown
An interesting video full of good information, but I feel in your focus on the direct operational application of SDR you undersold some of the additional benefits of an SDR which in all kinds SHTF situations can be really beneficial. That's is that it can pick up such a wide range of traffic, not just the usual hand held coms or overhead aircraft. It's ability to also pick up traffic from overhead satellites so you can get independent weather imagery is great. Knowing if that storm system is moving on or coming your way can be highly useful. Picking up long range radio channels so you can hear independent news from other countries much like resistance fighters did listening to BBC world service during nazi occupation. Listening to HAM radio bands for information on the larger picture etc. All of that can be done without emissions too, just receiving. Keeping your immediate area under surveillance for situational awareness is important, but looking longer term for a way out of your situation you need to also know the bigger picture and SDR gives you a range of options there
Really good stuff. Thanks so much S2. Keep 'em coming - We The People NEED this. Fight in the Shade.
OMG! The # 1 thing that im told by the family is how can you just sit there for hours listening to all that static...But with a few adjustment to the volume and stepping the levels that they are set makes it easy for me. i can usually catch traffic just by the way the static sounds. My wife has been more than once amazed that what starts out as just static turns into traffic . Anyway ive always enjoyed listening and yes i do talk too but i tend to listen more than talk. I think that some people cant stand the sounds that come over the radios and quickly move on but i guess im lucky i have sharp ears. So if i could get paid to sit and listen all day that would be a dream job LOL. serious Dream Job.. well moving along love the video as always well presented. Thanks so much.
Most of us who did that for a living have significant hearing loss - I have 50% hearing disability
Add a directional antenna to the pack, need to know where the comms are coming from. Even if encrypted, can still monitor the simplex or input frequencies to get a direction and signal strength.
4:24 & let's not forget about the sig int baloons up over every populated region harvesting everything.
Also keep a spair USB drive and OTG cable. The USB will have Phone and PC back up software incase you need to ditch the interface device (phone/PC) and replace it later.
This is all so fascinating to me. Just starting to get into radio and don't even have a license yet but like you said. baby steps. I like messing with online SDRs and listening to the number stations lol. its just fun. Pretty sure I live near a DOD listening post. We have one of the massive VLBA antennas here and right above that on a plateau is a massive 80+ antenna array. DOD says it is for "mission critical DOD and important mission air traffic control". think it's called the Brewster Teleport.
Wow. All your videos have so many similar parallels to my obsession with communications. Very good production. 11/10
22:58 "I understand radios arent exciting" buuuuullllshit. Radios are fucking awesome. I've willingly sat and listened to 3 hours of blank radio noise or data transmissions on websdr just because it was there. Im starting to get into HAM myself love that you're covering radios and signals intelligence and can't wait to see what else you put out.
something I would like you to touch on is security through obsolescence.
Agree. Somewhere between smoke signals and an analog cell phone. Maybe a point A to point B, crypto-secured, connected over POTS, with some old computers outfitted with 56K modems. Or just using dial-up BBS's in a clever way. It wouldn't be surprising if the tech to surveil "landlines" has either been discarded, is obsolete regarding interfacing, or the people with the knowledge/skill to do it are retired.
@@RodCornholio dead. not retired. they can be pulled out of retirement if they're still alive.
@@theinvisibleman6147 Agree that it is possible and, given enough time and effort, they will figure out a solution in some way. Based on personal experience in government, they would never coax people out of retirement to solve a problem like that. It would make good drama in a movie, though.
On a digressive tangential note, if you're interested in my assessment of U.S. government employees: there are a tiny TINY fraction-of-a-fraction who are _extraordinarily_ competent, a significant amount who are basically future organ donors, and a vast majority of pure mediocrity.
If I had a dime for every time I thought/said, "If the public only knew..." Hah hah.
Best Regards
@@RodCornholio this is where politics comes in and why I don't deal much with either group. the intellectuals either down play or refuse to acknowledge the political and ideological aspect of a given goal or instruction and the foreman and/or white collar types couldn't be arsed with the technical aspects. so i just do my own thing.
not only is something like that possible, much more difficult was achieved. look at operation paperclip for example and a similar project the soviets had around the same time. both these groups, after gutting germany in the 1940s, took all their brainpower and used it to end up in space.
the goveenment didn't care that the technicians, scientists and engineers they brought over spoke a different language, grew up in a different culture and knew they'd be pressured to work for the people who just finished the dismemberment of their home country, they knew they would pressure or convince them to work for their new host country.
if that can happen, and that is what indeed happened, bringing people out of retirement can and will be done once there is political and ideological will behind it.
