Take down drones with a ham radio?

[Cometstorm]

A group of us we're discussing Phantom drones on a forum not directly drone related.

When "Someone" entered this:

>>
its not too hard to make a safe no fly zone, an old ham radio and a 1000 watt kicker drops them like flies from a good distance.
<<

Obviously doesn't like drones.

Your thoughts?

 

[UAVCrasher]

FCC might like to pay that person a visit.

 

[Cometstorm]

I was just wondering if it could even be done.

I'm not a ham or radio expert, but I'm sure a lot on here are?

 

[Bob62]

FCC might like to pay that person a visit.

I don't about drones being wiped out, but in my younger days I had a system that could wipe out the neighbor hood around me, it could push 1500 watts easy

 

[WV. Rootman]

I thought the same. I thought about doing that to people I see talking on their cell phones while driving all over the road.

 

[Fly Dawg]

I don't about drones being wiped out, but in my younger days I had a system that could wipe out the neighbor hood around me, it could push 1500 watts easy

Moon Rakers? Star Dusters? Sound familiar?

 

[N017RW]

Jamming a Phantom's control signal results in an RTH or other selected action, not dropping from the sky uncontrolled.

 

[Richard R]

Ham gear wouldn't be in the right band. And even if you did start broadcasting in the wifi bands with enough power to interfer with phantom communications, you would also be wiping out all the other wifi systems in a rather large area. FCC can and does investigate jamming or other illegal operations.

A group of us we're discussing Phantom drones on a forum not directly drone related.

When "Someone" entered this:

>>
its not too hard to make a safe no fly zone, an old ham radio and a 1000 watt kicker drops them like flies from a good distance.
<<

Obviously doesn't like drones.

Your thoughts?

and obviously doesn't know much about radio theory or ham radio gear!

 

[BigAl07]

Jamming a Phatntom's control signal results in an RTH or other selected action, not dropping from the sky uncontrolled.

Exactly... unless the signal completely fries something internal on the Phantom RTH or Land in Place is what the aircraft will do.

Ham gear wouldn't be in the right band. And even if you did start broadcasting in the wifi bands with enough power to interfer with phantom communications, you would also be wiping out all the other wifi systems in a rather large area. FCC can and does investigate jamming or other illegal operations.

and obviously doesn't know much about radio theory or ham radio gear!

My thoughts exactly. I don't know enough about HAM radio (but I'm doing to ask someone who does) but unless you wipe EVERYTHING out (neighbors WiFi etc) you aren't doing anything but burning up electrons.

 

[WV. Rootman]

I flew near a cell tower and it did nothing. How powerful are they?

Get something that messes with the compass and away it goes.

 

[sar104]

I flew near a cell tower and it did nothing. How powerful are they?

Get something that messes with the compass and away it goes.

You cannot remotely "mess" with a compass because you cannot project a magnetic field over any useful distance.

 

[BigAl07]

I reached out to a local "Old Timer" who has been doing Ham radio since the beginning of time. Here is his reply:

Any strong RF signal in the vicinity can desensitize the front end of the receiver, even if the frequencies are drastically different... Bandpass filters on your receiver would help eliminate that problem.

bandpass filters and shielding would just about eliminate that problem. I've had to that to some receiver I have on chambers because I'm real close to NPRs antenna and they were killing me with strong RF in the FM broadcast band....


So there you have it. Is it possible? Yes it is.

 

[sar104]

I reached out to a local "Old Timer" who has been doing Ham radio since the beginning of time. Here is his reply:

Any strong RF signal in the vicinity can desensitize the front end of the receiver, even if the frequencies are drastically different... Bandpass filters on your receiver would help eliminate that problem.

bandpass filters and shielding would just about eliminate that problem. I've had to that to some receiver I have on chambers because I'm real close to NPRs antenna and they were killing me with strong RF in the FM broadcast band....


So there you have it. Is it possible? Yes it is.

You really would have to work it hard to desensitize the front end of a 2.4 GHz receiver with a homebrew HAM transmitter at 145 MHz or so. The coupling to the antenna is going to be incredibly poor even before reaching the front-end filters. Bear in mind that DJI equipment flies just fine in the vicinity of FM and TV towers running at tens of kilowatts.

