In Case You're Still Considering a Jammer Device

[TMF]

However that guy that got caught, probably could have used wrapped the device in tinfoil and it probably would have had the same effect of hiding him from his boss with out the fine. However if his employer found it would most likely still have fired him.

I'm guessing that the global device the employer had in the car was installed someplace that he couldn't get without tearing apart some stuff.

[R_Bert]

I don't use one, and don't plan on it.  However I believe intermittent use driving around it would be difficult to track.  Not saying impossible.

 

I still be this guy was parked at or near the airport and like others have said, someone tracked him down with one of the above methods.

 

However that guy that got caught, probably could have used wrapped the device in tinfoil and it probably would have had the same effect of hiding him from his boss with out the fine.  However if his employer found it would most likely still have fired him.

 

Also what ever jammier he was using, must have had a large range instead of just the local area of the car.

 

3-4 DFers working in concert can get in mobile/intermittent signal in no time flat.

 

Back in the days when Oak Ridge had a active repeater, we chased "kerchunkers" all the time (guys who would intermittently "key up" a repeater, or interfere with conversations). 

 

My personal best was chasing down the local oscillator on a defective scanner, which only interfered (by transmitting on a input to a repeater) when it was receiving the the local SD. Both I & the SD were 15+ miles away, and the oscillator was in a shielded scanner cabinet but on a ridge-top)

 

I DF noisy power-pole connections all the time and by the time I find the pole, I can usually pick out the individual part.

[mikegideon]

That is not exactly true...  I'd go read the FCC enforcement bulletin every month...  there are a lot of people $10,000 poorer for using jamming equipment and illegal radios on a regular basis.

 

Those fines aren't for small area cell phone jamming. When there's interference to aircraft radio, the FAA radio guys are the first responders. They notify the FCC, but in routine cases, the FCC doesn't mobilize, The FAA response is immediate and forceful.

 

Show me a link where somebody got busted jamming cell phones with a mobile, intermittent device. I didn't make that comment based on what I read on the internet. I made it based on personal dealings with the FCC and the FAA radio guys over the last 30+ years.

Edited August 10, 2013 by mikegideon

[mikegideon]

 

Tracking folks down transmitting/jamming is simple...  and the technology to do it grows cheaper by the day, you can now make a spectrum analyzer out of an USB TV tuner for about $15 dollars, and can see everything from 100kHz up to 2gHz on a single device....  When I was an intern working in a radio shop in high school the equipment to do that cost $50,000, and it wasn't nearly as good as this cheap usb dongle.

 

Link me. That could be useful. It won't have the dynamic range or linearity of a real spectrum analyzer, which means it won't have the resolution bandwidth either. Still could be useful in my world.

 

My Agilent 4402 was a little over $25k eight years ago. It's a 100k to 3G swept analyzer . $50k is high for just an analyzer.

[mikegideon]

3-4 DFers working in concert can get in mobile/intermittent signal in no time flat.

 

Back in the days when Oak Ridge had a active repeater, we chased "kerchunkers" all the time (guys who would intermittently "key up" a repeater, or interfere with conversations). 

 

My personal best was chasing down the local oscillator on a defective scanner, which only interfered (by transmitting on a input to a repeater) when it was receiving the the local SD. Both I & the SD were 15+ miles away, and the oscillator was in a shielded scanner cabinet but on a ridge-top)

 

I DF noisy power-pole connections all the time and by the time I find the pole, I can usually pick out the individual part.

 

Yep. Helps if it's a team effort. The FCC doesn't usually travel in packs. They've been understaffed for decades. Cell frequencies are harder. They bounce off everything, and don't travel near as far if they originate close the the ground. If you know what you're doing, the signal only has to stay up long enough to drop every call within range. Most likely, the victims wouldn't even identify it as interference. Dropped calls are common as mud anyway.

[itchytriggerfinger]

I would like to put a jammer in our conference room to keep managers off the phone during meetings ;)

[TMF]

Cell frequencies are harder. They bounce off everything, and don't travel near as far if they originate close the the ground. If you know what you're doing, the signal only has to stay up long enough to drop every call within range. Most likely, the victims wouldn't even identify it as interference. Dropped calls are common as mud anyway.

Folks who get caught doing it should be nailed to the wall though. That is akin to cutting a person's phone line.

[mikegideon]

That is not my area of expertise. But this is 2013 using high tech systems. I refuse to believe that it is impossible to prevent the jamming of something as important as aircraft systems; especially with the money they have to throw at aircraft security.

 

However… I certainly could be wrong.

 

Felony charges and fines have never been a deterrent to criminals or terrorists; I don’t know why that would change.

 

The basic systems have to be compatible with existing aircraft. Basic com radios are plain old VHF AM radios (for a good reason). Any radio frequency can be jammed. 

