On Android, you will need the application Magic SDR and the RTL SDR driver application. Plug your SDR into your phone using a USB C dongle, open the application, and click the RTL SDR option. Next, do some research on the brand of walkie-talkies your adversaries have and make note of the frequency, mine use 462ish with minor changes depending on the channel they are talking on.
Type in the desired frequency (using the Jump button) and you can use your thumb to pan around to see where the most noise is emanating. When you can lock on to the correct frequency, click ‘RX’ and switch to NFM or USB to hear the transmissions better. Feel free to keep playing with the settings for more clarity. You may want to charge your phone through the dongle as SDRs use lots of battery.
On Windows, I use the application SDR# (SDR Sharp). After installing the software and setting up the correct drivers for the software open the application. Next, click the three lines on the top right corner, click source, and click RTL SDR USB. Next, use the numbers at the top to get to the correct channel by clicking the tip to go 1 number higher and the bottom to go one number lower. Mine is around 460 MHZ so that would be 000.460.000.000.
Note where you see spikes on the graph and touch there for finer tuning. Then, touch the three bars again and select radio, the bubble WFM or NFM seems to work for me, but you play around with the setting to get the best clarity. Finally press the triangle-shaped 'Play' button!!
In our next article, I can show how you can tape your adversaries walkie talkie conversations as evidence OR how you can tape yours for regulatory compliance in SDR #.
God Bless and Tech Talk To You Later!!!
Please make the comments constructive, and vulgarity will not be tolerated!