1. Privacy
This site has no accounts, no forms, no advertising, no analytics and no tracking scripts. It sets no cookies. Every page, typeface and script comes from this site itself.
| What | Where it goes |
|---|---|
| Two small settings: the print you chose (Paper or Blueprint), and if the contents tab of a guide is open | They stay in your own browser (local storage). They are never sent to me or to anyone. |
| Your request for a page | Cloudflare serves this site. Like every web host, it handles your IP address and the address of the page to deliver it, and it keeps logs for security. See Cloudflare's privacy policy. |
| An email you send me | I get your address and your message, through Cloudflare's mail forwarding and my mailbox. I use them to answer you. |
| A link you follow to another site (YouTube, a seller, a program's page) | That site's own rules apply from there. |
The sounds and the dial on the home page are made in your browser. They are not live data from my station. The site is not made for children, and it collects nothing from anyone.
2. Links and money
I list the parts I use. Where mine was secondhand, or the exact part is not sold where I link, the link goes to a close equivalent and the parts list marks it “similar”. A part on a list is not advice to buy it.
Some links are affiliate links: if you buy through them, I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Those links go to Amazon, and for the RX-888 to OpenSourceSDRLab, the store I bought it from. The price you pay is the same.
Prices in the guides are the seller's price on the date written beside them. They change.
3. Using the guides
The guides tell what I did, and what the makers of each program publish. They are information from one hobbyist, not professional advice.
- You use them at your own risk. I give no warranty that a step works on your equipment, or that it is still correct after its check date.
- Roofs, mains power and lightning can injure or kill. An outdoor antenna must be installed and bonded to ground by the rules of your national electrical code. Use a qualified person for that work.
- Each guide lists what was not run or not confirmed. Read that section first.
- The programs belong to their authors. Each one has its own licence and its own terms. So does each tracking network that you send data to.
- Your position can become public. Most tracking networks show their feeder stations on a map. The guides say so before each step of that kind.
4. Radio law
Everything on this channel today is reception. Nothing here needs a transmitter, and no guide tells you to transmit.
- The law on what you may receive, record and pass on differs between countries. Check the law where you live.
- For the United States, I read 47 U.S.C. section 605. It says that a person who receives a radio message not meant for the public must not tell others its contents, or use it for gain. It makes exceptions for broadcasts to the public, for amateur and CB radio, and for messages about ships, aircraft or people in distress.
- So I show that a message arrived, and what kind it was. I do not publish the text of real aircraft messages, real distress calls, or recordings of military voice traffic. The examples on this site and in the videos are invented, and each one says "example".
- If you hear a real distress call, the coast stations already have it. Do not pass it on.
If you transmit
Later episodes will be about amateur radio, and amateur radio transmits. One rule comes before every other.
- Never transmit on a frequency, in a mode or at a power that your licence does not allow. A receiver needs no licence. A transmitter does, almost everywhere.
- In the United States you need an amateur licence from the FCC before you transmit on an amateur band. The rules are in Part 97. The licence class sets the bands that you may use.
- Never transmit on a frequency of aircraft, ships, public safety or the military. Never transmit a false distress call. Never cause interference on purpose.
- If you are not sure that you may transmit, do not transmit. Listen first.
Where to read more
| FCC: Interception and Divulgence of Radio Communications | The FCC's own plain summary of what a listener in the United States may and may not do |
| 47 U.S.C. section 605 | The text of the law |
| FCC: Amateur Radio Service | Licences and operator classes in the United States |
| 47 CFR Part 97 | The amateur radio rules: bands, modes, power |
| ARRL: Getting Licensed | How to get an amateur licence, from the national association for amateur radio in the United States |
5. Copyright and credits
The text, the drawings and the videos are © 2026 Spurious Emissions. You may read, print and use a guide to build your own station, and you may quote a short part with a link. Ask me before you publish a whole guide or a drawing somewhere else.
| Work of others | Terms |
|---|---|
| Detailed coastline of the Puget Sound in the videos | Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors, Open Database License |
| Regional and world coastlines | Natural Earth, public domain |
| The weather chart in episode 8 | A broadcast of the US National Weather Service, public domain |
| Typefaces: Jost, Newsreader, IBM Plex Mono | SIL Open Font License |
| Typefaces of the lab pages | Atkinson Hyperlegible, Big Shoulders Display, Martian Mono, Architects Daughter, Bricolage Grotesque, IBM Plex and Michroma: SIL Open Font License. Special Elite: Apache License 2.0. Copies from Google Fonts, served from this site. |
| Programs named on the site | Each belongs to its authors, under its own licence. The parts list links to each one. |
Names of products and companies belong to their owners. This channel is not connected with any of them, or with any government agency, airline, shipping line or tracking network that it names.
6. Contact
Write to hello@spurious-emissions.net if something on this site is wrong, if it shows something of yours that it should not, or if you want to use a part of it.