4 ms·

Could you effectively perform this hack from a satellite or an aircraft? 150 MHz should propagate quite a distance given line of sight.

toomuchtodo 3y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sporadic_E_propagation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sporadic_E_propagation Even without drones, aircraft, or spot beams on satellites, you might be able to do this with ionospheric bounce or tropospheric ducting. 150Mhz is on the top of 2 meter HAM radio.
ajsnigrutin 3y ago
Why would you need a satellite for that? A $25 baofeng radio from aliexpress can transmit on those frequencies, and with minimal care (not bragging about it), you can do it from pretty much everywhere with a lot of trains around. The frequency is mentioned in the article, the only info missing is the tones, and i'm pretty sure there is some tech manual somewhere on the "polish internet" that mentions those exact tones.
- KptMarchewa 3y ago
  It's public. 1160 Hz, 1400 Hz, 1670 Hz
  - ajsnigrutin 3y ago
    audacity, aprs k1 cable and a cheap baofeng, and you too can become a criminal :)
  - dylan604 3y ago
    if only there were two more tones...play the five tones
- smilespray 3y ago
  My thought was that you didn't need a bunch of people in the field to hit a large area in one go. I got one of those Baofengs. I wander what other mischief you could commit with them.
  - Johnythree 3y ago
    One of the reasons that the licensing authorities dislike the Baofengs is that they can be easily re-programmed (by unskilled users) to operate on most any VHF / UHF frequency. They are legal for use by licensed Radio Amateurs (because Hams can legally build and modify their own gear), but the importers used this loop-hole to sell them to other users (eg CB, MURS, commercial two way, etc). Unfortunately, the lax administration by the authorities have allowed this to become a serious issue.
    - ajsnigrutin 3y ago
      Baofengs have two "problems"... First, and the reason for hate by the licencing authorities is, that they have emissions on other bands (higher harmonics), sometimes way above the allowed levels. And second, the more problematic here, is that they're cheap. Every airsofter, milsimer, prepper and mall ninja will buy one or two, in "tactical" camo colors with "tactical" antenna, usually one of those huge ones, painted camo, with some kind of "tactical" camo holster, to look "tactical"... while at the same time, they have no idea about frequencies, legalities and just use the preprogrammed channels or input a random frequency in the VFO mode. Before baofeng, this wasn't an issue... cheapest radios were in $150++ range, and paying $600 (or more) for four airsofters was a lot of money... now they can get a set for $100. And in camo and "tactical" designs. Doing what the person in the article did requires not just $30 of equipment but also at least some knowledge (which frequency, what tones, what timing, how to use audacity or whatever to generate those tones, etc.), and most of the "normal" abusers of baofeng can't do that... just look at the questions on /r/baofeng on reddit... most of them are "we can't hear eachoter", because they're looking at channel numbers instead of frequencies and/or have tones enabled, and "can i listen to <some service not on uhf>?".
      - Johnythree 3y ago
        I should have said that there are many problems with Baofengs and similar. Certainly spurious emissions are the big one. The manufacturers have made some attempt to fit LPFs for the ham bands, but simply don't bother for the bands that they don't legally cover. And yeah, the "cheap and nasty" aspect is simply the other side of the same coin. If the manufactures had fitted LPFs for each possible band, plus sought type-approval for other bands, they would be unaffordable. Not to mention that removing keypad panel programming would block any attempt at type approval in the first place.

toomuchtodo 3y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sporadic_E_propagation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sporadic_E_propagation Even without drones, aircraft, or spot beams on satellites, you might be able to do this with ionospheric bounce or tropospheric ducting. 150Mhz is on the top of 2 meter HAM radio.

ajsnigrutin 3y ago

Why would you need a satellite for that? A $25 baofeng radio from aliexpress can transmit on those frequencies, and with minimal care (not bragging about it), you can do it from pretty much everywhere with a lot of trains around. The frequency is mentioned in the article, the only info missing is the tones, and i'm pretty sure there is some tech manual somewhere on the "polish internet" that mentions those exact tones.

KptMarchewa 3y ago
It's public. 1160 Hz, 1400 Hz, 1670 Hz
- ajsnigrutin 3y ago
  audacity, aprs k1 cable and a cheap baofeng, and you too can become a criminal :)
- dylan604 3y ago
  if only there were two more tones...play the five tones
smilespray 3y ago
My thought was that you didn't need a bunch of people in the field to hit a large area in one go. I got one of those Baofengs. I wander what other mischief you could commit with them.
- Johnythree 3y ago
  One of the reasons that the licensing authorities dislike the Baofengs is that they can be easily re-programmed (by unskilled users) to operate on most any VHF / UHF frequency. They are legal for use by licensed Radio Amateurs (because Hams can legally build and modify their own gear), but the importers used this loop-hole to sell them to other users (eg CB, MURS, commercial two way, etc). Unfortunately, the lax administration by the authorities have allowed this to become a serious issue.
  - ajsnigrutin 3y ago
    Baofengs have two "problems"... First, and the reason for hate by the licencing authorities is, that they have emissions on other bands (higher harmonics), sometimes way above the allowed levels. And second, the more problematic here, is that they're cheap. Every airsofter, milsimer, prepper and mall ninja will buy one or two, in "tactical" camo colors with "tactical" antenna, usually one of those huge ones, painted camo, with some kind of "tactical" camo holster, to look "tactical"... while at the same time, they have no idea about frequencies, legalities and just use the preprogrammed channels or input a random frequency in the VFO mode. Before baofeng, this wasn't an issue... cheapest radios were in $150++ range, and paying $600 (or more) for four airsofters was a lot of money... now they can get a set for $100. And in camo and "tactical" designs. Doing what the person in the article did requires not just $30 of equipment but also at least some knowledge (which frequency, what tones, what timing, how to use audacity or whatever to generate those tones, etc.), and most of the "normal" abusers of baofeng can't do that... just look at the questions on /r/baofeng on reddit... most of them are "we can't hear eachoter", because they're looking at channel numbers instead of frequencies and/or have tones enabled, and "can i listen to <some service not on uhf>?".
    - Johnythree 3y ago
      I should have said that there are many problems with Baofengs and similar. Certainly spurious emissions are the big one. The manufacturers have made some attempt to fit LPFs for the ham bands, but simply don't bother for the bands that they don't legally cover. And yeah, the "cheap and nasty" aspect is simply the other side of the same coin. If the manufactures had fitted LPFs for each possible band, plus sought type-approval for other bands, they would be unaffordable. Not to mention that removing keypad panel programming would block any attempt at type approval in the first place.