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How Hard Would It Be To Make A Low-Power Drone Jammer?

Bruzilla

Bruzilla

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I've been reading all these accounts of aholes using drones to spy on people, peak in windows, and some who are suspected of casing property for burglaries with them, and one response has been to shoot at them, which can get you into trouble.

So I was wondering how hard it would be to develop a low-power jammer that would disrupt all the frequencies drones operate on up to a range of say 200-300 feet from the source. You see someone using a drone for some nefarious purpose, you light it up, the drone loses control and goes down, you pick it up and wait for Joe Dipshit to come around looking for his toy and you beat the snot out of him... I mean, you throw a pillow case over his head and beat the snot out of him... I mean you call the cops. :)
 
I was thinking about this the other day after the guy in Kentucky got into trouble.

I used to work in a lab and we had to have Faraday Cages around all of our equipment during testing because of EMPs. A short blast from an EMP would render the drone useless all the electronic guts got changed out.
 
Jamming a radio signal is illegal in the US. I wouldn't do it, were I you.
 
Instead of using a shotgun to bring 'em down.....

I think it'd be cool to blast 'em outta the sky with a potato gun!!! :D :D

Then when you pick up the drone off the ground, you can pick up all the freshly cut french fries too! Heh!
 
Interesting point about jamming the radio signal. I wonder if having a high power spot light that can track the drone would be a good way to make what it sees useless. Or have a mini NIKE missile drone set up as a defense mechanism :eusa_angel: Whatever the case I bet there is a way to legally defend one self from unwanted droning.
 
Jamming is illegal... also largely untraceable, just like operating a drone illegally. Unless the FCC has the equipment in place to locate the jamming source, there's no way for them to find out. Maybe time to fight a little fire with fire.

I've been doing some reading on these spark gap jammers, but they seem to wipe out everything. I think something more compact both in size, frequency range, and power output would be the way to go.
 
Everyday, one of my primary tools that I use is a HP Spectrum Analyzer
AND, our 4 Telemetry Vans have the Faraday Cage installed.

-To JAM the Drones we need to know the Xmitting frequency
This can be found with a Directional Antenna and a Spectrum Analyzer.

So, we'd need to generate the signal to the DRONE
Simply use a Signal Generator and a Transmitter that uses the Frequencies
But, this equipment is expensive


Frequency 27 MHz 49 MHz 50 MHz 53 MHz 72 MHz 75 MHz 2.4 GHz
Ch. 1 26.995 49,830 50,800 53,100 72,010 75,410 2,401,000
Ch. 2 27.045 49,845 50,820 53,200 72,020 75,430 2,402,000
Ch. 3 27.095 49,860 50,840 53,300 72,030 75,470 2,403,000
Ch. 4 27.145 49,875 50,860 53,400 72,040 75,490 2,404,000
Ch. 5 27.195 49,890 50,880 53,500 72,050 75,510 2,405,000
Ch. 6 27.255 50,900 53,600 72,060 75,530 2,406,000
Ch. 7 50,920 53,700 72,070 75,550 2,407,000
Ch. 8 50,940 53,800 72,080 75,570 2,408,000
Ch. 9 50,960 72,090 75,590 2,409,000
Ch. 10 50,980 72,100 75,610 2,410,000
... ...
Ch. 60 72,990
...
Ch. 80
... 2,480,000
Ch. 90 75,990
 
I was driving down RT 5 in southern Maryland one fine afternoon and saw a Force Warfare F-18 Hornet from Pax River coming up the road headed towards the base. My radar detector started screaming, then smoking, then quit. I never found out what they were testing on that bird, but it sure as heck wiped out my detector. This was when a lot of the sensor development was being done for the F-35, so I suspect it had something to do with that.
 
The FAA, not the FCC are the ones really protecting the drones as they are considered "aircraft"

The FAA seems like it would be even worse to deal with than the FCC.
 
The law actually states that Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) may not be interfered with. This law was established to cover primarily military UAVs that are actually classified as UAVs and only nicknamed drones. These toy/hobby drones are being regarded by some as actual UAVs, but I do not believe the FAA is officially viewing them that way. Right now I think it's being viewed as a matter of interpretation that will be cleared up in another year or two.

Classifying all UAVs the same would be like saying the same rules apply to an RC model aircraft that apply to a 747.
 
super-bee_ski said:
Everyday, one of my primary tools that I use is a HP Spectrum Analyzer
AND, our 4 Telemetry Vans have the Faraday Cage installed.

-To JAM the Drones we need to know the Xmitting frequency
This can be found with a Directional Antenna and a Spectrum Analyzer.

