HFU HF Underground
General Category => General Radio Discussion => Topic started by: ChrisSmolinski on August 08, 2016, 1355 UTC
-
Once the province of hostile nations, electronic warfare has arrived with little fanfare on U.S. highways and byways.
Criminals, rogue employees and even otherwise law-abiding citizens are using illegal "jamming" devices to overpower GPS, cellphone and other electronic signals over localized areas. The devices are small and mobile — a common variety plugs into a vehicle's cigarette lighter — making it difficult for law enforcement to identify the culprits.
And experts say the threat to the Global Positioning System (GPS) — the critical space-based navigational, positional and timing network — is escalating as potentially more destructive "spoofing" devices become readily available.
Full article: http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/gps-under-attack-crooks-rogue-workers-wage-electronic-war-n618761
Bring back LORAN!
-
If you have the access to the radio/vehicle being tracked, it's a lot easier and much more cost effective to just disconnect the gps antenna, wich are often on a different coax lead than the two way antenna. At least so I've heard.
-
On an unrelated note, has anyone else noted the amount of EMI trash that gets thrown from modern semi tractor trucks? I had instances where AM is unusable for several hundred feet around the vehicle. Inverters or APU's perhaps?
+-RH
-
Totally agree to bring back LORAN. Until it comes back, put an ADF in the car and use it and a paper map to find your position with NDBs and/or MW BC stations. Or, plan out your path before leaving home.
redhat - I've noticed the same thing. Also with electric/hybrid buses and certain cars (Saturns seem to be particularly bad).
-
I rely on my inherent Dan'l Boone sense of direction. I tried to teach to Al but he keeps walking into canals. You got the sun, the wind, smells, plants, trees, rocks, moss and the stars just to start with not including wild animal movements and tricks with sticks. What more does a man need to get around?
GPS. Baah!
-
On an unrelated note, has anyone else noted the amount of EMI trash that gets thrown from modern semi tractor trucks? I had instances where AM is unusable for several hundred feet around the vehicle. Inverters or APU's perhaps?
+-RH
The cabin and bodywork all seem to be made of fibreglas these days, also computer control of and/or sensing just about everything is the norm. All this modernicity makes for huge amounts of rfi.
-
As Chris said; "Bring back LORAN!"
I agree totally! Back in the sticks in Maine a GPS could end you up into a pond, lake or swamp...
No joke because it had happened more than once...
Haaaa!
-
I live in near vertical heavily forested country, Ka. Cellphones and GPS are about as much use as tits on the proverbial boar. If you've got an idea of where the person is driving around at, you can predict when the call is going to drop. Most of the locals know the dead spots and will hang up as they approach them.
My Dad and I never saw eye to eye on much of anything, but I'll give him credit, he never let phone towers be erected on the hilltops/hillsides on the properties the family owns. The tower ban is now in the trust the land is held under. My Dad's family has proudly been holding up progress since they got to this part of country in the 1700's.
With an average of forty snakes an acre and bears rooting around everywhere, people here have more to worry about than toy phones and GPS.
I got a nice view of the meteor shower last night on the main farm. No cell tower lights polluting the skies.
-
As long as the Government allows this Chinese junk to be sold on ebay etal then they will have these problems. Not to say it is China that is totally to blame (and the FCC for phony part 15 etc), we need to stop all this stupid junk from coming into the Country!. Yeah it can be made locally but it seldom is and when it is, it is by politicos...
I'm not joking... this has to stop.
Consider this, if the Chinese wanted to invade this Country how best to do it? Let the local phools do it for them... Think... I'm not a conspiracy nut, I have insight in what I say... from time to time anyway... And BTW, it's happening in other Countries too... but with other methods... China is a major problem that must be dealt with.
Crime is treason against 'We the People'... think about that ...
-
I live in near vertical heavily forested country, Ka. Cellphones and GPS are about as much use as tits on the proverbial boar. If you've got an idea of where the person is driving around at, you can predict when the call is going to drop. Most of the locals know the dead spots and will hang up as they approach them.
With an average of forty snakes an acre and bears rooting around everywhere, people here have more to worry about than toy phones and GPS.
I got a nice view of the meteor shower last night on the main farm. No cell tower lights polluting the skies.
Ditto here in the Appalachian foothills of upstate NY. It's all hills and hollows here. UHF and above is nearly useless off the main routes, except on the hilltops. The next road above my place is a 5 mile long seasonal use road - an improved cow path - and there have been easily two dozen incidents of semi drivers mindlessly following their GPS units onto it looking for a "shortcut" across the hill. The local tow truck operators love it. The township finally put up a "no trucks" sign at each end of the road. This cut down on the incidents but didn't stop them completely. Yes Vince, I believe those types WOULD drive into a pond!
And backyard astronomy is still alive and well here also Pigmeat. My nearest cell tower is over 5 miles away. I have almost zero coverage, and I don't give a s**t either...
-
I live in near vertical heavily forested country, Ka. Cellphones and GPS are about as much use as tits on the proverbial boar. If you've got an idea of where the person is driving around at, you can predict when the call is going to drop. Most of the locals know the dead spots and will hang up as they approach them.
