This wishlist is practical. It is written for hobbyists, engineers, and small labs who want to build repeatable, legal, and tactical-capable electronic warfare toolchains for 2025. Items are prioritized by impact, feasibility, and safety.

1) Affordable, full-spectrum SDR lab kit (RX/TX, calibrated) Rationale: A lot of EW experimentation starts with an SDR that can both receive and transmit across a wide band. Low-cost transceivers like the HackRF One support 1 MHz to 6 GHz and are widely used as an entry platform, while higher-performance boards such as LimeSDR provide MIMO-capable front ends and greater dynamic range for more demanding tasks. A community kit should pair a mid-range SDR with a calibrated RF front end, selectable preselectors, and ready-to-use coax and antenna adapters so newcomers do not inadvertently misconfigure hardware.

2) A low-cost, modular DF and geolocation toolkit Rationale: Direction finding and multilateration are fundamental EW tasks. The wishlist item is a modular DF kit that includes synchronized SDR nodes or channels, a simple GUI for time-difference-of-arrival or amplitude-comparison methods, and clear calibration procedures. For synchronization, units that provide 10 MHz and 1 PPS references and GPS-disciplined oscillators are critical for sub-microsecond timing and MIMO/DF performance as seen in established USRP product families. This reduces the barrier to building small, effective DF arrays without requiring a full test range.

3) Portable, legal test ranges and offline jammer simulators Rationale: Actual jamming is illegal in many jurisdictions and dangerous for public safety. What the community needs are portable, shielded test boxes, RF anechoic tents, and software-based jammer simulators that emulate the RF footprint without radiating into public spectrum. These tools should include clear legal checklists and automated safety interlocks to prevent accidental emissions. U.S. federal guidance explicitly prohibits civilian operation, marketing, and sale of jammers; that legal context must inform any practical test approach.

4) Open-source, production-grade RAN and drone C2 emulation stacks Rationale: Testing how a drone or a mobile C2 channel reacts under interference requires full-stack RAN and UE capabilities. Modern open-source RAN projects provide full 4G and 5G stacks that are already used for lab deployments and mobile research. A community toolkit should include prebuilt srsRAN images, recommended SDR interfaces, and constrained UE simulators so teams can run repeatable experiments on isolated lab networks. This lets researchers study resilience, fallback behavior, and C2 spoofing risks in a controlled environment.

5) Better signal visualization and automated classification with accessible ML pipelines Rationale: Spectrograms and waterfall displays are useful but not sufficient when many signals crowd the band. The wishlist requests integrated ML-enabled signal classification toolchains that plug into common SDR backends like GNU Radio, with curated training datasets and example notebooks. GNU Radio remains the canonical signal processing toolkit for prototyping and should be the primary integration point for any community ML modules. The goal is reproducible feature extraction, explainable classifiers, and simple APIs for community contributions.

6) Hardened, documented test vectors and datasets Rationale: Reproducibility is the biggest current problem. The community needs a shared library of recorded I/Q captures, annotated events, and standardized interference scenarios. These should be licensed for research use, include metadata for capture equipment and signal chain, and come with unit-test like scripts so algorithmic improvements can be benchmarked objectively across tools and hardware.

7) Cheap, reliable shielding and injection benches for safety testing Rationale: A key practical gap is inexpensive EMI/EMC benches that let hobbyists couple signals into target devices without on-air transmission. The wishlist calls for a low-cost injection bench design, repeatable RF connectors and absorptive couplers, and clear SOPs for isolation verification. This enables real device testing while remaining within legal emission limits.

8) Standardized UX for workflow safety and legal compliance Rationale: Too many tools assume users know spectrum law and safety procedures. A standardized UX layer should make it explicit when an action will cause on-air transmission, show applicable legal warnings, require confirmations, and offer safe alternatives such as offline emulation. This reduces accidents and liability for newcomers.

9) Portable DF and spectrum reconnaissance combined with pragmatic ops guides Rationale: Operators need compact, battery-backed kits optimized for field reconnaissance: an SDR, a multi-band antenna, simple DF accessories, and an operator guide that covers calibration, geolocation methods, and reporting. The guide should clearly separate lawful monitoring and incident response best practices from prohibited activities.

10) Community training curriculum and certification tracks Rationale: The technical barriers are lowering while the legal and ethical stakes are rising. The wishlist recommends modular training: fundamentals of RF and DSP, hands-on SDR labs with simulated threats, spectrum policy and compliance, and tactical use cases such as detecting spoofing and building DF arrays. Community-run certifications would help employers and teams assess baseline competency.

Implementation notes and minimum specs

  • SDR baseline: half-duplex to full-duplex hardware with at least 61.44 MSPS streaming and a frequency range that covers HF through lower microwave bands for generality. Examples exist from both hobbyist and research vendors.
  • Timing and sync: 10 MHz and 1 PPS inputs for any DF or MIMO setup. Use GPSDOs for field systems when legal and practical.
  • Legal safety: Include automated no-transmit modes, on-screen legal reminders, and documented SOPs tied to local law. In the U.S., note that operation, sale, or marketing of jammers is controlled and illegal for civilians. Anyone experimenting with interference techniques must use shielded labs or obtain explicit authorization.

How to help right now

  • Contribute datasets: share anonymized, licensed I/Q captures and annotated events with clear hardware metadata.
  • Build the safety UX: volunteer time to add explicit no-transmit confirmations and preflight safety checks to popular SDR GUIs and flowgraphs.
  • Produce portable bench designs: prototype shielded boxes and injection methods with bills of materials and verification steps.
  • Create step-by-step lab scenarios: small, repeatable experiments that teach DF, spectrum occupancy analysis, and RAN resilience without any on-air transmission.

Closing tactical note A 2025 toolbox will not be a single product. It will be a stack: accessible SDR hardware, safe lab fixtures, open-source RAN and DSP frameworks, ML-enabled signal tools, and a heavy emphasis on legal compliance. The community can build this with incremental wins. Start with dataset sharing, safety-first UX changes, and a few standard bench designs. Those deliverables help everyone move from ad-hoc tinkering to repeatable, responsible experimentation.