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Edwards Ikhana UAV is trackable

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posted on Mar, 29 2012 @ 03:44 PM
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www.airtrafficmanagement.net...



NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center has flown an unmanned aircraft system (UAS) equipped with Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast, or ADS-B, for the first time in an effort to overcome the technical barriers to safe operations in civil airspace.


Anyone on the list with a mode-s receiver in Palmdale, Lancaster, Mojave? If the Ikhana is N870NA, then the code would be ABF783.

If you are not familiar with the Ikhana, there is a book by Peter Merlin, NASA SP-2009-4544. According to the NASA website, it is a free download.
www.aeronautics.nasa.gov...
Or maybe the hard copy is free.

For those unfamiliar with mode-s receivers, here are a few links:
www.kinetic-avionics.com...
www.modesbeast.com...
www.airnavsystems.com...

For technical reasons, you don't want to purchase the Radar Box. I just put it there for completeness.



posted on Mar, 29 2012 @ 03:50 PM
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So are you saying that just any Joe with the proper radio equipment can ease drop in on all of the surveillance video and related data gathered by the UAV?

I guess that means sophisticated criminals will be able to watch what the cops watch and will be able to stay one step ahead for sure. Very interesting.

You know with this stuff and RFID chips the future is looking very promising for all professional criminals.



posted on Mar, 30 2012 @ 12:29 AM
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reply to post by muzzleflash
 


With a mode-s receiver, you could track the location, altitude, velocity and perhaps squawk code of the Ikhana UAV.

Once you know the location of the plane, given the FAA sector map such as found on skyvector dot com, you could determine the likely air traffic control frequency the "pilot" will be using and monitor it.

Monitoring video is potentially possibly, depending on what mood NASA is in. Within 70 nautical miles, the communication is line of sight to the ground station. That would be C-band. Not mentioned in Peter's book, but most likely in the range of 4.5GHz to 4.8GHz. There are only so many places they can hide given the band plan. When outside of line of sight, the video (technically video, telem,, whatever) would be on KU band. I would bet they just buy time on a commercial satellite, much like SNG (Satellite News Gathering). Either C-band or KU could be in the clear or encrypted.



posted on May, 16 2012 @ 02:03 PM
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Muzzleflash,

Most crooks and terrorists do have an inside scoop on what the cops/ feds are going to do. it's call ed the media. They need to find out what the swat team is up to on their block. simple just turn on the news and watch what they do in real time. The media can easily screw up the laws ability to be sneaky sometimes.



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