Listening Posts: An Intro to SIGINT

the concept of the observation post has been a critical part of warfare since the dawn of time but as the industrial revolution brought about the horrors of modern warfare the concept of the listening post became in many cases even more important than observation in importance that continues to this day today most militaries refer to these as the lpop or the listening post slash observation post an observation post is a fixed position from which a person can visually observe an area of terrain or a sector of fire a listening post is again a fixed position that a person can audibly listen for enemy movement footsteps armored vehicles aircraft anything with an audible signature in modern warfare an observation post and a listening post are usually at the same physical site lpop right and are usually occupied by the same personnel it's not usually one or the other like in years past during the first world war the idea of the listening post really came into widespread use along all fronts of the war in the trenches of europe it was generally unwise to stick one's head up above the parapet to observe the enemy in fact many soldiers tragically got their first and only look at the enemy t lly unwise to stick one's head up above the parapet to observe the enemy in fact many soldiers tragically got their first and only look at the enemy this way before immediately being killed by a sniper but just because a person might get their head shot off looking out of a trench doesn't mean that there aren't requirements to observe the enemy after all with your adversary sometimes just a few dozen yards away it would be generally a good idea to keep a lookout in case you decided to come over and check out your trench thus the listening post was born during the war all sides of the conflict would dig saps or small trenches out into no man's land with the goal of getting a soldier physically close enough to the enemy to hear them by cataloging the routine sounds of the enemy trench one could easily detect when something was off such as an increase of footsteps on duct boards or more voices than usual things that are strong indicators of soldiers massing for an attack listening posts were not only regulated to no man's land and in many cases listening posts were located behind the lines as well in the days before radar soldiers would use strange contraptions like this to listen for y cases listening posts were located behind the lines as well in the days before radar soldiers would use strange contraptions like this to listen for the sound of enemy aircraft approaching seems pretty ridiculous to us today but many reports from soldiers at the time indicate that these large acoustic devices worked shockingly well and were widely used along all fronts during the war but that didn't last for long as the interwar years came about and world war ii got underway the widespread adoption of wireless technology meant that the listening posts of old morphed into something new rather than listening for engine sounds or massing troops or footsteps the new goal was to listen in to the radio signals blasting through the air thus the birth of signals intelligence or sigint the cold war years gave us listening posts all over europe little closets where spies and analysts tried to make sense of the beeps and squeaks being emitted by their equipment and in today's world not much has changed the idea of the listening post has never had more value than in today's world not just for military means but also for the hard times we might be living through the recent conflicts around th had more value than in today's world not just for military means but also for the hard times we might be living through the recent conflicts around the world have shown us that we have entered a new age of warfare a new age with some not so new tricks we have seen the widespread use of new technologies at the squad or even individual level such as unmanned aerial systems and high-tech surveillance tools but we have also seen the vulnerabilities that these tools bring to the table to put it simply most people to include most military units have the digital signature of a group of middle schoolers that just discovered tiktok a unit can have the best most high-tech camouflage and be invisible to both the human eye and any sensor you swing overhead but today even just one guy on snapchat or a commander who thinks he's above the rules can get his entire unit killed in minutes so today let's briefly talk about some of the tools that might be helpful if your goal is to maintain an electronic situational awareness of what's around you one of the simplest and easiest ways to get started with this is to simply monitor the aircraft around you with a flight tracking app flight tracking apps an the simplest and easiest ways to get started with this is to simply monitor the aircraft around you with a flight tracking app flight tracking apps and websites such as flight radar 24 and adsb exchange have gotten a lot of attention lately because people have started to realize just how often government intelligence collection platforms are flying around collecting intelligence on american citizens yes it is true that federal agencies and military units are known for turning off their transponders to avoid accountability however you would be surprised as to how infrequently this is done especially in the u.s if you just think about it the skies over most of the us and europe are very crowded and every civilian airport in the world has actual radar so when government agencies go dark and turn off their transponders it causes a lot of problems for other aircraft so unless there is a training exercise that is pre-planned with designated areas for flying around without a transponder on you can actually develop a very solid intelligence picture of what is around you just by downloading an app to your phone many apps even allow you to set notifications based on specific tail numbers so icture of what is around you just by downloading an app to your phone many apps even allow you to set notifications based on specific tail numbers so if you know what surveillance