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Flightradar24's new GPS jamming map

flightradar24.com

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Re: Flightradar24's new GPS jamming map

#81
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"No data" cells are grey on that map, but western Australia has a couple of red ("high interference") cells.

> but western Australia has a couple of red ("high interference") cells. Erm mate, have you tried looking at different days ? Those cells you find so suspicious in Australia are not there on other days ! Seriously, given the largely community-based nature of FR24 data I would not expect too much in term of accuracy.

> Erm mate, have you tried looking at different days ? Those cells you find so suspicious in Australia are not there on other days !

That kind of disproves the "no data" hypothesis though, no?

One explanation could be they have a simplistic algorithm like "if uncertainty > (something indicating more than 5 minutes of GNSS-to-INS fallback) on more than 50% of all flights of a day", and there's only one flight per day in that region.

> Seriously, given the largely community-based nature of FR24 data I would not expect too much in term of accuracy.

Flightradar24 data is accurate enough for some commercial entities to rely on it. Also, in case of a lack of ADS-B receiver data we'd also expect a grey square, not a red one, right?

Re: Flightradar24's new GPS jamming map

#82
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably something like this https://youtu.be/Ynvoriv09Ks?t=105

Ah, is this Ryanair's plan to divest from their all-Boeing fleet? :) It should be pretty simple for Flightradar24 to exclude non-commercial aircraft from the data through, which would solve that problem. There's also tons of data available in the ADS-B signal that should help distinguish between aircraft-motion-induced outages and actual jamming: https://mode-s.org/decode/content/ads-b/7-uncertainty.html

From the FAQ, it sounds like they simply presume that anywhere with multiple low NIC values is indicative of interference.

> The GPS interference data is derived from NIC (navigation integrity category) values that we receive as part of the ADS-B protocol. We mark regions as affected if a significant number of flights in that area report lowered NIC values.

Re: Flightradar24's new GPS jamming map

#84
post #40

Many of the patches are not surprising, but why is a small area between Germany and Sweden jammed?

A small area between Estonia and Finland likewise.

Any chance the area being referenced in relation to Germany is near the headquarters of a company named aaronia? They manufacture, high-end spectrum rf analyzers, and high-end drone tracking and jamming/drone disabling equipment. (As a result, I would expect them to be testing, and or demonstrating their equipment near their headquarters.)

Just a guess/speculation as I’m familiar with aaronia’s products and services (indirectly)

Re: Flightradar24's new GPS jamming map

#85

This is suspiciously similar to `gpsjam.org`. It's useful, for sure, and it does use readily-available ADS-B data that FR24 (and ADSBExchange) uses anyway, but the data viz is just eerily similar. Then again, I'm not very GIS/geodesy minded, so maybe hexagons are the best shape that'll tessellate over a sphere easily. Was this work in any meaningful way inspired by GPSjam? If yes, it'd be nice to have an acknowledgem…

> Then again, I'm not very GIS/geodesy minded, so maybe hexagons are the best shape that'll tessellate over a sphere easily.

This is Uber H3 for spacial indexing: https://h3geo.org/

This was a good read:

https://klioba.com/how-to-use-postgresql-for-military-geoana...

HN comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39662246

Re: Flightradar24's new GPS jamming map

#86
I love this feature, especially how they were able to create it from data that they were already getting, but personally my excitement about it is overshadowed by how colorblind unfriendly it is. Considering how many people are colorblind, ~4% of the global population, or roughly 1 out of 25 people, it's remarkable how often designers get this detail wrong.

Re: Flightradar24's new GPS jamming map

#87

The data is taken from aircraft [EDIT: not airlines; see traceroute66's comment], so it doesn't give full coverage of the world, but it does include other satellite navigation systems aside from just GPS. Looks like the jammed/interfered areas are: * A large part of Eastern Europe around Ukraine is missing data, and there are many jammed/interfered areas around it, including the southern coast of the Black Sea and pa…

> The data is taken from airlines No. It is not. The data is ADS-B data which is broadcast by aircraft. FR24 (and other similar services) obtain the data via a community[1], you can take part too[2]. For certain parts of the world, they may have the option to augment the data via commercial services, but that is highly unlikely to be on a global basis. Conclusion: Missing coverage means no community coverage in that…

Could you use weather balloons transmitting ADS-B where there are gaps?

Re: Flightradar24's new GPS jamming map

#88
post #9

So how should I interpret this? The map lacks geopolitical boundaries, so it's hard to interpret. There looks like a big hole of no data over Ukraine, where I'd most expect GPS jamming, but I suppose there are no civilian flights either. Maybe they could setup an GPS observation station on the ground at a surveyed point to get data there. There's a big red blob over Turkey, is that maybe the southern edge of the reac…

I see 2 red cells on the US/Mexico border right about Texas/Coahuila region. Navigating that dessert region without GPS or with GPS for that matter can be deadly.

That's the most curious jamming I see on the map—anybody know why jamming is present there? Is there a military base in that region?

Re: Flightradar24's new GPS jamming map

#89
If anyone found the above interesting, I wrote a short article mapping plane activity on FlightRadar's 'blocked' list (i.e FlightRadar had agreed to remove the ADBS data from their dataset following probable legal pressure).

https://dfworks.xyz/blog/hnwi-osint-private-jet/

Slightly tangential so feel free to remove if irrelevant

Re: Flightradar24's new GPS jamming map

#90
post #73

If line of sight to the jamming antenna is required to be jammed, why do aircraft not have a downwards shield so that they only receive GPS signal from the sky (satellites) and not from jammers (coming from the bottom hemisphere)? Or is the jamming signal so many orders of magnitudes stronger than the satellites that there's always going to be some gain no matter how good the shield is? Ok it exists, but shielding is…

I thought GPS signals from space were incredibly weak. Limited power budget + 100km in the sky. Seems trivial for a ground based system to crank up the watts to whatever arbitrary limit they desire.
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