Posted on 03/28/2007 4:40:37 AM PDT by Int
US Army 'jammed' Swiss and French satellites
Bern: The US Army mistakenly jammed the satellite signal of a number of news organisations earlier this year - including the French and Swiss national news agencies - in an attempt to shut down an Iraqi TV station, according to a Swiss newspaper.
Daily Tages-Anzeiger reported in yesterday's edition that the incident occurred on January 23 and lasted about 24 hours, affecting a large number of radio, television and internet services, including those of Agence France Presse (AFP) and its Swiss counterpart Schweizerische Depeschagentur (SDA).
An internal SDA memo states that "the loss of all transmission signals via the Eutelsat satellite was caused by a mistaken attack by the US Army". Tages-Anzeiger says the reason for the mistake may have been a report in The Washington Post two days before the incident, in which the owner of Iraqi satellite channel Al Zawraa is cited saying his station would start broadcasting via Eutelsat "in 48 hours".
In fact, Al Zawraa, a Sunni station which broadcasts pictures of insurgent attacks on US and Iraqi forces, never broadcast on the Hot Bird 8 satellite, although another station with a similar name did.
glad to see we can do that.
oops
Commericial satellites are wide open to jamming, a determined amateur could do it for a few thousand dollars. For the U.S. military, it should be a "point and click" operation.
OOOOOPS! ;O)
Did they stune Al-Jizz's beeber as well?
Al-Zahra, Al Zawraa, Al Zarqawi, Al Gore.......they all sound Al Like...........
Seems like a stupid way to shut down a TV station. Just blow it up.
Any television station with an uplink can jam a satellite. All it takes is two uplinks trying to broadcast at the same time. It happens accidently all the time, it's called double illumination.
The most famous case was back in the early 1980s when a bored uplink operator jammed HBO with color bars and a message that read "$12.95/ month? No way!" and was signed "Captain Midnight." (HBO had begin scrambling it's satellite signal and began charging backyard dish owners to watch HBO, which previously they could get for free if they had the equipment.)
I wish they would aim that thing at CNN.
bump and bookmark
Can we jam the Chinese satellites when they invade Taiwan?
just checkin'
I worked for a telcom provider with a large satcom network.
We called it the "OJ Effect" when lots of SNG trucks got on the air and splattered signal all over trying to find thier transponder.\
SATCOM is very fragile, esp on heavly loaded transponders.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.