aircraft are typically used in your area you can get a notification whenever it goes wheels up this is a potentially life-saving feature of course there are downsides to flight tracking services that could potentially get you killed for one there's always the potential for an aircraft to turn off their transponder and you can bet that if anything shady is going on that potential is greatly increased so you never want to assume that since you don't see anything on the map you're good to go you really need to use all of the tools at your disposal when assessing risk not just a smartphone app speaking of apps not all are created equal for instance flight radar 24 regularly complies with the us government to block out all government and military aircraft adsb exchange a competing website also does this but to a much lesser extent in fact on adsb exchange you can filter the map to only show military aircraft a very handy feature indeed but as we can see the critical vulnerability with these websites is the fac filter the map to only show military aircraft a very handy feature indeed but as we can see the critical vulnerability with these websites is the fact that they are websites and you need not just an internet connection but a massive spy device to view the data not ideal so you end up using a smartphone that is connected to a cell tower to let you know that an aircraft overhead is collecting intelligence from that same smartphone and cell tower kind of oxymoronic in that case but there is a way around this so what you can do is build an adsb receiver this device built from a raspberry pi is flashed with stratix software which allows our phone to connect to it as a wi-fi access point this eliminates any data connection from the system entirely since you're basically just using your phone to control the adsb device the antenna on top can pick up the transponder signals of overhead aircraft and display that data on the app all without an internet connection whatsoever the only digital signature you leave behind with this example is the wi-fi connection between your phone and the actual adsb receiver box which is a lot more manageable than your phone pinging a cell phone tower however i-fi connection between your phone and the actual adsb receiver box which is a lot more manageable than your phone pinging a cell phone tower however there is yet again a major drawback for this system it only works with adsb which is the transponder mode that most civilian aircraft use most military and government aircraft use what's called mode s or an assortment of other alphabet soup modes which require not just one but a network of multilateration sensors to be able to detect if this sounds complicated it's because it is and we here honestly haven't figured out a way to make this work in the field just yet so the bottom line is that you can either use a smartphone app or you can go the extra mile and build a physical offline adsb receiver and it will work to detect aircraft in your area very handy for if you frequently have suspicious aircraft flying overhead the big bummer is that it won't track most military aircraft but for civilian aircraft or federal agencies this can be a very valuable tool to have up next another tool to have in your listening post toolbox is an sdr or software defined radio software-defined radios have become very popular these days for very good reaso ave in your listening post toolbox is an sdr or software defined radio software-defined radios have become very popular these days for very good reason sdrs are a great way to examine pretty much the entire radio spectrum easily and cheaply you can pick up an sdr for about 30 bucks online and when you plug it into either your phone or a computer you can take advantage of a wealth of sdr software to examine all of the signals around you the first time a person plugs in an sdr is often a very enlightening experience most people are completely unaware of just how many radio signals they can pick up even just sitting on their couch at home sdrs are a great gateway to getting into radio and are also a critical part of the intelligence collection process if you know how to use one sdrs are great because they are a tool that can be used by inexperienced users and highly advanced users depending on what one's skill level is and what their goals are sdrs are also great for introducing a lot of radio theory if a person wants to start getting into amateur radio one of the best things they can do is pick up an sdr and play around with it as they are studying radio theory things become a lot mo to amateur radio one of the best things they can do is pick up an sdr and play around with it as they are studying radio theory things become a lot more clear when you practice and you don't have to spend a lot of money on an expensive ham radio to start understanding radio concepts but on the listening side of things sdrs are a critical intelligence collection tool being able to observe large swaths of the electromagnetic spectrum at once is very handy most sdrs themselves are pretty standard it's really the software where things can get pretty wild there are literally hundreds of different software packages that work with most sdrs so the sky is the limit for what you want to do for most people sdrs are probably going to find most use recording local radio traffic this is why many people have said that your bowel thing will get you killed because analog unencrypted radio traffic can easily be monitored by someone with an sdr now of course i don't want to put the balfang down too much they certainly have their uses and rest assured the 300 top of the line analog handheld still has the same exact problem so cost or quality has nothing to do with it this is simply a massive vulnerab he 300 top of the line analog handheld still has the same exact problem so cost or quality has nothing to do with it this is simply a massive vulnerability of analog unencrypted communications during the riots of the past couple of years i myself have used sdrs to listen in on rioters planning attacks and also have tracked them since most of them have no concept of opsec and they freely