You should do an updated "First Steps" video 📹 with suggested gear ⚙️. Basically, for people like me who are new to all of this but want to have fun 👍 building a good kit.
Hear! Hear!
Being a dude with a background so far from this, you couldn't detect it, it's amazing to learn so much on your channel.
you guys have all the goodies, i am very much envious. also I'd love to see a video on Drone/UAV usage for the individual/small team, specifically related to Surveillance and recon
Seeing how low cost drones have been used in recent conflicts, I am very interested in uses of civilian quad copters in this context.
Damn right listen way more!! I would NOT immediately PTT & Tx on radios of any kind to get “help”, there won't be any. Just folks looking to take what you have. Rely only on those you already know in your circle, etc. Instead I'd use a scanner to listen to what the outside world is doing and what's happening - all in 1 handy radio to monitor it all. I have all bands/channels & active frequencies in my area programmed now.
I also use the 'signal stalker' feature on another scanner to pick up 'danger close' radios & personnel, ie, those that may encroach my farm fence lines. I don’t use Ham radio etc, to talk to pple 200 miles away; it’s pointless, they can’t help…can you help them? Nope!
Do I have CB, FRS, GMRS, MURS, 2M, 70cm, marine VHF transceivers, etc? Sure! I’ll Tx on them IF I really, really, REALLY need to com outside the family, but only as a last resort.
To talk to family all over the ranch when SHTF, we're considering a part of the HF band no one uses, so no one is listening either. We're looking at HF radios built for .5W to 2W ERP with off-channel freq's. All the usual CB, FRS, GMRS or MURS, etc, is like waving a white flag at your front door! Imho.... comments??
SDR's are my achilles heal. I don't make much money a month, only my 20% VA disability, so when I say in my world, I've spent a small fortune on different sdr's and antennas trying to get them to work. I've tried different sdr's, different antenna's, different software packages, and just can't get them to work. The only frequency that I could get it to come in is (I believe it was 128.000mhz) I couldn't get the sdr to scroll up or down the frequencies. Which is a bummer because I find it very fascinating.
Do you still have any of that gear? If you can provide details on what you've got and what you've tried, I can probably get it sorted for you.
Excellent topic. During the riots the participants used PTT Apps to communicate. They had another individual who set himself out of jurisdiction and established a LP . This individual monitored the non crypto interop talkgroups that were being used and relayed info to the on site participants over the PTT app. This LP individual in his "down time" compromised himself by generating malicious interference to businesses in the area he established his LP at. Movement to a crypto talkgroup ended the riot within less than 24 hours. Thanks for sharing !
very interesting topic..... we have a couple of folks who listen to scanners a large part of time... listening to police and fire operations leads to a bunch of information like the puma that was sited by LE this last weekend IN TOWN again... a couple of years ago one was caught and relocated and over the last 5 years several have been sighted. 4 years ago we heard [and went out to see] a black bear across the street from us IN TOWN.... a lot of things never make it into the news media.... keep up the good work!!!
In the simplest form, I guess you could call us a listening post, but, we prefer the term intercept site because SIGINT (both ELINT & COMINT) is quite different and requires totally different skills than the combat arms listening post. For example you mention getting an LOB and reporting it and the freq, if you have abilities in the target language, a callsign is extremely beneficial. You are right about intercept sites being a target / artillery magnet - the AN/FLR-9 at Field Station Augsburg (Germany) was lovingly referred to as a SCUD target. Yes, we never shared technical data with the operational commander, although we did report the intelligence derived from intercept.
Good info. The background video is awesome---hiking through the mountains
This channel is SO UNDERRATED!
You're literally giving out life saving information.
Are there other channels out there like this?
I'm a mechanic but I can see the writing on the wall.
Amateur radio leads you to this naturally, if you have a curious mind. Pretty soon you're tracking planes, hams, seeing all the signals flying around, and tracking them. Also helps you to navigate Part15 where that still makes sense. I often hear aircraft from inside my home and want to know why. Sometimes I see planes or hear planes on cameras and have found there is no telemetry (at least not at 1090mhz). In my opinion, we have to track ALL THE THINGS because someday soon there will be zillions of hostile unmanned craft orchestrating our death. Read the book _Kill Decision_ by Daniel Suarez if you haven't. It'll get you thinking. Great video, btw, learned a few terms.
i love how s2 uses comedic irony. this guy is COOL in my book.
soaking this up like a sponge. you are awesome at detail without boring to death. thank you.