[Dustbuster]

Jamming is illegal on GPS and cellular bands, the GPS jammers for 100 bucks typically only cover a 5 meter area they transmit in the 1500 MHz band to nullify the weak signal rcvd from GPS satellites. Thera jammers from Europe that cost a lot more than 100 bucks and have more power than a cig lighter model typically used. Bad guys use these all the time to try to thwart tracking devices sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. There's more to the news story as I don't believe a random driver got picked off amongst a sea of hundreds of vehicles near Newark airport system test or not. There was a co that offered wireless service on a frequency so close to GPS it actually screwed with consumer devices. That co got FCC approval to buy and stay on that band and they're still in business. Jamming cell sigs is a serious offense and causes problems w dhs comms and 911 system issues. Not illegal overseas. Actually @ 10 yrs ago i watched a live demo of a product that was used in motion to null roadside crap. It worked so well the folks in the coffee shop were walking like zombies w their laptops and phones looking around.... Funny to watch but it had shown the capability of jamming.

[vontar]

Another story comes to mind on this.  Garage doors.

http://www.pe.com/local-news/riverside-county/corona/corona-headlines-index/20110504-navy-radio-signal-jamming-norco-garage-door-remotes.ece

 

Seems of Garage remotes work on the same signal that is reserved for the Navy.  They must accept the interference as well.

 

OK, the original thread can continue, not trying to hijack.

[mikegideon]

Folks who get caught doing it should be nailed to the wall though. That is akin to cutting a person's phone line.

 

It's akin to cutting it, and hooking it right back up when the call drops. As far as I could tell, some of the Vegas casinos used to run jammers. You could sit there and watch your signal move from full bars to zero at a regular rate. At the time, it was against gaming laws to use a cell phone in a casino, even sitting at the bar (ask me how I know). 

 

The only reason I can see to even attempt jamming calls is to get idiots off their phones when they're supposed to be driving. One of those things that pop into your head when you can't slap somebody that really needs it :)

[TMF]

It's akin to cutting it, and hooking it right back up when the call drops. As far as I could tell, some of the Vegas casinos used to run jammers. You could sit there and watch your signal move from full bars to zero at a regular rate. At the time, it was against gaming laws to use a cell phone in a casino, even sitting at the bar (ask me how I know).

The only reason I can see to even attempt jamming calls is to get idiots off their phones when they're supposed to be driving. One of those things that pop into your head when you can't slap somebody that really needs it :)

You're assuming people would only use something like this intermittently. There are the type of people out there that buy these simply for the fun of screwing with people. That isn't cool at all. When someone cuts off my conversation on the phone their either costing me money or an important call with the family. There are those type of people who would just turn one on to screw with neighbors, or people at a coffee shop. All fun and games until there's an emergency. Sure, most people's calls are not crucial, but that doesn't mean some aren't.

I get a little pissy about this after having been in an environment full of jammers and you only get to talk to your wife and child on a once a week basis. Let me tell you, when some jackass wants to be cute by kicking on their jammer to screw with people I could easily justify kicking them off the planet.

[Guest TankerHC]

I find it interesting, that they where able to track it down. 

 

I wonder how long it had been going on and how long the search took.

 

I can only assume that his truck must have been parked there with it running for long periods of time to both interfere and give them the necessary time to track it down.

 

 

I can tell you exactly how they do it and how easy it is. They use sniffers. We used them when I worked in cable. We contracted out, there are companies and this is all they do. They ride around in white vans with an antenna on top. We had to do plant audits every six months. Find out where and why we were losing hundreds of thousands of dollars. To steal cable you need to do one of two things, you need a terminator tool to remove the terminator from the tap so you can plug it in, or you break off the tap so you can stick your cable in the hole. 100% of those stealing would just go break the tap off. Sometimes every tap at a box and hook up entire apartment complexes. Those broken taps leak signal. Sniffers drive through the neighborhood and when they detect signal leakage they log where it is detected, techs are sent out to check every tap in the area. These sniffers work the same way. They can pick up signal, in this case they would know specifically which frequency to look for. And they can detect its general location, send the sniffer vehicles out to the area, drive around and they have monitors (screens) they look at that tells them which direction to move based on signal strength. No problem honing in. If this guy was sending out a strong enough signal to interfere with airport signal, he should have been no problem to catch.

 

And we also prosecuted, I have been in the courtroom 50 times testifying on theft and once had to appear in front of a Grand Jury because of "The Bicycle man", and anyone who gets cable and thinks other people stealing is a good thing, your paying for their theft.

[DaveTN]

So what you guys are saying is that there is a multi-million dollar (or maybe even multi-billion ) opportunity for a company to engineer a GPS system that can’t be jammed?

[mikegideon]

So what you guys are saying is that there is a multi-million dollar (or maybe even multi-billion ) opportunity for a company to engineer a GPS system that can’t be jammed?

 

There is a muti-billion dollar opportunity for anybody that can defeat ANY of the laws of physics :). 

