GPS Jammer Accidentally Jams Up Newark Airport

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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Who needs terrorists trying to disrupt airports when a truck driver trying to hide from his boss can do the same damage accidentally. An employee driving by the Newark Airport using a $100 GPS jammer to avoid location detection by his office, inadvertently jammed the Airport’s Air Traffic Control GPS systems. Authorities were not amused. :D

As the New Jersey Star-Ledger reported, the FCC explained: "The signals emanating from the vehicle were blocking the reception of GPS signals used by the air traffic control system."
 
So something that can be jammed so easily and they still went ahead and installed it.
 
Probably testing the system to see how bad it can be messed up. Now the real terrorists know what they can do against a terrible system. Won't be long before some copy-cats do the same just for fun.
 
dam a $31,875 fine for driving past it its not his fault the system is junk
 
Uh, weird article. Air traffic control systems have NOT been upgraded to GPS for this reason; it is too easy to jam GPS signals.

I'm surprised Newark has it...
 
I wonder how they knew it was him.

Radio direction finding equipment can track down any signal if you have the frequency. Its easy to build. My Ham Radio club does regular "Fox Hunts" they like to call it where someone hides with a transmitter and others try to find him first. Boundaries are the size of the county.
 
My guess is this guy has been driving by every weekday for a while, the techs testing the system saw a pattern and called the FCC who probably took a few days to actually pinpoint the vehicle; unless the guy was in the habit of stopping for lunch right next to the airport...lol

fun with RF
 
Uh, weird article. Air traffic control systems have NOT been upgraded to GPS for this reason; it is too easy to jam GPS signals.

I'm surprised Newark has it...
Air Traffic towers don't need GPS, they're not going anywhere anytime soon.

What is more likely here is that there is an air traffic control system that collects GPS information broadcast from planes and relays that information back to air traffic control. That collection system was likely jammed. It was likely the GPS co-ordinate information from the plane, not the satellite GPS signal itself that was jammed.

And with close enough proximity you can jam just about anything.
 
It is the manufacturers fault. He has no obligation to prevent himself from buying something illegal since it should be illegal to sell these things.
 
So something that can be jammed so easily and they still went ahead and installed it.

Yeah, how fricking close was he to the airport tower such that his jammer was strong enough to interfere with their GPS.
 
It is the manufacturers fault. He has no obligation to prevent himself from buying something illegal since it should be illegal to sell these things.

Ignorance of the law is no excuse from it.

But no officer I didn't know she was 18

But no officer I didn't know that it was only 25MPH on this street instead of 35mph

But no officer I didn't know radar jammers were illegal, I mean they had no problem selling it to me on the internet.
 
Ignorance of the law is no excuse from it.

But no officer I didn't know she was 18

But no officer I didn't know that it was only 25MPH on this street instead of 35mph

But no officer I didn't know radar jammers were illegal, I mean they had no problem selling it to me on the internet.

And in this case... Anyone with brains knows that gps or cell jammers are pretty damn illegal.
 
Yeah, how fricking close was he to the airport tower such that his jammer was strong enough to interfere with their GPS.

GPS is pretty weak to begin with. It's not like cellphones where you have to compete with a transmitter that's only half a kilometer away.
 
GPS is pretty weak to begin with. It's not like cellphones where you have to compete with a transmitter that's only half a kilometer away.
Then it would make one wonder that a GPS jammer doesn't need to be terribly strong to work, assuming the intention is to disable GPS near you and not within a few blocks.
 
Then it would make one wonder that a GPS jammer doesn't need to be terribly strong to work, assuming the intention is to disable GPS near you and not within a few blocks.
Given line of sight, a 1W GPS jammer 1km away would be roughly one million times stronger than from a GPS satellite. Easily enough to jam a receiver.
 
I dare say they suspected him and he confessed.

5th amendment.......collecting dust since forever.
 