use their real names and locations of course a lot of people have gotten wise to this these days but for the most part the second that a riot kicks off for the shooting starts all opsec goes right out the window but one of the problems with sdrs is that they often times are overwhelming and are rarely plug and play i guarantee you that if you don't have a lot of experience with radios and you plug in an sdr you're probably going to say what is all of this the trade-off with sdrs is that really to get the most out of them you really have to train with them and work the kinks out with whatever software you are using most people for simple use are going to be using as program called sdr sharp that's the main baseline software that a lot of people use just to simply listen to what their sdr has to recei o be using as program called sdr sharp that's the main baseline software that a lot of people use just to simply listen to what their sdr has to receive right out of the gate using sdrs at the tactical level is getting easier and there is a lot of development being done by a lot of companies on this so i would expect a lot of interesting things to be coming out in the near future that incorporate sdrs into more of a tactical setup but for right out of the box push one button and go operations one device that might help you out a lot is a radio scanner police scanners might be a bit outdated these days with strs being so popular and cheap but scanners might still have a place in your listening post for a few reasons having a device that is dedicated to sweeping through public service frequencies is very helpful to have if you are running other equipment for instance if you have a laptop set up in your listening post hooked up to either an hf radio or an sdr or some other kind of software it's going to be pretty tough to use an sdr for listening to specific frequencies all at the same time you might be able to get different virtual audio ports to work and use different kinds of cabli listening to specific frequencies all at the same time you might be able to get different virtual audio ports to work and use different kinds of cabling and things like that but for many people this is kind of a hassle and it's a bit buggy depending on the software you're using this is where having a dedicated scanner can be useful while you're working with other devices you can plug some earbuds into your scanner turn it on and let it do its thing while you are working on other stuff or while the ports on your laptop are occupied with other devices that's kind of what i do a lot of times it's really easy to stuff a battery-powered scanner in a pouch and run an earbud up to your ear while you were on the move to your hide site sure it's probably a much better idea to be able to hear your surroundings but it's also handy to hear the local message traffic before you move into an area as with everything there are trade-offs with doing this but anyway once you get to your hide site or listening post you can have a scanner on in the background as you pull out your gear route your cables and settle in as with every device there are a few downsides to using scanners for one there aren't t ound as you pull out your gear route your cables and settle in as with every device there are a few downsides to using scanners for one there aren't that many to choose from that are battery powered and the ones that are are very very expensive for what you get a good handheld battery powered scanner that is capable of picking up and decoding p25 transmissions will run you several hundred dollars that's a bit steep considering you can arguably get even more capability with a thirty dollar sdr and some free software but you have to remember that scanners are standalone devices you don't need to bring a laptop or a smartphone to use them sdrs you do you will need a phone or a laptop to use an sdr so that cost has to be accounted for too as for me personally we've got a couple of scanners floating around the office here so i tend to use them pretty often because we have them but knowing what i know now and seeing the extreme price jump that most electronics have undergone these days i probably would not drop five to seven hundred bucks on a scanner if i had to do it all over again i myself would probably put that money towards something else and just deal with the frustrations that mi n a scanner if i had to do it all over again i myself would probably put that money towards something else and just deal with the frustrations that might come with using an sdr for scanning needs this brings up the side note that from the perspective of a prepared citizen fiscal responsibility is real which reminds us to focus on capabilities rather than the shiny toys themselves these days we've got to be aware that asking your team members to all go out and spend 700 on a police scanner is not a realistic request but if you can add a police scanner to your setup it will add capabilities and convenience to your listening post the convenience of having a standalone device is very handy to have but it's yet another thing to carry that needs batteries and is very expensive one thing i should mention is that you don't necessarily have to buy a scanner to understand what's going on in your local area you can to start with download a police scanner app and see what's out there there are many websites and apps that allow you to select your city and listen to the main police or fire department frequencies that's cool if you're just getting started or just casually interested in listening city and listen to the main police or fire department frequencies that's cool if you're just getting started or just casually interested in listening to police traffic or even better you're trying to listen to traffic from a different city than you're located in many people have figured out that you can listen into the local police frequencies of cities where kinetic events are happening but as one might guess the downsides of using a police scanner app far outweigh the benefits for long-term use for one police departments have gotten wise to this and have even conducted deception operations spreading