 

[NM_Quad]

Not to mention a 1000-1500 watt transmitter and amplifier is hardly a portable device for downing drones without directional antennas and a generator. Secondly, you don't pump out that kind of power on VHF/UHF or microwave frequencies (such as 2.4 GHz) - mostly for HF frequencies (<50 MHz). No ham wants to jeopardize his license over such an activity when a shotgun would be so much easier. To put a permanent 1KW transmitter at the end of runways for a NFZ would wipe out a huge area with a huge electric bill, not to mention disrupting ILS landing systems. Most wireless networks run 5-10 watts. You could overwhelm a Phantom with not much more than that, so why 1KW? Yes, I'm a ham.

 

[Bob62]

I am not all that sharp on some things, but I do know that a good ham system with a good kicker will screw up everything in the area around it. I was not a ham operator, I was a outlaw operator back in the early 60's. Had a good ant. and lots of power, I could talk anywhere. I also had a unit in my truck with a 500 watt kicker, at that time I flew u-control planes. We had a gentleman that would come out and fly his radio control planes, I could power up my radio and kill his signal to his plane. It was a fun thing because he new it was me doing it

 

[sar104]

I am not all that sharp on some things, but I do know that a good ham system with a good kicker will screw up everything in the area around it. I was not a ham operator, I was a outlaw operator back in the early 60's. Had a good ant. and lots of power, I could talk anywhere. I also had a unit in my truck with a 500 watt kicker, at that time I flew u-control planes. We had a gentleman that would come out and fly his radio control planes, I could power up my radio and kill his signal to his plane. It was a fun thing because he new it was me doing it

Back then the control frequencies were very different (50 - 75 MHz) and fully analog. I'm not surprised that worked then but it has little or no relevance to the issue of interfering with agile, 2.4 MHz spread-spectrum digital communications.

 

[AirMan05446]

There's a bunch of "drone jammers" here for those who want to look at the real deal. I know they deploy something along these lines around POTUS and other VIPs. It's a brave new world!
Drone Jammers

And another one:
https://www.jammer-store.com/drone-killer-6.html

 

[Duckman]

As a ham, 40 years+, love my CW and enjoy E-Com. There is one thing we all strive for is a clean signal. For a lot of reasons, two of which is efficiency and undo load on our finals which cost $$$ if burned. CLEAN signals are less likely to cause ANY interference. As mentioned above, 1500 watts will mess everything around "IF" "IF" things are not tuned. I ran 1200 watts in my bedroom for years with the main TV on the other side of the wall and never had a problem or neighbor complaining with a 4 element beam at 55' with plenty of inverted v's as antennas. Trust me if you have that bad of a tune and you are causing that much interference things get really harry in that power range... like arcing you don't want to see or hear. The original premise... I call foul. Could it happen? At lower freqs I say less likely as higher ones maybe but still a bit out there. The power requirements for such a large amp is a bit daunting in my opinion to make it portable.

Hams as a whole, much like many of you want safety and poor signals we run from and... freely tell you that something is wrong. We are a self policing bunch.. ANY OF US KNEW that you are doing such a thing there is a fairly large community out there that prides themselves in finding jerks.

I'd be more worried about power lines than this.

I realize other hams may say different because I din't use all the proper terms, just left it simple for the non hams.

Yes this is my first post.
P4 Advanced. Just got it 10 days ago and scared as Hades of a fly off.
I have my 107

Stay safe out there.

Mike

 

[With The Birds]

Not to mention a 1000-1500 watt transmitter and amplifier is hardly a portable device for downing drones without directional antennas and a generator. Secondly, you don't pump out that kind of power on VHF/UHF or microwave frequencies (such as 2.4 GHz) - mostly for HF frequencies (<50 MHz). No ham wants to jeopardize his license over such an activity when a shotgun would be so much easier. To put a permanent 1KW transmitter at the end of runways for a NFZ would wipe out a huge area with a huge electric bill, not to mention disrupting ILS landing systems. Most wireless networks run 5-10 watts. You could overwhelm a Phantom with not much more than that, so why 1KW? Yes, I'm a ham.

According to the regs both 2.4 and 5.8 wifi have a max transmitter power of 1w.... you can run very high gain antennas on 5.8ghz though.

 

[Duckman]

If you intend to do something felonious you can do it as NM_Quad has stated..... but the average ham guy keying up his mic... not so much. I would be more worried about hacking the RF digital connection from some computer nerd than I'm with this.