If people wouldn't worry so much about being bombarded with radiation we could jack up the signal of these satellites by 1000% or so (which might make them far more impervious to interference) ... but people would whine about having a nuclear reactor orbiting over their head and being bombarded with all the signals from space ;)

Seriously though. We have an employee who objects to his employer tracking him (sounds like a bad employee to me as one who was doing what he was supposed to wouldn't mind) and using an illegal device to interfere with his employers processes (and causing collateral damage as a result) ... he is lucky that a fine and losing his job is the worst thing that happened to him

Given the ubiquitous nature of GPS and cell phones now we might have to revisit the penalties for jammers ... although criminals will always be interested in them you could pass a law requiring a special sequential sentence if a jammer is used in the commission of a crime (add 5-10 years without the possibility of parole on their sentence) ... for normal users up the fine to 25,000 - 50,000 for possession of the device ... for manufacturers or sellers make the fine 250,000-500,000 per device sold ... except for criminals or the extremely paranoid there is no reason to block GPS, and cell phone jamming (although tempting in places like restaurants or movie theaters) is also inappropriate :cool:
 
I dare say they suspected him and he confessed.

5th amendment.......collecting dust since forever.

According to the Economist article linked this incident occurred in 2009 while the system was being tested and they discovered the culprit after months of investigating ... as others mentioned it is fairly straight forward to triangulate on a broadcast signal once you know what you are looking for ... no conspiracy theories needed here ;)

Also, the 5th Amendment protects you from forced confessions ... if law enforcement ask you if you did something and you confess on your own there is no violation (as long as you have received your Miranda warning) ... but if you are driving around town with an illegal radio transmitter (aka GPS blocker) then they don't really need a confession to convict you ... also, given the fact that this case just now completed, after 4 years, would seem to indicate that the culprit did in fact try to fight this (indicating he probably didn't confess) :cool:
 
If people wouldn't worry so much about being bombarded with radiation we could jack up the signal of these satellites by 1000% or so (which might make them far more impervious to interference) ... but people would whine about having a nuclear reactor orbiting over their head and being bombarded with all the signals from space ;)
Increasing the output power 1000% or 30db wouldn't actually cause a significant increase in radiation at the ground. Even with a 30db increase in power, the signal coming from the cell tower or wifi access point in bad coverage would be stronger. The big issue is moving from a 27W transmitter to a 27kW transmitter on a satellite would be stupidly expensive since you are adding aditional size for larger solar panels, batteries, and the RF power amplifier. It just wouldn't be worth it economically.
 
Increasing the output power 1000% or 30db wouldn't actually cause a significant increase in radiation at the ground. Even with a 30db increase in power, the signal coming from the cell tower or wifi access point in bad coverage would be stronger. The big issue is moving from a 27W transmitter to a 27kW transmitter on a satellite would be stupidly expensive since you are adding aditional size for larger solar panels, batteries, and the RF power amplifier. It just wouldn't be worth it economically.

I was being somewhat factious ;) ... GPS works and provides benefits far more often than it fails ... if we make the legal penalties on jamming more severe and use ground based alternatives to the non location aspects of GPS (timekeeping) we can alleviate some of the problems :)
 
On an interesting side note, I saw this article ( http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...t-Virginia-bans-cellphones-TV-radio-WiFi.html ) on my RSS feed about the small town in the radio free zone where no electronics are allowed at all ... apparently it is very popular with the hypochondriacs who believe they suffer an allergy (or some other hypothetical affliction to electromagnetic signals) :eek:

No had better tell them that just about everything puts out EM...from their bodies, to the Sun, to their house.
 
LOL...apparently he regarded his independence more than the law and got squashed for it. Would have been better for him to just be up front and not be forced to work for someone requiring GPS tracking.

Then again, I see a lot of 'work' vehicles sitting in parks and side streets with no obvious relation to the nature of the work the drivers are employed for...so I can't blame employers for wanting to track their employees.
 
No had better tell them that just about everything puts out EM...from their bodies, to the Sun, to their house.

It's not RF free for health purposes, it's for military testing purposes. The gov't can test anything they want there with very little background RF interference.
 
It's kind of like pointing a laser up into the air and blinding a pilot. Perhaps pilots should have better eyes, but that still makes the laser dude a serious dickhead and threat to humanity.

Who in their right mind thinks a GPS jammer is smart thing to have?

PS - Planes do not rely on GPS. They might have a GPS, but it's backed up.
 