[mikegideon]

You're assuming people would only use something like this intermittently. There are the type of people out there that buy these simply for the fun of screwing with people. That isn't cool at all. When someone cuts off my conversation on the phone their either costing me money or an important call with the family. There are those type of people who would just turn one on to screw with neighbors, or people at a coffee shop. All fun and games until there's an emergency. Sure, most people's calls are not crucial, but that doesn't mean some aren't.

I get a little pissy about this after having been in an environment full of jammers and you only get to talk to your wife and child on a once a week basis. Let me tell you, when some jackass wants to be cute by kicking on their jammer to screw with people I could easily justify kicking them off the planet.

 

You would probably hate another perfectly legal device I have. It's called TV B Gone. It has one button, and spits every infrared TV off command known to man. It's fun in sports bars. It's REAL fun on the floor of the NAB convention.

[Guest TankerHC]

You would probably hate another perfectly legal device I have. It's called TV B Gone. It has one button, and spits every infrared TV off command known to man. It's fun in sports bars. It's REAL fun on the floor of the NAB convention.

 

 

Just saw you can get those for 20 bucks. Wonder if you used one at a sports bar during the Super Bowl, and people found out, would they get a big laugh out of it? Probably. lol

[TMF]

You would probably hate another perfectly legal device I have. It's called TV B Gone. It has one button, and spits every infrared TV off command known to man. It's fun in sports bars. It's REAL fun on the floor of the NAB convention.

Still somehow less damaging than taking away a persons ability to communicate for important reasons. If I owned a sports bar I'd be pissed about someone messing with my money though. The amount of rage felt when I have my kid on the phone trying to spit out his first word as some idiot drives by who forgot to turn their jammer off is off the charts. To think of someone doing it on purpose would certainly elicit a dramatic response.

[mikegideon]

Still somehow less damaging than taking away a persons ability to communicate for important reasons. If I owned a sports bar I'd be pissed about someone messing with my money though. The amount of rage felt when I have my kid on the phone trying to spit out his first word as some idiot drives by who forgot to turn their jammer off is off the charts. To think of someone doing it on purpose would certainly elicit a dramatic response.

 

There's a good reason why harmful radio interference is illegal.

[R_Bert]

I would like to put a jammer in our conference room to keep managers off the phone during meetings ;)

 

It's easier (and more productive) to just change locations without remembering to inform managers. 

 

And yes.... I have.

[Dustbuster]

GPS is easily jammed or over powered because the signal strength is so weak. I've seen guys using linear amplifies cb radios on side band wreak havoc with the most sophisticated systems, however the only way to help prevent jamming is to increase the power of the us GPS signals, which won't happen anytime soon. I'm going to follow up on the case in NJ. There is def more to this than the press knows. And thanks to the op for bringing this up 1 st I've heard of anyone taking a hit for a GPS jammer.

[Dustbuster]

I would like to put a jammer in our conference room to keep managers off the phone during meetings ;)

Lil off topic but...
I've been to meetings where phones get checked in prior to the meeting. For all the right reasons like yours,Yeah there's places that do jam but an FCC door knock can cost more than an employee assigned to watch the cell phone drop box outside of the conference room. I've never been one to allow my phone to go out of reach but sometimes there's no choice. On a funny note I always get a kick out of judges that snatch phones in court...that's better than any jammer

[mikegideon]

GPS is easily jammed or over powered because the signal strength is so weak. I've seen guys using linear amplifies cb radios on side band wreak havoc with the most sophisticated systems, however the only way to help prevent jamming is to increase the power of the us GPS signals, which won't happen anytime soon. I'm going to follow up on the case in NJ. There is def more to this than the press knows. And thanks to the op for bringing this up 1 st I've heard of anyone taking a hit for a GPS jammer.

 

There's no way to increase the power enough. I can jam one of my signals 3 miles from the tower, and they're 100,000 watt signals. Proximity is everything with radio because of the inverse distance law. 

[JayC]

This was 25+ years ago...  And I might be a little off but I remember they were VERY expensive and I was only allowed to use it with supervision ;)  But I was 15 at the time.

 

And I agree they're not as sensitive as modern equipment by any means, but it's cool technology.  Here is a link to a wiki on the SDR's http://www.rtlsdr.org/

 

Link me. That could be useful. It won't have the dynamic range or linearity of a real spectrum analyzer, which means it won't have the resolution bandwidth either. Still could be useful in my world.

 

My Agilent 4402 was a little over $25k eight years ago. It's a 100k to 3G swept analyzer . $50k is high for just an analyzer.

 

[mikegideon]

This was 25+ years ago...  And I might be a little off but I remember they were VERY expensive and I was only allowed to use it with supervision ;)  But I was 15 at the time.

 

And I agree they're not as sensitive as modern equipment by any means, but it's cool technology.  Here is a link to a wiki on the SDR's http://www.rtlsdr.org/

 

Actually, I think technology has made the gear less expensive, but the price stayed kind flat over the years.