4 ms·
I wonder why there's some jamming near a small section of the Texas/Mexico border?
by wyldfire 3y ago
I wonder why there's some jamming near a small section of the Texas/Mexico border?
- TomBombadildoze 3y agoCartels disrupting law enforcement, and/or vice versa.
- seatac76 3y agoDrug Cartels most likely. That area is frequently jammed.
- hammock 3y agoThat is Eagle Pass, TX. The infamous, massive border crossing area where suspected criminal border crossers are corraled under the bridge, where Elon visited, etc. The jamming is done to make crossing the border without going through the checkpoint more difficult
- extraduder_ire 3y agoIs there some official source for that? If so, is it just GPS or do other GNSS constellations get jammed too?
- netsharc 3y agoSince even phones can receive and understand the other systems' signals, if one wants to jam, one would probably jam them all...
- barryrandall 3y agoDo these cartels only operate during normal US workday hours and observe US federal holidays?
- rootusrootus 3y agoThat's north of Eagle Pass. Laughlin AFB is on the southwestern edge of those two red cells. Eagle Pass is like 50-60 miles south.
- tazu 3y agoI'm curious as well. My first thought was cartels, but it's also right over Laughlin AFB.
- barryrandall 3y agoYou're not the only person: https://web.stanford.edu/group/scpnt/gpslab/pubs/papers/Liu_ION_ITM_2023_ADSB.pdf https://web.stanford.edu/group/scpnt/gpslab/pubs/papers/Liu_... TL;DR: It's weak signal, not jamming. The weak signal reports come from military training aircraft carrying out maneuvers that cause temporary signal loss.
- ukd1 3y agoreally? unless they're jamming it, how would that happen?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- barryrandall 3y agoRapidly execute a series of maneuvers (flips, rolls) that cause the radios to lose signal.
- jcrawfordor 3y agoSo I'm a little skeptical on that front because military aircraft are still not that often broadcasting ADSB even during routine flights, at least in my (also close to the border) region. In theory the Air Force was supposed to have completed ADSB installation on their fleet last year but they blew the deadline pretty bad on even installing transponders, and of course they still reserve the right to disable them during military operations. Maybe with the data we can figure out what portion of military flights are included? For the helicopter training flights that I notice most often, it's still rare to see one that broadcasts ADSB, probably <10%. C-130s usually don't either here but it's more often, maybe more like 25%. Perhaps for other categories of aircraft they've installed more transponders. But in the city where I live, even passive mode-C MLAT is probably around 50% success on tracking military flights for ADSB Exchange. FlightAware might have better coverage for mode-C. mode-C can't contribute to this GPS reliability data anyway but it illustrates that even C-130 pattern practice is sometimes "stealth" from a radio perspective due to the low installation rates for ADSB and difficulty of good mode-C coverage. The paper linked elsewhere (https://web.stanford.edu/group/scpnt/gpslab/pubs/papers/Liu_ION_ITM_2023_ADSB.pdf https://web.stanford.edu/group/scpnt/gpslab/pubs/papers/Liu_...) mentioned issues with military training flights resulting in spurious low-NIC cases but unfortunately doesn't quantify it. With the way the AF rollout has gone it probably depends on the specific installation, command, and aircraft type. In the border region specifically we would tend to expect the majority of non-military flights to be civilian CBP aircraft that aren't performing unusual maneuvers. CBP has a somewhat complicated and limited authority to disable ADS-B that I don't know the contours of, I'm not sure how often they do so on their larger (non-sUAS) aircraft. Involvement of the Air National Guard in the Texas area might complicate the analysis though.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ape4 3y agoCan't the US military turn it off in some areas. Law enforcement wouldn't have to jam.