false information over the unencrypted radio to trick their adversaries also police scanner websites are heavily censored and in the past have responded to requests to shut down their streaming services to particular feeds and finally the biggest vulnerability is of course that these apps require a data connection and the internet to function so overall the amount of useful information that you would get from a scanner app doesn't hold a candle to the data that that spy satellite in your pocket is beaming directly into a surveillance aircraft or a fake cell phone tower so you can try candle to the data that that spy satellite in your pocket is beaming directly into a surveillance aircraft or a fake cell phone tower so you can try out scanner websites or use them for listening to areas that are far beyond the range of a normal scanner but these days listening to scanner traffic on the internet has suffered from diminishing returns so often times the juice isn't worth the squeeze along the same lines as scanners and sdrs but significantly more complicated are few devices of questionable nature that you might find to be quite handy in some situations specifically i'm talking about the hack rf1 mayhem version this is kind of a new class of device it's a bit hard to explain in short it's a handheld battery-powered sdr with a lot of hacking tools built into it unlike most other sdrs on the market this sdr can transmit and this is where the questionable nature of these kinds of devices comes into play this device right out of the box can jam message traffic can spoof gps signals can intercept and playback car key fobs and intercept pretty much every bit of traffic that is whizzing through the air many of these capabilities are very illegal to do in the us to the best nd intercept pretty much every bit of traffic that is whizzing through the air many of these capabilities are very illegal to do in the us to the best of my knowledge but nonetheless these devices have become somewhat common and might be useful depending on what you are trying to do honestly as cool as the questionable features are this bad boy is not cranking out nearly enough power to make it worthwhile i think these devices for the moment belong on the workbench for testing it is helpful for diagnostics or for teaching and illustrating concepts but in real world use the feature that most people will find useful is simply just having a standalone sdr device with its own screen again i must point out that the hack rf1 and other cloned devices like this one are not for beginners and you can cause a lot of problems and break a lot of stuff if you don't know what you're doing with these and since the only way that you can currently get these in the us is to order them from china this extremely delicate device might not be the best fit for everyone for me this device falls into the category of bleeding edge developmental tech that might not be the best for real world operations just y or everyone for me this device falls into the category of bleeding edge developmental tech that might not be the best for real world operations just yet but in the right hands these devices might be really useful and i look forward to the next generations of such devices so to recap when we are making our modern day electronic listing posts we can be as simple or as complex as the mission requires a listening post can be as simple as a person sitting in their car watching a flight tracking app or we can erect a camouflaged hide site in a contested environment electronically sniffing out signals as they are emitted by a careless adversarial force so stepping back from the actual sensors themselves let's think about some other things that we might need to know or consider for building a listening post up first are your own communications of course if a situation exists and wish you would need a listening post chances are you will need to communicate with your own team as well this again could be as simple or as complex as you need and your own communications needs will dictate what you choose you could simply just have a handheld uhf radio that you use to let your neighbor know what our own communications needs will dictate what you choose you could simply just have a handheld uhf radio that you use to let your neighbor know what you just heard on your scanner it doesn't have to be super complicated but it can be if needed in fact your own radios that you use for your own communication can be intelligence collection tools as well using your sdr you can start observing who's out there and what frequencies they are using then you can take your own handheld radio and connect it up to a yagi antenna to approximate which direction these transmissions are coming from two or three observation posts operating in conjunction with each other can provide some scary accurate direction finding capabilities direction finding is a huge topic and we've kind of talked about this before but for a more casual user a simple directional antenna which hopefully you are able to use for your own internal communications can also serve you very well when trying to direction find any adversarial signals you pick up with your sdr and let me tell you you're going to be really popular with intel dudes if you can send in a report with not only the frequency of what you heard but also a roug tell you you're going to be really popular with intel dudes if you can send in a report with not only the frequency of what you heard but also a rough bearing from your position maybe not super useful if you're a one-man show but if you're working with a team of neighbors or friends and you're lucky enough to have someone coordinating information from listening posts this information will be very nice to have we also have to remember to keep things feasible and realistic another major consideration for even considering setting up a listening post is our end goal and whether or not our actions are even worth it in the long run for the most part most people are going to be interested in setting up and occupying a listening post in response to world events a riot kicks off and you might spend a night at your living