The Bayesian retrieval of sparse scatterers under multifrequency transverse magnetic illuminations is addressed. Two innovative imaging strategies are formulated to process the spectral content of microwave scattering data according to either a frequency-hopping multistep scheme or a multifrequency one-shot scheme. To solve the associated inverse problems, customized implementations of single-task and multitask Bayesian compressive sensing are introduced. A set of representative numerical results is discussed to assess the effectiveness and the robustness against the noise of the proposed techniques also in comparison with some state-of-the-art deterministic strategies. © 2014 Optical Society of America