Groom Lake GPS Jamming

jamming notice

The coordinates are not the Tonopah Test Range, but a bit north east of Groom Lake. If you have been looking at TNX on flightaware.com, you would have noticed some weekend flights to the range. That and the lack of moon all points to a test.

I was on the range once when the GPS jamming was present. The GPS suddenly indicates no satellites detected.

Interesting...
what kind of testing do you think?? Weapons or Plane?

Interesting indeed !

I have heard of similar things happening to folks, and they believe that it could be testing for a new sort of aircraft, type unfortunately unknown.

Lots of possibilities as to why GPS is being jammed, could also be a test bed for electronic weapons platforms.

Results may very !

RSR

reply to post by gariac



What draws my interest is the fact that the Groom lake jamming had a 205 NM radius of the location and White Sands had 189 NM radius while the other 5 tests so far this year only had a radius between 3 and 35 NM.

205 NM any direction from Groom Lake is a descent chunk of space!

Good find Gariac

edit to add:

Forgot to mention that the test period was from Jan 25 to Feb 5.

Whatever the heck they were testing they had 10 days to do it! Too bad none of us will ever know

[edit on 15-2-2010 by ZombieJesus]

[edit on 15-2-2010 by ZombieJesus]

There are ground jammers that detect aircraft and send off a jamming signal. When the aircraft is getting close to the base so it doesn't pick up on anything like aircraft signals and things of that nature or base setups.

Was there an unusual increase in Janet traffic? I know some people monitor that. Myabe testing a new UAV or JDAm system that can break through or counter GPS jamming. I know there was a rumor about a year ago that Iran had procured GPS jammers from Russia.

reply to post by djvexd


Were they plane attached or ground?

reply to post by sd7000


The rumor was that they were ground based. Used to help shield against strikes by UAV or JDAM munition. The Russians supposedly were using them to shield SAM sites and various ground based C and C units.This was around 2002 that this rumor surfaced, although now we have LJDAMs in service. They supposedly started to supply Iran with them.

[edit on 16-2-2010 by djvexd]

reply to post by djvexd


Yes, more Janet flights, especially from Palmdale.

Lately the nimble fingers of whomever enters the flight information into the FAA computer has been less than stellar. For instance, N20RA has become N2ORA (OH instead of zero). Today we got N620RA, which was a flight to Groom Lake.
N620RA
The tail number isn't assigned to any aircraft, but it is registered.

I have listened to many bombing exercises on the range, and none have been GPS based. Generally laser targetting. GPS based bombing can get really ugly if you screw up. There was the classic case when the Taliban were first being fought by the US. There was a call for close air support based on a waypoint. Now in theory, these are "projected" waypoints, something that takes a bit of skill. You read your present location, then adjust to where you think the target is located. Well the guy calling the strike called out his present target and a JDAM was sent to greet them. It nearly killed Hamid Karzai. Laser targetting is substantially safer, but doesn't work in all weather. The chatter on the scanner for laser targetting is "sparkle". Now I suppose they could be tossing JDAMS with GPS coordinates assuming nobody is on the ground, but jamming and dropping just sounds like a bad idea to me. ;-)

When I got GPS jammed on the range, I was approaching one of the drop zones by Cedar Pipeline Ranch. The Pipe Drop Zone to be specific. N37.73740 W116.14982
It was a bit annoying since the range removed all the signs to the drop zones after someone photographed them and put them on the net. [Oh wait, that was me.] We found the drop zone since they replace the signs by rocks that are painted red.

If you attend the Nellis air show, a crew of GPS jammers displays their gear. [I don't know if they are the exclusive GPS jammers.] The jamming gear is very basic. It is an off the shelf signal generator (dual) with adjustable bandwidth noise generators. They just pop noise on the civilian and military GPS frequencies. They have some "acquired" Soviet era jammers, but they didn't explain to me how they worked.

Nellis 2007 Geek Fest

reply to post by gariac


Very nice...thanks for the links. Yeah the LJDAM (Laser Joint Direct Attack Munition) was recently pressed into service to give an added capability to the JDAM that before release it can be switched to laser guidance in the case that the target is moving or GPS is being jammed. That might explain the laser bombing. Maybe they are testinga newer variant or managed to fit one of the larger UCAV's with the weapon system? (specualtion)

reply to post by djvexd


They have been using laser targeting on the range for years. I don't record weapons school much because it can be pretty dry stuff, though there are times I regret not doing so. Once the pilot said something like "I see a building with a man nearby. Confirm that is not a real man." I'm thinking they have a Sadam dummy outside the building.

You could record weapons school activity for all but 4 weeks during the year. They don't operate the last two weeks of June and the last two weeks of December. Otherwise, it's Monday through Friday, and often Saturday. The more active periods are the first two weeks of June and the first two weeks of December.