room window observing your field of view and listening to radio chatter very few people are going to be implementing a listening post into their daily lives and that's perfectly fine but again like we say constantly the boring stuff is in most cases even more important than all the cool guy stuff you will have no trouble convincing anyone to go have a range day with you bu g stuff is in most cases even more important than all the cool guy stuff you will have no trouble convincing anyone to go have a range day with you but it will be like pulling teeth to get someone to go sit in an observation post for a couple of hours a week listening to local radio traffic to get an understanding of the baseline activity that's understandably a big challenge for people to meet and even these days where there are actually kind of a lot of people that understand the importance of integrating operations like this into their daily lives listening to radio traffic after you've had a long day at work will get irritating after a few weeks remember we're planning for not just an uncomfortable week out on the field not just an uncomfortable couple of weeks practicing skills we're talking about potentially using these skills over decades this is made especially more irritating when considering where most listening posts will have to be located which is something i have left out until now unlike listening posts in the past which had to be physically located very close to an adversary's position our modern electronic listening posts can be a little bit more flexible with its h had to be physically located very close to an adversary's position our modern electronic listening posts can be a little bit more flexible with its location since we're listening for radio signals or other emissions we can be pretty much anywhere that our sensors can pick up these signals so in most cases you don't actually have to go out to a fox hole in the woods to set up a listening post of course this will depend on your electronic environment but most people can just set up listing posts in their own home for instance you can decide alright something's going down i hear a lot of helicopters in the area we need to get comms and some electronic surveillance up and running and in most cases this could be as simple as sitting on your couch and opening up a laptop with an sdr that's perfectly fine if you're able to do that but in many cases we also have to remember that integrating a listening post or just basic electronic surveillance tools into your normal everyday life is not going to be so easy or seamless a lot of people myself included have a lot of electromagnetic interference or emi in their home so you might have to relocate a bit usually outside or up in an attic or so f included have a lot of electromagnetic interference or emi in their home so you might have to relocate a bit usually outside or up in an attic or something like that and as we all know the further away we get from a point of convenience the more unlikely we are to do something what is going to happen is this you get home from work and see that there is a riot planned for that night or a new checkpoint that has gone up in your area and you decide that it would be a good idea to set up your electronic surveillance and see what's out there well you can't hear anything from inside your house so you've got to go to your backyard oh and now it's raining so you've got to set up a tent but by now home life catches up to you and two hours have a lap so it's getting late and you're super tired and you've got to get up early in the next morning you see where all this is going if it is not immediately convenient and effortless people will just not do it that's something that i myself have come to realize over the years especially with anything to do with communications and i get it i understand that radios are not exciting and frequently very very hard to understand and there are only so man to do with communications and i get it i understand that radios are not exciting and frequently very very hard to understand and there are only so many hours in the day so it's hard to dedicate time to listening to the radio to see what's going on but a lot of times it's also super frustrating to watch someone stay up all night researching their latest clone ar build but suddenly get real sleepy when radios or electronic surveillance comes up anyway this digression is necessary because it's reality we're not going to be embracing the suck in a hole in the woods because some nco told us to civilian life is not the same as military life especially when it comes to things like electronic surveillance and building listening posts we have to consider a person's motivation even our own motivation and how stuff like this can be implemented into our daily lives remember throughout history ordinary citizens in times of struggle have had full-time jobs homesteaded as much as they could and also ran more clandestine lifestyles behind the scenes all three of these are full-time jobs in and of themselves but when hard times hit the prepared citizen becomes even more busy than ever we here get a all three of these are full-time jobs in and of themselves but when hard times hit the prepared citizen becomes even more busy than ever we here get a lot of questions from people who are either by themselves or it's just them and their spouse and or kids and they are wondering how they can implement a lot of this stuff if their team is basically just themselves and maybe one or two other people well there's nothing wrong with this for for a long time i myself was running basically a one-man operations center in my local area so i know how difficult it is to run one-man or really small teams and even to this day with everyone's schedule being really full and everyone having their own lives right it's it's a lot harder to run team operations especially for a specific static event right and we have a lot of stuff coming out soon on that front but for now speaking of listening posts we have to realize that a one-man listening post is going to be challenging because a person can only do so much sure you can potentially automate