How to build an RF Meter

Projects General Guidance
1

I like to build an RF detector which monitors the electromagnetic radiation from mobile phones, Wi-Fi, cell phone towers, cordless phones, Bluetooth, TV towers, wireless communications, digital RF transmitters, RF-EMF, ... Therefore the device should work in a wide frequency range, from 100 MHz up to 3.8 GHz. The main goal is to detect the activation date of the of a Tetra tower. I can position the device within a radius from 100 to 500 meters with respect to the tower. Terrestrial Trunked Radio - Wikipedia

It should be possible to record the data and plot diagrams, so I can measure the RF exposure over time.

I saw Arduino projects out there like How to make a custom Arduino EMF RF Detector - YouTube But I am not sure that the meet my requirements. I think the difficulty is to monitor overall frequencies. I work as IT-technician so my knowledge is limited about wireless transmission technologies. There are vendors out there who offer similar devices without a record function to a low price, thus it should be possible to realize such a project on my own.

2

Permission granted.

Paul

3

Google term "software defined radio".

It's a shame about your high upper frequency requirement - lots of USB DAB/DVB solutions available, but none really Arduino territory.

4

The RF power meter you linked to might well be low cost, but I would not assume that because its available, that it would be possible or practical to do a DIY version.

The RFExplorer is a useful tool, http://rfexplorer.com/ and it does record stuff.

5

hanSolu:
I like to build an RF detector which monitors the electromagnetic radiation from mobile phones, Wi-Fi, cell phone towers, cordless phones, Bluetooth, TV towers, wireless communications, digital RF transmitters, RF-EMF

And why do you want to do this ?

6

One of the devices you linked to did seem to be fairly low cost and it looked like it had a serial interface as there was a screenshot from a computer showing data.

If the only thing lacking in these products is a logging feature then perhaps the way to go is to use one of them as a detector and just add logging via the serial interface.

You need to be sure that the product actually does what you think it does, so check that out first. Also one product seemed to have 5 pot adjustments. You need to check how easy the products are to setup, calibrate and use and how good the documentation is.

7

The why question. I like to monitor and archive all changes which happen in the environment, from air pollution to temperature changes over time. And to archive, the changes off EMF fields and so on is the next step.

8

hanSolu:
The why question. I like to monitor and archive all changes which happen in the environment, from air pollution to temperature changes over time. And to archive, the changes off EMF fields and so on is the next step.

Is your intention to also monitor the EMF field that the sun has created and the earth is surrounded by?

Paul