So, we'd need to generate the signal to the DRONE
Simply use a Signal Generator and a Transmitter that uses the Frequencies
But, this equipment is expensive


Frequency 27 MHz 49 MHz 50 MHz 53 MHz 72 MHz 75 MHz 2.4 GHz
Ch. 1 26.995 49,830 50,800 53,100 72,010 75,410 2,401,000
Ch. 2 27.045 49,845 50,820 53,200 72,020 75,430 2,402,000
Ch. 3 27.095 49,860 50,840 53,300 72,030 75,470 2,403,000
Ch. 4 27.145 49,875 50,860 53,400 72,040 75,490 2,404,000
Ch. 5 27.195 49,890 50,880 53,500 72,050 75,510 2,405,000
Ch. 6 27.255 50,900 53,600 72,060 75,530 2,406,000
Ch. 7 50,920 53,700 72,070 75,550 2,407,000
Ch. 8 50,940 53,800 72,080 75,570 2,408,000
Ch. 9 50,960 72,090 75,590 2,409,000
Ch. 10 50,980 72,100 75,610 2,410,000
... ...
Ch. 60 72,990
...
Ch. 80
... 2,480,000
Ch. 90 75,990
Click to expand...

They use 2.4 ghz with frequency hopping to prevent LOS...
 
They are considered UAS and here is very small piece of the framework the FAA is putting in place -

Pilots of a small UAS would be considered “operators”. Operator Certification and
Responsibilities  Operators would be required to:
o Pass an initial aeronautical knowledge test at an FAA-approved
knowledge testing center.
o Be vetted by the Transportation Security Administration.
o Obtain an unmanned aircraft operator certificate with a small
UAS rating (like existing pilot airman certificates, never
expires).
o Pass a recurrent aeronautical knowledge test every 24 months.
o Be at least 17 years old.
o Make available to the FAA, upon request, the small UAS for
inspection or testing, and any associated documents/records
required to be kept under the proposed rule.

http://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/rulemaking/media/021515_sUAS_Summary.pdf

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2015-02-23/pdf/2015-03544.pdf
 
Bruzilla said:
I was driving down RT 5 in southern Maryland one fine afternoon and saw a Force Warfare F-18 Hornet from Pax River coming up the road headed towards the base. My radar detector started screaming, then smoking, then quit. I never found out what they were testing on that bird, but it sure as heck wiped out my detector. This was when a lot of the sensor development was being done for the F-35, so I suspect it had something to do with that.
Click to expand...


So cool Bruzilla,
He locked on to you with LIDAR and RF Jamming!
EW stuff, those Super Hornets are a neat vehicle


PS: Sept 10th Pittsburgh Steelers VS Patriots!
MBC
 
super-bee_ski said:
So cool Bruzilla,
He locked on to you with LIDAR and RF Jamming!
EW stuff, those Super Hornets are a neat vehicle


PS: Sept 10th Pittsburgh Steelers VS Patriots!
MBC
Click to expand...

Pax had these mounting stations located near the west end of the base where they would mount aircraft, mainly Hornets, and the pylons allowed them to angle and bank the planes to different attitudes to test various systems. They were testing something back in 1997 and fried every cable box in the houses on the other side of RT 235.

Good times... good times. :)
 
Burzilla posted:
-Pax had these mounting stations located near the west end of the base where they would mount aircraft, mainly Hornets, and the pylons allowed them to angle and bank the planes to different attitudes to test various systems. They were testing something back in 1997 and fried every cable box in the houses on the other side of RT 235.


Sounds like a Heavy duty airborne JAMMER!
EW JAMMING...
Cool!
 
I don't know that either event was a jamming test. Your average Hornet doesn't do much in the way of jamming, and I've never heard of a "Wild Weasel" Hornet variant. But the Force Warfare guys tested a LOT of really wild stuff out there. I was in their hangar one day and one whole side was full of all kinds of weird pylons, pods, components, and other crap all piled up like a 100-foot long junk pile. I asked what all that stuff was, and my boss said it was all a bunch of one-off prototypes some company or another had developed to sell the Navy that didn't pan out and it's cheaper to let the Navy scrap them than to send them back from whence they came.

We saw a lot of weird crap being loaded on to both the Force and ASW Warfare birds, so they could have been doing a jammer, but I always thought it was some new high-PRF targeting radar for targeting ground vehicles as that was the big concern at the time.
 
Would it not be similar to a cell phone jammer (which you can buy online from the UK).?
 
I don't know. Some of these things work on radio signals, some of them work on wi-fi, and some of them are a hybrid of both. I think cell phones all operate on essentially one frequency band, but this RC stuff works on a wider array of frequencies.

From what I've been reading, a spark-gap generator will drop any drone out of the sky, but it also pretty much wipes out most signals in your area so the neighbors might object. :)
 
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