The laser targetting seems to be concentrated more on the west side of the range. Stonewall
This link has the Class 4 laser warning sign.

reply to post by gariac


I understand the use of laser guided weapons and etc. on the range. It just makes no sense to jam GPS unless they were testing either a countermeasure or a weapon that could cut through the jamming. A good friend of mine is a freelance photog that does mostly aviation and military craft(has done some work for Jane's), he has heard that they are attempting to adapt LJDAM to the next UCAV. I have never stepped foot into the Nevada desert and to tell you the truth unless the make it cane accessible I proabably won't. However, I do have a decent if not an above average knowledge of military weaponery both current and past. This seems like a good bet. Unless they have had an influx of tresspassers. Heard any good security radio calls lately? Like maybe a rogue SUV full of old ladies Edit to add: This MAY have something to do with it.DARPA Project I know it is about 5 years old but still something to consider. The "Beast of Kandahar"

[edit on 16-2-2010 by djvexd]

[edit on 16-2-2010 by djvexd]

[edit on 16-2-2010 by djvexd]

[edit on 16-2-2010 by djvexd]

[edit on 16-2-2010 by djvexd]

reply to post by djvexd


The Beast of Kandahar is entertaining from the fact all the snoopers that camp out at the border never found a thing about the project. I think I did two or three panoramas in the time period they were at the TTR.

I'm not ruling out GPS guided bombs, but I suspect they would just put the kits on dummy bombs. And even a dummy bomb could do some damage since they weigh as much as a real bomb.

500lb dummy bomb on this page

reply to post by gariac


Well come to think of it it might be a scaled back version as they are still trying to meet the deployment requirements...so what do you think it is...lets kick some ideas around.

reply to post by djvexd


There are just too many things that are related to GPS jamming. It could be as simple as a CSAR exercise.

One thing to note is often the government just puts in some BS lat/lon location on documents. I've seen this with repeater sites, where they would be miles off just to hide the actual location. In the case of this jamming, we don't really have to know the center of the jamming. All that is needed is that the information given spans the actually jamming region.

If you look at photographs provided by Sandia, they tend to do drop tests at the TTR in the dead of winter, so the timing was appropriate. However, all the published drop tests were done in daylight.

reply to post by gariac


Do they test CSAR techniques out there? I know they do here near Patrick AFB and do offshore and Everglades insert/retrievals. They even use the range down here for dirt training. Jamming devices while a sensitive technology, I don't see them being exclusive to Groom. It has to be something a tad more below the line. JM2c

reply to post by djvexd


If it is Red Flag, then they "train like they fight", so if jamming is part of CSAR, then it gets jammed. I know they do CSAR during Red Flag, I just don't know if jamming is part of the curriculum. In theory, nothing experimental is used in Red Flag. Nellis has that jammer squad, so we know jamming is used in some phase of Red Flag. If you look up the unit, they do a few exercises per year at other locations.

The thing you always need to keep in mind is that there are many users of the Nellis range. Even more if you toss in the NTS, since some counter terrorism training is done there. Radio traffic often indicates the players. In fact, for the ground units, the person in charge will say if it is weapons school or Red Flag. For units in the air, you can get clues from the frequencies used, though there are many common frequencies.

The Nellis range hosts JEFEX and MAFEX. The TTR hosts some exercise, like the battle of the SAM jammers they did a while ago.

What I am saying is the GPS jamming can be for the benefit of any number of users.

If you get that IMAX Red Flag movie (Operation Fighter Pilot or something to that effect), you will get an idea of what goes on during the exercise. It has some minor warts. For instance, it was filmed during two Red Flags, and then they merged the exercises to appear as if they were one. For example, if the exercise has a B2 in it, they would not have foreign aircraft on the blue team (defenders). In the movie, you see the B2 and some foreign aircraft. The ground units are completely ignored in the movie. I assume the producer deemed dogfights sexier than a plane taking out a SAM site. [In the recent campaigns, SAM sites were the real concern.] Computer graphics is mixed in with live video. IMAX did a poor job, but there is nothing else out there than documents the exercise. At least in the public domain. They do a CSAR in the movie, and everyone acts like a bunch of cowboys. The plot will make you groan. It would have been better if they didn't attempt a plot and went for a documentary.

Of course, I rant about it, but I saw the movie twice at IMAX and own the DVD. It's just that I would have done a better job as director. ;-)

Actually I remember you posting something about that movie a while back(pretty sure that was you, memory not what it once was). I watched part of it but never got back to it. May have to spin it up again. You are right some of the dialogue was"forced" and "overdramatized" but it was fun none the less. Is Red Flag going on now? The usually announce it and someone usually posts it in the aircraft forums.

[edit on 19-2-2010 by djvexd]

reply to post by djvexd


Hi!

It's a pain but if you go to the following link and click on; Upcoming events' it shows all Red Flag and Green Flag events.

www.dreamlandresort.com...

Peace!

reply to post by The Wave


Nice!...thank you sir.

Second line.