GPS Interference Caused the FAA To Reroute Texas Air Traffic

The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the cause of mysterious GPS interference that, over the past few days, has closed one runway at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and prompted some aircraft in the region to be rerouted to areas where signals were working properly. From a report: The interference first came to light on Monday afternoon when the FAA issued an advisory over ATIS (Automatic Terminal Information Service). It warned flight personnel and air traffic controllers of GPS interference over a 40-mile swath of airspace near the Dallas-Fort Worth airport. The advisory read in part: "ATTN ALL AIRCRAFT. GPS REPORTED UNRELIABLE WITHIN 40 NM OF DFW." An advisory issued around the same time by the Air Traffic Control System Command Center, meanwhile, reported the region was "experiencing GPS anomalies that are dramatically impacting" flights in and out of Dallas-Fort Worth and neighboring airports. It went on to say that some of the airports were relying on the use of navigation systems that predated GPS.

Time for the FCC to shine...

[SuperKendall]

This is exactly the kind of problem where the government can really be of use, hopefully they can come in and quickly identify the source of what is effectively signal jamming.

Will be really interesting to find out root cause here... and if it was intentional. My guess is it's not intentional and is a mistake somewhere, but you never know!

Re:Time for the FCC to shine...

[Archangel Michael]

I bet that crowd sourcing, volunteers and private enterprise could find the culprit faster and more assuredly.

Like when the Government spend weeks looking for a missing teen driver and the citizen "volunteers" found her in a lake that had been "extensively searched" by authorities.

https://www.today.com/news/new... [today.com]

WE the people ARE The rightful "Government", not just those paid by taxpayers. I could also point to the Cajun Navy and several other examples of the common people doing things better and more efficiently. Government "officials" should always call on us (we the people) when a job is too big.

Re:

[ArchieBunker]

I bet that crowd sourcing, volunteers and private enterprise could find the culprit faster and more assuredly.

Well, pony up some cash for a spectrum analyzer and get going. Nobody is stopping you.

Re:

[Tailhook]

Don't need an SA to find a powerful jammer. Just a decent receiver and a directional antenna. One of these [sdrplay.com] would be perfect. With these headlines I can guarantee the local HAMs will be on the case. If anyone fires up a transmitter on the GPS bands around DFW they'll be localized rapidly. Hopefully they're stupid enough to do it again.

normally takes us a couple hours. Should have look

[raymorris]

The weekends, the local ham clubs do what we call a "fox hunt". Just for fun, someone hides a transmitter and others look for it.

For a single person looking or a pair riding together, it normally takes 2-3 hours to find a lunchbox sized transmitter hidden somewhere in the city. A larger transmitter would be easier. Working together is slightly easier. We should have hunted the thing interfering with GPS.

Re: normally takes us a couple hours. Should have

[SleepingEye]

Did you notice that they specifically kept mentioning ligado? This is a private company's own implementation, not the general purpose GPS that everyone else uses. They also put mitigating (guard band) to ensure less crosstalk.

Re:Time for the FCC to shine...

[RJFerret]

Or like looking for the Boston Bomber, where Reddit folks found Sunil Tripathi via crowd sourcing... ...only they were completely wrong, and likely factored in his suicide. :-(

We elect competent folks to run our government and use certified professionals for a reason. Yes, crowd sourcing is an effective tool for certain applications, but as social sciences demonstrate, crowds are dumb, even made up of smart individuals with positive intentions.

Re:

[AmazingRuss]

Well, they represent the general population.

Re:Time for the FCC to shine...

[AmazingRuss]

... not to mention accusing people that didn't do it, and dispensing mob justice...

Re:

[tomz16]

Will be really interesting to find out root cause here

The one around Newark International Airport [nj.com] a few years back turned out to be some dude who didn't want his boss tracking him and purchased an illegal jammer.

Re:

[SuperKendall]

Wow and that guy even drove the jammer onto airport property not thinking it would do anything! Crazy.

Posted by MsMash

[thegarbz]

from the duuupe department [slashdot.org].

Seriously man Slashdot has a search button. If you type GPS in the top and the first article is about the same thing, consider just grabbing the next thing from the firehose instead. Yes, I'm mansplaining to another person how they should do their job.

UPDATE: GPS interference causes Slashdot ...

[davidwr]

... to reroute editors to the wrong "search" button.

Re:

[UnknowingFool]

Maybe the issue was caused by slash dot dupes interfering with the space-time continuum

Slashdot broken just for me or everyone?

[Arnonyrnous Covvard]

Time to let it go?

Re:

[Arethan]

Answer is uncertain. Can tell the exact time. GPS seems unavailable to sync local clock.

Re:

[ArchieBunker]

Just saw a new block of ads on the sidebar that somehow slipped by uBlock Origin. Shows up right next to the "Ads disabled" checkbox.

Re:

[antdude]

Same. I had to use UO's inspect to block those sections.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

ABP musta got 'em. I have a whole fuckin' row of bullshit at the top of my browser but it seems to be worth it. UO, ABP, noscript, cookiesafe...

Re:

[Ed Tice]

Life is not some cartoon musical where you sing a little song and all of your insipid dreams come true.

Those poor pilots...

[cuda13579]

...they'll just have to use all their other navigation skills, that they learned to become pilots.

Yeah, "jamming bad"...but GPS isn't the be-all end-all of safety that everyone makes it out to be.

Re: Those poor pilots...

[jefffgy]

GPS approaches are very very big capability improvements. There are many downsides to traditional ground based aids. Most major airports still have both, but it usually comes down to cost. Maintaining a GPS approach only involves approach plate amendments for basic approaches. There are GPS based approaches that also use ground based components though. I think GPS is still a massive game changer, particularly for smaller airports that canâ(TM)t afford the ground based aids. So to calibrate your post,

Re:

[pi_rules]

GPS was declassified and civilians were allowed to use it finally specifically to improve air safety. The old timey skills weren't up to avoiding mountains well.

Re:

[cuda13579]

You all realize that radar is still a thing...right?

Putin said there would be pain

[dasgoober]

Is this an attempt at a Russian "Die Hard" operation?

Crowdsourcing is the way to go on this.

[LScott53]

There are vast arrays of Internet connected GPS/GNSS receivers that could be used to rapidly detect, characterize and geolocate interference sources. Several vendors have commented "The receivers have the information but we don't know where to send it." Cellphones, while individually offering poor accuracy, have the advantage of being numerous. By my estimates, it should take about 10 seconds to detect, confirm and geolocate to within 50 meters. Why we don't do this is beyond me. https://www.gpsexpert.net/ [gpsexpert.net]