a lot of this stuff and once you get more experience even build unmanned electronic surveillance devices but for the most part we're going to suffer from the op his stuff and once you get more experience even build unmanned electronic surveillance devices but for the most part we're going to suffer from the opportunity cost of time management time that you spend sending your own radio traffic is time you are not spending listening to adversaries the time you spend messing around with an sdr is time that you're probably not paying attention to your scanner and time that you are sleeping or conducting camp tasks or even just having a home life is time that you are not really manning your post so with all of that being said here are some things you can do to more easily integrate electronic surveillance capabilities into your daily life first up is have a goal we in the intelligence world might call this a collection plan or a series of priority intelligence requirements in other words a series of questions that you need to answer this can be as formal or as casual as needed but it's very handy to making you feel like you aren't wasting your time you don't want to get all set up and surround yourself with expensive gear only to say alright now what do i do having clear goals for your listening post will not just help yourself stay motivated b rself with expensive gear only to say alright now what do i do having clear goals for your listening post will not just help yourself stay motivated but will also be handy for anyone else who might be part of your group you never know if your listening post or your electronic surveillance skills proves their worth you might find that others want to join you and network with you this is very unlikely to happen if you aren't prepared so adding just a pinch of professionalism and organization can add legitimacy to what otherwise might feel a bit like larping in the woods without a clear goal nothing wrong with that but if you want to be efficient with your training setting goals is a great way to do that up next is shelter again while i myself am a fan of a just suck it up mentality when it comes to operations that's just not realistic in the long run so for a lot of this stuff comfort is a much higher priority than we might be used to in a military context this is mostly reflected in the choice of shelter or even having a shelter at all i know that if i'm going to be spending some time in an area or a static location i will just set up a tent for a listening post even if i'm not plan i know that if i'm going to be spending some time in an area or a static location i will just set up a tent for a listening post even if i'm not planning on sleeping somewhere a tent offers protection from the elements which is nice because i guarantee you that the moment you have all of your delicate electronics out and cables strung everywhere it's gonna start raining there is another benefit to using a tent versus just spreading out your gear in the open and that benefit is privacy let's be honest a lot of us are going to be setting up listening posts in our backyards either legitimately or for training a lot of people are going to be setting up posts in places where other people might be in close proximity to their location i don't know about anyone else but these days especially after the past two years most state county and city parks in my area are like times square there are people everywhere in the woods these days i spent a good portion of my childhood camping in state parks all up and down the east coast and in most cases my family and i were the only people in the entire park not so these days so if you have the idea of oh let's go camping at a state park or a national my family and i were the only people in the entire park not so these days so if you have the idea of oh let's go camping at a state park or a national park this weekend to practice skills unless you are backpacking miles into the backcountry be prepared for someone to walk up to your campsite things can get a little bit weird if you've got thousands of dollars of surveillance equipment laid out for everyone to see so keeping your gear in a tent away from prying eyes would probably be a good idea yeah i know the solution to this would be to just not camp in state parks or national parks or places where campsites even exist i understand and agree and i personally prefer not to train on public land anyway or anywhere near other humans makes things simpler that way but again we have to be realistic and most people are just not going to ruck 50 miles into the woods just for an overnight training exercise most people are also not going to dig a fighting position to sleep in every night or spend hours concealing their position that would be great to do but sometimes we have training goals that make it not particularly feasible to go for an ultra stealth camp setup most people are going to great to do but sometimes we have training goals that make it not particularly feasible to go for an ultra stealth camp setup most people are going to go out into their yard where there might be prying eyes of neighbors that might not be so friendly or they are otherwise going to go to more generally publicly accessible locations and these days anything public easily accessible and free is going to bring a stampede of people that make it not a super great idea to advertise that you're intercepting radio transmissions again maybe not a super big consideration for some but i did want to mention it because not many people talk about this sort of thing these days even though it's become a pretty big training barrier for most having a dedicated and protected place to set up a listening post is not only great for mobility and privacy but it is really handy to have if you are by yourself and you have to have more force multiplying gear to make up for not having people to help you out and speaking of not having that many people to help you out automation will make your life easier if you can figure out how to implement it into your setup now i've got to be super vague on this topic for now t automation will make your life easier if you