During the episode, Our Hero, the one and only J Gibbs, snatched up what I ‘assume’ to be an ancient AM/FM transistor radio (in keeping with the re-occurring theme that Gibbs is firmly - and often wisely - entrenched in technology from the previous century) and used it to nail down the location of an emitted signal on a listening device secreted in his workroom.
Clever, I thought. Then I wondered, was Gibb’s use of the radio as shown in the ep real-world possible - or merely an idea posited by the show’s writers?
If there was a bug transmitting over a particular radio frequency, I suppose it might cause interference in his reception on the radio, which he could hone in on as the interference would increase the closer to the source.
But, I’d imagine it’d take a lot of tinkering, especially not really knowing any specifics here (or if it’s really even feasible).
Old AM radios are very sensitive to signals from other electrical and electronic devices if they’re nearby. A transistor radio from the 50s or 60s could easily react that way.
I think the idea of using the transistor radio to find the bug is realistic, but the idea that someone would use such an easily found bug is unrealistic. Presumably there are modern bugs that are harder to detect.