I find all this fascinating. I found this channel in wake of the Pandemic as I was looking to learn more about the supply line so I could plan for what might be needed.
Since then I've seen and watched a lot of this - but I have 0 experience in the military and was a "normie" pre-pandemic. Is there a good starter place for a normie who wants to start taking this more seriously?
It’s hard to say, not knowing more about you. Find a CZcams channel or internet site that focuses on teaching, not fear. While fear is a great motivator, it has its obvious downsides. Realize that fear is the main tool of the enemy. Stay away from extremes. Do not post anything on socialist media (sic) that you don’t want coming back on you in the future. Stick to quality where it matters. Have at least one concealable pistol, one rifle, and maybe a shotgun. Dried beans and rice are cheap for now, and are relatively light and store almost indefinitely. Plan on sharing. Get to know your neighbors and plan to work with the ones that are like minded. Avoid wearing camo and appearing “tactical”. Be a gray man. Undercover agents have beards and drive pickup trucks, just like most red necks. Life is hard, but it’s harder if you are stupid. So don’t do things that you know are wrong. Be a regular person with interesting and varied hobbies.
Yes, start with gardening, even if it's just a single bucket. S2 often says, it's the boring stuff that results in a win or loss, and he's absolutely right.
1. Food.
A-Learn how to grow it, produce it, and store it long term with minimal resources like electricity.
B-Learn how to find and make trustworthy water.
2. Clothing.
A-Learn how to be comfortable in bad weather of every kind. Bad weather is a good friend.
B-Learn how to pick really good footwear.
3. Shelter.
A-Permanent, make your residence a little more secure against weather and bad humans.
B-Portable. A small travel trailer, a tent, a large tarp shelter...
C-Emergency. Backpacking gear, a poncho tarp, a mylar bivy, a lean-to...
4. Transportation.
A-high efficiency like a cheaper EV.
B-high capability in bad conditions like a Jeep. A good e-bike ticks both of those boxes for me.
5. Intelligence and Communication.
A-Shortwave Listening channels on YT are going to be better teachers than HAM radio channels.
B-Itemize news sources by ownership and point of view. We all know that there are no neutral news sources anymore. Even propaganda is information if you can see through it.
C-Get out and network with people. Build allies.
This will keep you busy for a lifetime. Take it in small bites. Hope this helps. Blessings!
If you are interested in some basic military training you might want to look into One Shepard Leadership Institute. They offer military training to all who want it, but it does have a cost for the multi day courses. You have to supply some of your own gear, but you get a chance to participate in a simulated engagement with MILES gear. MILES gear is basically laser tag with blank firing rifles used by the military for clarification. I haven't done it myself, but assuming everything doesn't collapse around us in the next year or two I'm going to do it. Too much on my plate right now with getting the basics covered from Patrick's quality post above, lol.
For local comms, you don't want to use "standard" frequencies or radio services like ham radio, GMRS, FRs, etc. Ham and GMRS required a license and callsign. FRS / GMRS are frequencies that are easily monitored. MURS is less used but still common.
A good solution would be the 900 MHz ISM band. Motorola makes a series of radios that use ISM with FHSS which makes it almost impossible to monitor. And since it uses FHSS, it is also hard to direction find your location.
If the Motorola units are too expensive, the Retevis RT10 is a DMR 900 MHz ISM radio. It doesn't use FHSS but it does have encryption.
I'll have to dig up my old scanner that I bought decades ago when I used to have a radio at work and change the channel to listen to the emergency traffic instead. I found it so interesting that I bought my own scanner back when it wasn't that expensive.
The biggest issue now, especially for police monitoring, is that they are encrypting their radio systems and they are using 256 bit encryption to do it.
This is especially true in California.
First step is make a baseline of known emmissions, compare against the unknown results in a smaller amount to resolve.. Baselines take time and expertise and are sometimes shared between agencies/teams. There is an internet project somewhere which encourages SDR users to collaborate worldwide with spectrum grabs over a period of time.
