broadcast radio jammer sats? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / rf-microwave

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 27, 2025, 05:44:28 am
content: I read this particular tidbit about the USSR dastardly behaviorFrom the early 1970s, satellites generating swinging carrier signals were used to interfere even more effectively.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_in_the_Soviet_UnionThe source is some book.So to me it sounds like they are jamming like... medium wave ? from a satellite ?Anyone got some details about this?BBC and RFE made them so mad they went through the roof and then into space?

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 27, 2025, 07:27:07 am
content: = "It's all politics.Only short waves were jammed."Right?

author: valcher
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 27, 2025, 08:16:05 am
content: The reception range of stations on medium and long waves is small. The best reception of distant stations was possible only at night. But I do not remember that the stations "Voice of America" ​​and "BBC" broadcast to the USSR in the medium wave range. The greatest range of radio wave propagation is observed mainly in the short wave range, due to reflection and refraction in the upper electrically charged layers of the atmosphere, more precisely in the ionosphere.Edit.I really don't remember medium wave stations in my region, but it turns out there were medium wave stations in the western regions of the USSR. Here is a link to a Russian-language forum confirming the broadcast on medium wave. -https://www.radioscanner.ru/forum/topic18800-2.html

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 27, 2025, 08:49:35 am
content: Well it still implies that there was sats jamming something, maybe its HF, but thats still interesting. I can't find anything jam sats.

author: CaptDon
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 28, 2025, 03:30:29 am
content: My experience which is extensive shows the majority of the sweeping carrier jammers are terrestrial and targeting specific broadcast stations. North Korea, Iran, Russia and several others are to blame. This was rampant during the cold war years and still going on today. For a long time the so called Russian Woodpecker (O.T.H. Radar) was causing problems however U.S. ham radio operators using triangulation found out the U.S. was just as guilty of running O.T.H. radars on the west coast. They would slowly shift in frequency according to L.U.F. and M.U.F. vs. time of day. It was possible to chase the woodpeckers away if you had about a kilowatt of power and could key 10 millisecond pulses at 10 P.P.S. It seems the middle east region and Asia areas are still messing around with earth bound jammers. As for extraterrestrial jamming, who can say but it seems pointless based on targeting specific areas which would require large arrays if the bird is 22,000 miles up in geosyncronis orbit. If in low orbit the window of jamming would not last very long at a specific earth receiving location. Sound more Sci Fi than Sci Fact!!

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 28, 2025, 04:53:11 am
content: there is some possibility, it says there are/were flying nuclear reactors (not the little heaters) used for navy surveillance. Those sat had a serious powerplant and can maybe do this?

author: Bud
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 28, 2025, 05:36:54 am
content: Quote from: coppercone2 on January 27, 2025, 05:44:28 amSounds credible

author: silly sausage
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 28, 2025, 09:53:34 am
content: i guess now all jammers have been made redundant since the widespread use of smps's in everything!.

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 28, 2025, 10:02:24 am
content: the best use I thought of maybe is that in areas with really weak reception that can knock it out. Maybe in one of those remote secret cities (siberian atomgrad or something with biology), maybe to prevent people from driving out 30 miles from town to try to pick up radio in the middle of nowhere.it was probobly hard to prevent them from building radios lol

author: CaptDon
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 28, 2025, 02:48:52 pm
content: It is amazing that some countries limit the radios that can be purchased and what those radios receive!! North Korea for example. Give the U.S. another year and all radios will be required to be destroyed and replaced with single station radios tuned to the Trump Channel. Their moto "All Bullshit All The Time", and the station I.D. sounder will be the Benny Hill theme. Look at what they did with scanners here in the U.S., they eliminated the analog cell phone reception, of course that doesn't matter much in the digital cell age. I say "If your broadcast signal is arriving on my property then I have a right to receive it". I agree that I do not have a right to redistribute the signal. Kind of reminds me of the days of 'scrambled' cable T.V. signals and if you had a right to own, build or operate a descrambler. There is a funny story about how Iceland got 'cable T.V.', let's say the U.S. armed forces was involved. Originally, premium subscriber channels were broadcast on U.H.F. and you rented a special receiver box to decode those signals. The box could be addressed and only certain channels enabled based on what you were paying for. We had one of those boxes in the south of Iceland in the '90s.

author: joeqsmith
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 28, 2025, 05:49:13 pm
content: Quote from: CaptDon on January 28, 2025, 02:48:52 pmLet's all talk politics and post utter BS.

author: CaptDon
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 28, 2025, 10:23:09 pm
content: It was a joke son......I hope.

