Community intelligence collection is organized across four baseline domains: human activity patterns, infrastructure and lifeline behavior, vehicle and movement patterns, and communications and network signatures. Each domain has its own observable indicators, its own documentation tools, and its own threat relevance. This lesson teaches you to build a collection framework for all four — one that produces usable intelligence, not just notes.
Why Domains Matter
Without structure, observation degrades into anecdote. A team member reports that “something felt off at the crossroads.” Another saw “a truck that didn’t belong.” A third noticed the water pressure dropped two nights in a row. These are potentially significant observations — but without a shared framework and documented baselines, there is no way to determine whether they are connected, whether they represent genuine deviations, or whether they fall within normal variation.
Domains solve this by organizing the collection environment into discrete, observable categories. Each domain has defined indicators, defined collection tools, and defined thresholds for what constitutes a reportable deviation. When a team member logs an observation in the vehicle and movement domain, every other team member knows exactly what that means, what context it requires, and how it relates to observations in other domains.
FM 2-22.3 Chapter 3 establishes area assessment as a prerequisite to HUMINT collection operations. FM 34-2-1 formalizes the four collection domains used in this course as the foundational structure for reconnaissance and surveillance at the ground level. The civilian adaptation used in INT-08 maps these directly to community-observable phenomena.
Domain 1: Human Activity Patterns
- Resident and pedestrian movement: who moves where, when, and how often
- Social gathering points and their normal schedules
- Visitor and outsider patterns — frequency, purpose, vehicle, duration
- Behavioral indicators: changes in demeanor, group formation, avoidance patterns
- Welfare indicators: visible distress, absence of normal activity, unusual night activity
Human activity is the richest and most dynamic of the four domains. It is also the most difficult to baseline reliably, because human behavior varies. The goal is not to document every individual — it is to document the rhythm of human activity at key observation points: intersections, gathering places, entry and exit points, commercial zones.
The baseline question for this domain is: What does routine human presence look like here at this time on this day of the week?
The Activity Register is the primary tool for this domain. It captures observer, location, time window, activity count, behavioral notes, and any deviations from the established pattern. You will build one in Lesson 2.
Domain 2: Infrastructure and Lifeline Behavior
- Power: normal outage frequency and duration in your area; grid restoration timelines
- Water: normal pressure, normal interruption patterns, water hauling or rationing indicators
- Fuel: normal availability, normal price fluctuation range, resupply schedules
- Transportation: road conditions, bridge accessibility, traffic volume on key routes
- Commercial supply: normal inventory levels, restocking patterns, purchasing behavior shifts
Infrastructure behavior is highly predictable in stable conditions — which is precisely what makes disruptions detectable. A power grid that normally restores within two hours after a weather event but is now dark on day three is an anomaly with significant implications. A grocery store that restocks dairy on Tuesday mornings but skipped two weeks in a row is a signal worth noting.
This domain maps directly to the Community Lifelines framework in PLN-01. Students who complete INT-08 will find that they have effectively been pre-completing the baseline data collection phase of the SITREP process.
A rural MAG member tracked fuel availability at three stations within a 15-mile radius for eight weeks before an ice storm season. She documented normal delivery days, normal inventory (visible from pump display counts), and normal price range. When two of the three stations ran dry simultaneously on a Wednesday — two days ahead of the normal delivery cycle — she recognized it immediately as an anomaly and flagged it to her network. Within six hours, the MAG had increased stored fuel and pre-positioned two vehicles. The storm hit 36 hours later with no further resupply.
Domain 3: Vehicle and Movement Patterns
- Normal traffic volume on key routes at key times
- Normal vehicle types and configurations in your area
- Entry and exit timing at key facilities or intersections
- Parking patterns: who parks where, for how long, at what intervals
- Convoy or fleet indicators: unusual vehicle groupings, formation movement, commercial escorts
Vehicle patterns are among the most reliable baseline indicators because they tend to be highly regular and driven by external schedules — work shifts, school hours, commercial deliveries, government operations. Deviations are therefore both more obvious and more meaningful.
The key tool for this domain is the Pattern Analysis Plot Sheet, which maps vehicle observations to time and location in a format that makes volume trends and anomaly clusters visually apparent. You will build one in Lesson 2.
Vehicle observation for baseline purposes means counting, timing, and noting general type and configuration on public roads and spaces. It does not mean recording license plates, following vehicles, or documenting individuals’ travel patterns. Stay on the right side of that line. This is a community intelligence tool, not a surveillance operation.
Domain 4: Communications and Network Signatures
- Normal radio traffic patterns on local nets: active times, active channels, volume
- Internet and cell service availability patterns: normal outage frequency, normal restoration times
- Amateur radio, GMRS, and repeater network status in your area
- Emergency alert traffic: normal frequency and content versus anomaly indicators
- Absence indicators: nets that go silent, repeaters that stop responding, channels that clear unexpectedly
Communications is the most technically demanding domain to baseline, but it is not optional. In a degraded communications environment — which is what most serious scenarios produce — the ability to detect and interpret changes in the communications landscape is a direct operational advantage.
As noted in Lesson 0: silence is intelligence. A repeater that normally has traffic every twenty minutes going quiet for six hours is a deviation worth investigating. A cell tower that normally restores within four hours after a storm still dark on day two is a signal. These are only detectable if you know what normal looks like.
You do not need to be a licensed amateur radio operator to begin building a communications baseline. Observing whether cell service is available, whether emergency alerts are generating traffic, and whether local GMRS nets are active requires no license and minimal equipment. Start there and expand as capability grows.
INT-02: Radio Traffic Situational Analysis (RTSA) goes deep on Domain 4. It covers net traffic pattern reading, signal indicator analysis, and how to build a structured communications intelligence picture from amateur radio and GMRS traffic. Students doing both INT-02 and INT-08 are developing the same baseline from two complementary angles.
Building Your Collection Framework
A collection framework is the organized system that defines which indicators you will observe in each domain, which tools you will use to document them, how frequently collection occurs, and how deviations are escalated.
You do not need to baseline all four domains simultaneously from day one. Prioritize by:
- Threat relevance. Which domain is most likely to show early indicators of the threats most relevant to your area? Rural areas often prioritize infrastructure and vehicle patterns; urban or suburban areas often prioritize human activity and communications.
- Collection capacity. How many observers do you have? How much time can they commit? A weak baseline maintained consistently is more valuable than a comprehensive system that collapses after two weeks.
- Existing observation points. What are your team members already doing routinely? A dog walker, a commuter, a school drop-off parent already passes through collection-relevant locations. Formalize what they are already seeing.
Domain prioritization exercise: List the three most likely disruption scenarios for your area (severe weather, civil unrest, supply chain failure, infrastructure failure, etc.). For each scenario, identify which of the four domains would show the earliest detectable indicators. Which domain appears most often?
That domain is your starting point. Begin baseline collection there this week, using whatever simple logging system you have available. Lesson 2 will build it out into a proper analytical tool.