For those of you who are new to AmRRON, one of the components of communications we’ve recently increased emphasis on is SIGINT. It’s a military acronym for SIGnals INTelligence, meaning the monitoring and tracking of radio communications to stay informed of a situation. That of course, is the oversimplified explanation.
The Missouri Grand Jury is expected to release it’s decision on whether or not to recommend criminal charges against Officer Wilson in the next week or so. The aftermath of the decision, especially if the officer is acquitted, has a high probability of including violent protests and, at a minimum, civil unrest in and around the St. Louis and Ferguson areas.
The Missouri Governor has already announced that any violence will be swiftly dealt with by as many as 1000 law enforcement officers, as well as National Guard assets which will be standing by. This may provide a real-world SIGINT training opportunity for patriot/preparedness-minded citizens with an interest in communications. For some patriots (including Redoubters and AmRRON operators) living and/or working in the greater St. Louis area, this may even become more than just a ‘training’ exercise.
If civil unrest ensues, expect conventional communications to be disrupted intentionally (by authorities) or consequentially (sabotage, fire, or systemic overload).
As AmRRON operators, you should be preparing your stations to monitor ARES/RACES traffic, as well as scanner traffic, and military radio traffic.
Below are the frequencies for the Missouri National Guard.
For the previous posting on Ferguson communications resources, which also lists the ARES/RACES frequencies and the Broadcastify link for monitoring scanner traffic, go to:
https://amrron.com/2014/10/09/real-world-sigint-opportunity-civil-unrest-missouri-activating-emergency-operations/
To read more about SIGINT on AmRRON.com, go to Intercept – Collect – Report (Part 1)
Those using scanners and also with a PC handy, take a gander at this software –
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Audio/Other-AUDIO-Tools/Scanner-Recorder-Scanrec.shtml
The author is no longer updating but the functions for scanner use work well. VOX only records during speech, quiet times save hard drive space.
While a microphone close to the scanner will record, better results occur with hard wired interface.
This really is a good program. I have used it for years and just added it to a windows 7 laptop. The neat thing is that one can use this to record any type of audio. I needed a quick and dirty way to record a local speaker at a meeting one time and this program worked just fine with great results. I have used it to record a faulty radio system and it compressed all the transmissions that spread over several days into a useable form where we easily found the problem. Get it, and you’ll like it.
Juliet59 is correct, you can also install under Wine for Linux machines, my favorite. The VOX function makes a big difference in required record time.