23:08 despite this I adore your radio and sigint stuff.
Adding chokes to power cords of utilities, tv’s and computers can drastically quiet the rf noise levels in your home. You can use your SDR by shutting down all curcuit breakers in your home and checking your noise floor for offending devices. It takes a bit of work up front, but it can drastically lower the noise floor in your home, making couch sigint gathering possible.
7:23 Can you do a build video of your hand held ADSB?
I just stumbled upon this by accident and I know nothing about radio communications haha.. This has me thinking.. Thank you.
I love this channel so much.
I use bone transmitted headphones, like aeropex. You sacrifice maybe 20% of your ambient sounds and zero of your situational awareness. I heard the guy at the register quietly inform me I was walking off a dollar short, while listening to this brief.
Another awesome video S2. On the off chance that your team hasn't come across it yet, the kerbos/kraken sdr is a fantastic RDF tool.
This guy I know had a polished satellite dish in his back yard. It was maybe 4 to 5 feet in diameter and he to keep it covered at all times. If angled appropriately with the sun it could light 2x4s on fire by waving them in front of it.
You could also use it to listen to neighbors conversations across the street AND talk back! It would sound like a disembodied voice was whispering in your ear.
Thanks! There’s a lot to consider in this video. Good stuff!
I wish you'd covered old tech... specifically parabolic microphones, which I think would be useful for when I hear sounds but can't hear them well enough to determine if they are a threat.
Are there any out there that aren't just toys, but still won't break the bank?
I remember using a snow disc as a half assed parabolic mic, but with my ear as the microphone, as a teen, but the concept still holds. If you are looking for something portable (note: not concealable) a plexyglass one can be made by softening a pannel over one of those giant mormon-family-reunion-sized salad bowls to a sufficient depth, then use some sticks of whatever material to aim a microphone back toward the center.
Aiming can be done by looking through the plexyglass at whatever you are trying to listen to. Not great, but usefull over short ranges. Now, I suppose you can get a "nature show" grade directional mic (shotgun mic) for a larger outlay, but that is also going to be rather obvious, and in the dark, or by someone who tant tell the difference, could be mistaken for an actual gun.
For the tidbit on 'Hearing your surroundings', ENC, or electronic noise canceling, also works in reverse. You see this with most operator radio comms headsets. It will dampen sounds of certain Dbs, and increase volume of lower Dbs while maintaining that level of normal hearing.
Awesome info. Thanks for making this
23:27 “we’re not going to be embracing the suck because some NCO told us to”
Yeah, that’s why I embrace the suck on my own accord, ie running, listening to radio chatter while I cook and clean, learn when I can…
I mean FFS, I’m listening to this at 0119 because sleep insomnia, might as well make it (the suck) useful.
Thanks for another very informative video.
Quality content and information as always. I'm learning a lot on comms from these videos. Which I appreciate because I'm a caveman.
Love your videos
@@alexanderschooler579 thanks man, I appreciate it.
I'm a big fan of CubicSDR software. Overall even if your not a TX station, radio operation is a perishable skill that if you don't practice you will become rusty. Just like shooting a fire arm you need to train it. Many people overlook this aspect of radios and there operation. I use vhf/UHF hts for my area FDs and EMS and a SDR for my area PD. Best bet don't leave them on where you sleep unless you want some gnarly dreams in my experience.
I think it needs to be an iterative process of resolving goals and examining the resources (mostly people) that you have to work with. It does no good to come up with a plan that requires the team members to be special ops when in fact all you have to work with are retirees. The main question must be: "What useful things can we accomplish with the people we have to work with?" Prioritize the list, then plan, then train.
If you have retirees to work with, at least they will have a lot of time on their hands, so there's that. Retirees can also look unobtrusive running a DF setup out of their golf cart, and disguise an antenna in a golf bag.
There is something that you have not covered in this video. During war time the governments were able to track down radio receivers by listening for the IF frequencies in radios. The quality of shielding of the local oscillators in receivers is extremely critical. They tend to radiate RF and can even leak it to the antenna. The cheaper the radio usually the worse they are for radiating LO RF.
Being an old 2/2 myself its not too hard to guess at your past MOS.
I was never a Comm guy, but we worked closely with them.
Don't get me wrong, we wouldn't drink with those POG's , but we'd occasionally pick them up a 6 pack or two .
It was easier to handle squirters when Achmed used Nokia phones....
