The story of our rig is simple. Crunch and I were talking about a story I had read on the Internet about being able to look at unencrypted video. He thought the idea was awesome, so that night, we started ordering parts off the Internet. We started like most people with a standard x10, 4-channel receiver. This worked great for about a week.

The problem with x10 receivers is this. First of all, they only hit four channels. If you're ever driving around, you will notice that there are tons of wireless cameras you can see that your x10 receiver won't pick up. Second, the receiver wasn't made to rotate through frequencies. You have to manually switch every time you want to check the other three channels.

So we set about building our own box. And this is what we have ended up with:

Photography By: Brian L. Schilling

Custom MATCO 8 channel 2.4 GHz board: This thing is awesome. It cost a decent amount (I think like $150-$200) but we got to pick the 8 frequencies we wanted programmed to the chip. VERY HANDY. It runs off 12v DC, so no inverter was needed, and it has an RCA video out. (Warning!) Be absolutely positive that you have your positive and negative power connections correct or you could fry your board.

One modification we did make was adding 8 Single Pole, Double Throw switches for channel selection.  The receiver came with a bank of dipswitches, so we just soldered pigtails off each solder point. This allows us to run things from the control panel.  I highly recommend MATCO for just about everything you need, plus it picks up sound.

Stereo Speakers: In my opinion these are a must. Sound isn't too common in WARspying, I would say there is about a 10% chance that you will find a signal with sound, and most of the time it will just be street noise. But when you get a signal with sound, it’s gold. And, when you really get the hang of WARspying, you'll notice that audio noise thins before you are about to hit a signal.

Our speakers are a pair of battery-operated computer speakers that we purchased at Radio Shack.  We ripped the guts out, threw the plastic shells away and worked them into our application.

7 inch LCD: We bought this off the back of a truck for not too much. Don't go out and drop $200 for a car LCD kit, you don't need it. The LCD in the rig is for monitoring; you just need to see there is an image. Also remember 16:9 doesn't matter with WARspying, you will be very hard pressed to find a 16:9 signal. Do don't pay more for 16:9, 4:3 is all you need.

Antenna: Currently we are using 7 dB Omni-Directional Antenna (MG200 Mono-band Mobile Antenna) with a magnetic mount, from Diamond Antenna. It’s good, but could be better. Recently Crunch ordered a 40” (yes 40-inches, I think it's overkill too) 2.4ghz 11db Omni-Directional antenna from Fleeman Anderson & Bird, Corp.

Case: All of this is enclosed in a #1200 Pelican case with fitted Plexiglas panels inside. This is where we have mounted main power switches, frequency switches, speakers with volume control, and audio/video outputs. On the right side of the Pelican Case is our N Female jack for an external antenna. (Warning: it is very good practice never to run a transmitter or receiver without an antenna attached.) A cigarette lighter adapter usually powers all of this but we have also used battery packs and an AC to DC converter.

-Mr. Punch