author: radiolistener
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 30, 2025, 04:59:39 pm
content: Quote from: coppercone2 on January 27, 2025, 08:49:35 amI haven't heard of jamming LW/MW/SW bands from satellites, but there is enough space to deploy a full-size antenna, and there is no wind or rain in space, so it shouldn't be too difficult. The main challenge is positioning the wires correctly around the satellite. Another issue is the power source, but I think several kilowatts should be enough to jam a powerful broadcast station for receivers located at a long distance from broadcast station.

author: drspastic
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: February 03, 2025, 12:21:31 am
content: isnt the biggest factor that hf signals would bounce off the same curvy sky mirrors that make terrestrial hfdx possible? that ionoshpere seems pretty shiny from down here so i expect those soviet radio waves would bounce straight back into outer space. if ever it really was tried it would probably be in order to mogg numbers stations

author: jonovid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 07, 2025, 08:59:35 am
content: I remember as a kid. jamming was thatroaring soundyou'd got on some parts of the Shortwave bands in the mid 1970s - 1980s

author: CaptDon
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 07, 2025, 01:53:46 pm
content: Those were often just multiplex channels giving that roaring sound. They still exist in abundance today. Many of the 'jamming' signals were a signal sweeping back and forth across the carrier frequency of the channel being jammed mostly done by turd world countries trying to keep their own people from receiving 'real world / real time information that may conflict with their own dictators views. And as expected, jamming works best near the intended receivers of the information to be blocked. Remember the whole "Radio Free Europe" thing of the late 60's and early 70's when about 20% of all shortwave signals were being blocked mostly by communist countries denying reception to their own commrads? It was always amazing that the V.O.A. who promised to 'always be truthful' was on an equal par with Radio Moscow for the highest amount of pure bullshit to ever flow through a transmitter.

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 07, 2025, 02:04:53 pm
content: That whole history of nuts, all the offices had spies of both sides working in there. Talk about office frenemiesI wonder how obvious it was to the people working there. How many spies are on the payroll?According to Richard Cummings, former Security Chief of Radio Free Europe, other espionage incidents included a failed attempt by a Czechoslovak Intelligence Service (StB) agent in 1959 to poison the salt shakers in the organization's cafeteria.By the time you get on air your wondering which side is going to throw your body in the sewers lol

author: benseno
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 07, 2025, 03:06:55 pm
content: That is quite doubtful. Satellites have limited power budget. Yet, full size antennas are required for frequencies lesser than 14 MHz.afaik\ USSR used terrestrial jamming stations with unlimited power supply.May be they launched few satellites for testing purposes, and that was recorded in the book the wiki refers to. And eventually found them ineffective.

author: RoGeorge
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 07, 2025, 03:53:28 pm
content: That book referred by the Wikipedia pageQuotemust be a very rare book, since google doesn't know it.Anybody knows what book they refer to?Anyway, never trust Wikipedia for historical/political/cultural/opinionated topics. Not only that Wikipedia is biased, it was turned into blatant propaganda lately. Wikipedia went so far that they deleted pages that didn't align with the official narrative, or they used bots to automate the creation of thousands of stub pages.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 07, 2025, 04:36:34 pm
content: A quick Google search finds that it’s Chapter 4 ofCold War Broadcastingedited by Johnson and Parta, Central European University Press, 2010.

author: RoGeorge
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 07, 2025, 05:06:09 pm
content: Seen that book in the search results, just that it's a different title by a different author.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 07, 2025, 05:13:54 pm
content: Woodard wrote Chapter 4 of the book edited by Johnson and Parta, with that chapter title.When I was in school in 1965, we learned how to cite references properly.

author: RoGeorge
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 07, 2025, 06:04:53 pm
content: Quoted fromhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_in_the_Soviet_Union:QuoteLOL, Wikipedia links to Earth satellites, while the book is talking about "satellite countries", meaning the Eastern European countries under soviet influence.Quoted from page 64 Chapter 4 of Cold War Broadcasting edited by Johnson and Parta, Central European University Press, 2010, the Wikipedia reference:QuoteAll rights belongs to authors, the underlining is mine, to disentangle the technical aspect. The Easter European satellitecountries(like Bulgaria, Hungary, etc.) were heaving their own radio towers, local stations on the ground, inside the country's borders, stations that were sweeping the broadcast frequencies of VOA, RFE and alike western broadcasting stations, in order to jam the reception inside the eastern satellite states of the USSR.No satellites in the sky were doing the jamming.

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 07, 2025, 09:31:46 pm
content: that is such a bad way of writing it lol. Its like the entire country was used to do something like its a hammerand I guess it got attacked by a robot too, because of the hyperlink.I see, so the book IS written in 2010. I thought it was a reprint of something for some reason.Apparently they are trying it NOW anyway, with some kind of nuclear powered space tug boat that has unusually robust electrical option for powering some transmitter etc with alot of juice. I guess anything capable of powering alot of ion thrusters can also used for anything else since it has the power.