  Electromagnetic (EM) follow-up of gravitational wave (GW) candidates is
important for verifying their astrophysical nature and studying their physical
properties. While the next generation of GW detectors will have improved
sensitivities to make the first detection of GW events, their ability to
localize these events will remain poor during the early days of their
operation. This makes EM follow-up challenging for most telescopes. Many new
low frequency radio instruments have come online recently or will come online
over the next few years, and their wide fields of view allow them to cover
large areas of the sky in a short amount of time. This paper studies
comprehensively the detectability of radio afterglows from compact binary
coalescence (CBC), a predicted GW source and the most promising progenitor of
short gamma-ray bursts. We explore the properties of simulated afterglow
lightcurves from the forward shock for a range of source and observer
parameters, then we use these lightcurves to estimate the expected rates of
detection for different radio instruments and survey methods. Detecting radio
afterglows and constraining their properties and rates are feasible with the
current and upcoming widefield radio instruments. As a result, widefield radio
instruments will play an important role in the EM follow-up of GW events.
