[RFI] Portables for sniffing RFI

[Gary Johnson]

I have a fairly tired, used, Realistic DX-398. Sensitivity is fine for noise sniffing. S meter is highly nonlinear but after testing it I know how to interpret it (you should check the one on the Tecsuns and see how they work, too…). Antenna is a very cheap and simple resonant loop with very high transducer gain, excellent directionality, and requires no power :-)  This rig has served me well in RFI hunts at many QTHs.
http://wb9jps.com/Gary_Johnson/RFI_files/Handheld_DF_Antenna.pdf

As for portable spectrum analyzers, sensitivity is really important unless you want to spend all your time looking at very slow scans with narrow RBW. Requires a preamp unless the RFI is outrageously loud. That’s one reason that folks have been using tiny SDRs and laptops. Also a wideband antenna is more much useful than a narrowband one like mine. The KQ6RS antenna would make a good companion, I think. 

-Gary NA6O