If you could get grandpa or grandma to listen in on this while doing their thing how beneficial that would be. I know someone already doing this and it works. Grandpa makes a note of time and unusual transmission.
Good idea
@S2 Underground Isn't it wild that you can search in CZcams, `Listening Posts: An Intro to SIGI` leaving out the `NT` and your video does not show up in the search? Much Wow!
Knowledge is power
Caution on that HackOne RF device. The US State department and other agencies may be tracking those shipment. You could have feds knocking on your door 5 minutes after UPS does.
At least for me, being able to direction find a signal makes it interesting enough to be worth some hassle.
I'm really enjoying your channel. I'm former military (Army - Gulf War) and like your intelligence gathering and field practical approach to comms. I'm taking my Technician's test on Friday. Wondering what area of the country you call home. I'd really like to connect with people like you.
This is awesome......... good refresher and knowledge. Alot people in tactical community think weapons, armor, tactical kit but overlook surveillance and information/intel gathering a lot dynamics and complex methods to make an operation go.
LP/OP is my IPhone 😆 time to go old school and wire up some Dixie cups. Great video and information
Ex Army SIGINT here. You're pretty spot on.
Can you show us how to detect devices like trail cameras etc. Love your work
Is it true that fox hunters can triangulate a listening post because a superheterodyne receiver emits a radio signal that can be tracked?
Excellent question. I was always told that this may actually be true. However, I would like a for sure answer to that, myself.
working in afghanistan with SF ODAs ant SOT-As, I was so fond of the 18 E's and the 18F. Watching how we gathered intel and used that intel to plan our missions and using that intel to dictate the tactics we would implement for that mission - I realized intelligence gathering was probably more important than anything we were doing. I tell everyone who comes to me wanting to know more than just shooting and cool CQB tricks and I tell them - learn how to gather intel before you learn anything else. What are you to do without intelligence on your adversary?
Wish you could see what the 98G's (now 35P) and 98C's (now 35N) did to support you
There are a few recently deceased Russian generals who could have learnt a bit from this.
Note on the scanner part: we had a benchtop EMS scanner unit. Cost about 50 bucks, but if you opened it, the whole thing was a bit bigger than a playing card, inside a box the size of a game console, and it ran on a 9V wall adapter. Easy enough to shrink the case, and run it through earbuds.
some SIGINT gear i find useful are the "DopeScope from warcollar industries which is really just a handheld, standalone directional wifi scanner. it's handy for both active and passively scanning wifi signals to find a phone or base station. the other two from HAK5 are the WiFi pineapple which can also serve as a wifi for when you don't want to be right next to your sensors or you can use it with a cell phone or laptop to listen to wifi transmissions. the other from that vendor is the SIGOwl which when used with a computer or cellphone lets you hook up and manage multiple SDR's and automate them slightly. after all if you can get close enough to a threat to collect PCAPs from them, you have a wealth of intel. especially when so many common apps transmit valuable data in cleartext.
As an old photojournalist and intel fan, I've been thinking of methods which may support stringers during a regional news event.
Examples: Ferguson, MO riots (2014); Two radicalized shooters in San Bernardino, CA (2015) ; Officers killed in Palm Springs (2016); Riots in El Cajon (2016). These were hours long, sometimes days, and multiple scenes to cover.
What I imagined doing was equipping/kitting a few vehicles to support stringers. Things like a GMRS Group radio system near a scene or a discrete mobile media camp/command post providing battery charging, water, drinks a bunk, bicycles, etc. I'm retired, so the imagination needs something to do.
This channel is a gold mine 👌🏻
Love all the b roll footage taken from the 35T recruiting video
Nice. This helps some on understanding more of the WW2 K0 SOS RQ part of Kryptos. X the nod to station X. But in substitution part. O,L comes out also along with. ( SOS O,U .Slowly underground see. Slowly see underground between rule) RQ ( Radio illusion, to removed illusion. Between rule and K3. Basically, cross-check rules. O,L lines up, but not sure. It seems to fit the theme/style. Thank you for sharing.
North of a town I used to live in 50 years ago there was a listening post out in a farmers field on the top of a ridge. It was a small empty concrete room with wires cut off coming out of the concrete walls. Unsure of the age but could have been a WW2/Korean conflict or Cold War post.
Another great video!!! Well done.
Love this freaking channel. Such detail