It's kind of like pointing a laser up into the air and blinding a pilot. Perhaps pilots should have better eyes, but that still makes the laser dude a serious dickhead and threat to humanity.

Who in their right mind thinks a GPS jammer is smart thing to have?

PS - Planes do not rely on GPS. They might have a GPS, but it's backed up.

"Radars" do tho (Or whatever you call that screen control tower people looks at). Conventional radar that bounces radar waves off aircraft is too unreliable, so planes simply sends out a beacon with their GPS coordinates to the control tower, and the computer maps out their positions.

I would imagine a car with a GPS jammer driving by would scramble the GPS of every plane in a holding pattern above the airport. Effectively blinding their 'radar'.
 
"Radars" do tho (Or whatever you call that screen control tower people looks at). Conventional radar that bounces radar waves off aircraft is too unreliable, so planes simply sends out a beacon with their GPS coordinates to the control tower, and the computer maps out their positions.

I would imagine a car with a GPS jammer driving by would scramble the GPS of every plane in a holding pattern above the airport. Effectively blinding their 'radar'.

This GBAS system that Newark is using has some fixed ground based receivers that are used to correct for the (apparently large) errors/inaccuracy in the on-board GPS in landing aircraft. I'd be willing to bet that the jammer(s) in this case (and the previous times it has happened at Newark) are interfering with one of the ground receivers.
 
It is the manufacturers fault. He has no obligation to prevent himself from buying something illegal since it should be illegal to sell these things.

It's also illegal to own one, to build one, or to use one.

And yes, I know you were being sarcastic.
 
A small hand held battery powered jammer can disable GPS for a very large area due to the relative weakness of the signal. Remember that US taxpayers funded the development, deployment, and maintenance of this system. It is a public resource and nobody has the right to interfere with it. Imagine you were trying to find your way out of the airport and to your hotel using the sat nav in your rental car and this moron was jamming the GPS signal. You would be SOL because they don't include paper maps these days (not that most people even know how to read them anymore).

I don't feel sorry for this guy at all, nor do sympathize with him. He knew when he took that job that he would be tracked. He was always free to find another job. We all have to do things or are restricted from doing things at work that we don't like. Too bad. Suck it up. Inconveniencing thousands of other people and/or putting them in danger is never acceptable. Think of how much it cost the tax payers to track this idiot down. No, the fine is reasonable considering the scope of what he did and to act as a deterrence. Personally I would have favored a few years of jail time.

And just to clear things up, the Air Traffic Control system has incorporated GPS into the system, it's called ADS/B. Look it up. It uses GPS receivers on the airplanes to augment the ground based radars. I know because I personally worked on this system.
 
he knew exactly what he was doing, he bought the jammer to block his boss
now if he lacks the common sense to know to NOT drive by airports, federal buildings, etc... with JAMMING equipment turned on, then well he's just another idiot without common sense that deserves whatever punishment they give him. which being $31k is a pittance considering if the wrong alphabet soup nazi was in a bad mood, it would have been Do not pass GO, Go straight to GITMO
 
The only way anything RF works is if no one is blasting noise louder than you are, and it is always easier to transmit noise.

In other words, the only reason that any useful RF devices work is that we have such stringent regulations on transmission.
 
This GBAS system that Newark is using has some fixed ground based receivers that are used to correct for the (apparently large) errors/inaccuracy in the on-board GPS in landing aircraft. I'd be willing to bet that the jammer(s) in this case (and the previous times it has happened at Newark) are interfering with one of the ground receivers.

I agree

I believe I worked on deployment of a predecessor to this system at 29 palms several years ago. We scattered 30 something ground stations all over the range.
 
dam a $31,875 fine for driving past it its not his fault the system is junk

That is the cost of breaking the law. It is all fun and games until you screw something up for someone else.

What I find offensive is that this moron was using it so his company couldn't track where he was all the time. So the company is paying him and he is using a company vehicle and yet he thought that he had a right to prevent them from knowing how he was using company resources?

Uh, weird article. Air traffic control systems have NOT been upgraded to GPS for this reason; it is too easy to jam GPS signals.

I'm surprised Newark has it...

Remember that this is Newark we are talking about.
 
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