can figure out how to implement it into your setup now i've got to be super vague on this topic for now because i myself am still working through some automation options for electronic listening posts just as soon as i or the team here finds something really cool we test it out and find a lot of bugs or it's just not a super good fit or something else so we've got some work to do on that front but i did want to mention that automation is very handy to have software packages that automatically record and store message traffic speech to text engines signal decoders network analysis tools tools that automatically identify signals direction finding tools all of this stuff would really take your listening post to the next level but again we've got some work to do to get all this to work and finally integration integrating listening post capabilities into something else is a great way to make sure you are training efficiently you don't have to be so formal about listening posts to maintain effectiveness you can take along a phone and an sdr when you go camping and spend an hour or so just playing around with it when you have some downtime ma ctiveness you can take along a phone and an sdr when you go camping and spend an hour or so just playing around with it when you have some downtime maintaining a knowledge of how the features work on the app or the software that you use if you are already setting up an observation post bring along a police scanner and increase your capabilities beyond your line of sight using an adsb receiver will allow you to intercept aircraft transponder transmissions which will allow you to identify and differentiate the different aircraft that might be in your area any little bit of electronic surveillance that you can integrate into your operations is helpful if not for the information that you collect then for the training that you get 95 of the time you try to collect some information you're gonna come up short you're just not going to get anything that's reliable but just like they call it fishing not catching you have to go through the effort to get that last five percent of information that might be helpful the great part about all of this is that you can pick and choose what you want to do and flex what gear you have to meet your needs so to wrap things up let's remember that this examp is that you can pick and choose what you want to do and flex what gear you have to meet your needs so to wrap things up let's remember that this example is just one way of doing things your listening post could be as small as the admin pouch on your plate carrier with an str antenna hanging out the side or it could be as old school as a closet in your house with covert antennas strung up in the attic to intercept communications or other signals in your local area you might choose to incorporate some surveillance capabilities into your radio setup the list of things you can do is endless one thing to remember though is that if your listening post also happens to transmit anything such as your own radio communications be mindful that radio shacks tend to be called artillery magnets for a reason a good textbook listening post will not emit any signals but instead house sensors to soak up the surrounding message traffic but as always your setup will be dependent on your goals and since we don't have to worry about mortars slamming into our living rooms just yet transmitting routine combs from your listening post for training and safety purposes might be perfectly fine in some situation r living rooms just yet transmitting routine combs from your listening post for training and safety purposes might be perfectly fine in some situations always a good idea to keep your missions under control though if you can anyway let's remember the overall goal here baby steps into the world of sigint the second nerds of years past huddled away in their closets with their beeps and squeaks haven't done a super great job at making their field understandable by normal people and likewise many people haven't been interested in dipping their toes into the world of sigit either so it's a two-way street but in today's world integrating your own sigint or electronic surveillance capabilities even at the smallest individual level has become necessary we have got to get ahead of the game here and right now even a 30 dollar sdr is a force multiplier that can make millions of dollars of military tech irrelevant despite the hundreds of billions of dollars that nations around the world spend on defense we're finding out right now just how effective the average citizen in the right place at the right time can be so let's get out there and get after it pitch a tent in the backyard and go campin ive the average citizen in the right place at the right time can be so let's get out there and get after it pitch a tent in the backyard and go camping for a night with the kids the next time you're training at the range take along an sdr and see who's talking on the radio around you i guarantee you there will be a few people talking on unencrypted analog radios that you can listen in on which is great for practice remember crawl walk then run second is a huge topic so we really have to take baby steps when trying to learn how to use these tools otherwise we'll get frustrated and rage quit never to return learning how to use an sdr is one of the very first steps and as you grow and learn the grand question is going to come up what do i do with all of the information i collect and that my friends is a topic for another day for now let's encourage one another to realize the urgency and importance of organic second capabilities and more importantly how to integrate these capabilities into our daily lives in such a way that it's not going to be overwhelming or annoying in the long run that's the real challenge and one that is going to be tough to meet but as always the first step is to to be overwhelming or annoying in the long run that's the real challenge and one that is going to be tough to meet but as always the first step is to get out there and practice so let's go do exactly that even if we have to for the time being fight in the shade