US department of Homeland Security (DHS) operates autonomous drones patrolling over the USA-Mexico border, which suffer jamming attacks by border smugglers, mainly the drug cartels,” said Gai Mar-Chaim, Senior Partner at the management consulting firm POC. “The DHS gives high priority for lightweight anti-jamming solutions for this challenge, and GPSdome is the only commercially available solution that weighs less than 150 gram and consumes power less than 0.75 Watt.
The BBC broadcasts are carried on shortwave frequencies from Taiwan and Uzbekistan, and on medium wave from Mongolia, 38 North reported. It said it wasn’t possible to determine if the medium wave frequency was also targeted by jamming.
When GPS signal jammer operated, they can substantially degrade or disrupt critical military and civilian applications by blocking radiocommunications signals used for the radio-navigation-satellite service. Some people believe the devices can be useful and people should have the right to buy them. For example, Michael Kharkovoy, CEO of Jammer-Store, told Fox News that GPS jammers can be stowed easily in a car or a bag and can help avoid spy detection — say, from a spouse who suspects infidelity and plants a GPS tracking device like the Zoombak in a car.
Jamming GPS and other satellite navigation systems is the classic asymmetric threat. It’s inexpensive, equipment is readily available and easy to use, and its effects are scalable from targeted local impacts to wide area strategic disruptions. At the same time it is very, very difficult to detect, especially when operated intermittently and/or from a moving platform, and its impacts are often attributed to other causes.
China is well known as a source of mass-produced small cell phone jammer widely available over the Internet, but equipment on this scale would not be capable of jamming at the distances stated above. “At least one, or possibly more Russian companies are selling fairly powerful GPS jamming equipment,” said one knowledgeable source.
The U.S. assessment is supported by a photo taken last month by the commercial satellite company DigitalGlobe and provided to The Wall Street Journal. It shows a suspected jammer system with its antenna extended on Mischief Reef, one of seven Spratly outcrops where China has built fortified artificial islands since 2014, moving sand onto rocks and reefs and paving them over with concrete.