With an average of forty snakes an acre and bears rooting around everywhere, people here have more to worry about than toy phones and GPS.
I got a nice view of the meteor shower last night on the main farm. No cell tower lights polluting the skies.
Ditto here in the Appalachian foothills of upstate NY. It's all hills and hollows here. UHF and above is nearly useless off the main routes, except on the hilltops. The next road above my place is a 5 mile long seasonal use road - an improved cow path - and there have been easily two dozen incidents of semi drivers mindlessly following their GPS units onto it looking for a "shortcut" across the hill. The local tow truck operators love it. The township finally put up a "no trucks" sign at each end of the road. This cut down on the incidents but didn't stop them completely. Yes Vince, I believe those types WOULD drive into a pond!
And backyard astronomy is still alive and well here also Pigmeat. My nearest cell tower is over 5 miles away. I have almost zero coverage, and I don't give a s**t either...
LOL! I live at near the bottom of ten mile ridge. The two lane ends about a mile and half up, the rest is one lane and tight turns, many blind, all the way out until it drops off about 600 ft in just under over a mile to intersect with another little road. That final mile is a doozy, sharp turns and a stomp on your brakes and hope intersection at the bottom.
A number of years ago I started seeing trucks from major carriers going out there. The first time I figured, "The driver must know someone out there and is going to turn around at the old water tower to come back out." Didn't give it a second thought until other trucks started heading up there. It is a shortcut between to major highways but only if you know the road and are in a car or on a motorcycle. Hell, getting out there in a large pickup can be PIA if there's regular traffic coming the opposite direction? I've gone off the road a couple of times out there over the decades and I know that road as well as I know my front walk.
A buddy of mine was a truck driver, we used to hang out a the same bar. One night I saw him and asked what was up all the trucks going up the ridge. He says "It's that damned GPS and prick dispatchers insisting that those drivers take the shortest route, the road be damned." He went on to tell me about all trucks that had gotten torn up going out the ridge. I said I'd seen a few hauled off the ridge but I thought it was a guy out that way in the scrap biz, as he was always bringing torn up shipping containers and other moderately large stuff on and off the ridge where he has a junkyard.
It was probably four years ago when the city put up a "No Trucks" sign at the bottom of the hill. It's cut down on it, but you still get one or two a month hung up on the first real tight turn out the ridge. I feel sorry the ones that are caught in that Catch-22 between a company insisting on the shortest route and having to take a rig down a roads that would be a challenge for a side by side ATV.
My wife is going out town this weekend. The last time these women went somewhere together they ended up on the wrong side of the state. Their GPS told them to turn left. What they missed was it said, "8/10's of a mile". They went about 160 miles and didn't notice until they crossed the state line. I said, "Didn't you notice signs telling you which way you were heading?" She says, We were too busy talking." God! And she got the GPS doodad because she's "not good with maps."? She's not good with GPS either.
That's why I drive. I might get a hair off course, but I know the Atlantic is east, the Pacific is west, the Gulf is south, and the Great Lakes are north. I can figure it out from there. If I see "Welcome to Canada" or "Bienvenidos a Mexico" I know it's time to turn around or stomp on the gas depending on the situation. And that dear friends, is why I've never been lost.
-
Back in my earlier days in Maine I never used a map or compass or any electronic doodads etc etc...
My rule was remembering this... Sun comes up in the east and sets in the west... night time is for sleeping... never failed me... and I always found my way back home or maybe a roadhouse whatever...
Found a lot of interesting places and stuff over the years that way...
Oh yeah, take note, moss only grows on the wet side of the tree... so stay away from those evil trees because a bear has already peed there...
-
I have never in my life used GPS. There are these antiquated things called Maps and Atlases.
Look at them long enough (i.e. study them) you can get where you want to go even if you don't have it with you. It's not that difficult to navigate.
Heck, they even have them online, if one is too cheap to buy the paper version.
Too many people are letting electronic devices do all their thinking for them.
-
GPS isn't the only thing that can cause a lumber truck to end up in a swamp.
A number of years ago the 'guys' were trucking fir logs down a certain area with a very sharp curve in the road. If you took the curve easy you would be fine but if you took it hard and lost control you and your truck would end up in one hell of a swamp.
To make a long story short, there was a pretty little Lady that lived just a ways before that curve. Now this Lady had a very very adequate bosom and she would sit out by her mail box and when she heard one of those trucks a coming she would make sure the trucker got a very good bouncy look at two of the best nekkid yahooos those guys ever saw...
Sure enough... another one bites the swamp...
BTW folks, Ladies can go topless in public in Maine... There is no law against it...
So it ain't just the GPS that causes problems :P
-
"...Too many people are letting electronic devices do all their thinking for them.
Soon they'll be doing our driving for us!
-
Its been one month and one day. LORAN is still not back. I'm sure it will be back soon.
-
When penguins fly.
-
Give Me LORAN or Give Me Death.
-
I don't see any flying penguins.
-
And I don't see any LORAN signals going into my LORAN receiver.
I will patiently await a little bit more.