GPS testing signal jamming air traffic control- 9-11Review

The report, issued in January, stems from the work of a task force headed by two former officials in the Reagan administration, Edwin Meese III and L. Paul Bremer III. Established in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, the task force included a series of working groups who set forth a set of priorities and associated "key steps" for actions to improve homeland security. Meese was attorney general under Reagan and Bremer chaired a National Commission on Terrorism and served as ambassador at large for counterterrorism.
The recommendations on GPS came from the Working Group on Infrastructure Protection and Internal Security, which listed as its second priority, "designating the Global Positioning System (GPS) frequencies and network as critical national infrastructure." Among the members on the working group was Jules McNeff, a long-time DoD representative for GPS program policies who currently serves as the director for military affairs with the U.S. GPS Industry Council. Michael Scardaville, a Heritage Foundation staff member who served as rapporteur for that working group, acknowledged that McNeff "drove most of the GPS recommendations. He is obviously tremendously well-informed on the subject."
gpsworld.com/gpsworld/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=8293

The intense debate prior to the European Union (EU) transport ministers’ March 26th decision to approve Galileo threw a spotlight on an issue that officials on both sides of the Atlantic had been politely avoiding for years — the military implications of Galileo.
Up to the end of 2001 very little had been said about this. The EU had griped for years that the United States’ GPS was run by the military — an arrangement they insisted undermined commercial applications by creating uncertainty as to whether the civilian service might be limited or turned off in a crisis. European leaders repeatedly asserted that a civil system, designed for and run by the civil community, was therefore urgently needed.
The debate broke wide open, however, in early December when U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz sent a letter to his counterparts in NATO expressing concern over a proposal to overlay part of the GPS military M-code with a signal for the Galileo Public Regulated Service (PRS) — the portion of the Galileo service that would be used by military forces. The letter created a fervor and generated accusations that the U.S. was trying to stop adoption of Galileo.

Adding to the mix, the Directorate for Energy and Transport of the European Commission (EC) acknowledged, in published documents supporting Galileo,its desire for an independent satellite navigation system to support the defense forces of the EU and military export sales.
With the cards now laid out on the table, and the M-code the subject of on-going negotiations, one can be assured that the conversation will be getting considerably less polite.
..... To support its military in times of conflict, the U.S. wants to be able to jam navigation signals — all non-U.S.-military navigation signals — in an area of conflict.
But if the U.S. jams the PRS signal, placed where it is now proposed, it would likely jam its own military signal as well. From the EU perspective very good technical reasons may exist for seeking to use a part of the spectrum planned for the M-code. A U.S. expert noted that the segment of radio spectrum supporting the M-code is one of the least likely areas to suffer interference from non-navigation users.
gpsworld.com/gpsworld/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=21977

By all accounts, overlaying PRS on the M-code will make it extremely difficult to jam the Galileo signal in wartime without also jamming the U.S. signal. If a Galileo signal is incorporated into equipment for foreign sale — something the European Directorate for Transportation and Energy indicated last December is desirable — then there is a possibility that equipment that cannot realistically be jammed will land in unfriendly hands. It is also possible that the U.S. could face a problem working with its allies, particularly in NATO, if the EU adopts a different navigation standard for military equipment.
h gpsworld.com/gpsworld/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=21892
Nonetheless, the real culprit in all this is not Europe, but the higher echelons of the Pentagon and their colleagues in Congress who are willing to put at risk a system that demonstrates its multibillion benefits every day. The false economy of last year’s imprudent and preferential tax cuts has pushed the federal government back into deficit spending. But the solution to that misbegotten policy will not come from endangering a global utility like GPS.
gpsworld.com/gpsworld/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=21891

WTC clean-up & GPS
Roads Not Taken. To address the issue of potential load tampering, we explored several ideas for added load verification. The team quickly rejected using truck scales to weigh each truck at Ground Zero and again at the dumpsites, because much of the debris was still burning, months after the tragedy. As a result, fire hoses sprayed loads before they headed to the dumpsites, adding water weight and altering actual truck and load weights.
gpsworld.com/gpsworld/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=30686
And I say that the water was pushing the exothermic reaction.

.... However, the graphics portraying jamming performance are difficult to interpret, contain errors, and don’t correlate with the text. This shortcoming may have been an effort by the authors to skirt security issues since details about GPS military jamming performance are classified. In any case, the results here are certainly confusing.
gpsworld.com/gpsworld/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=71254
Have you heard of JAMFEST?
Interesting stuff here
acq.osd.mil/actd/text/print_descript.htm#FY2001
acq.osd.mil/actd/text/index.htm

"Photons have mass?! I didn't even know they were Catholic." - Anonymous

Satellite navigation is said to be difficult in Italy because certain TV channels are leaking spurious emissions. Recently, automated wireless toll-taking devices installed on bridges have been discovered knocking out local GPS reception.

These sorts of problems will probably be solved with the next generation of GPS, which will add new frequencies and possibly more power to the present signal. However, the issue of "intentional" interference looks much harder, if not impossible, to solve. ( Langhorne)Bond says, "Anyone with $50 and a soldering iron can make a jammer able to destroy the GPS signal for a hundred miles." The Volpe researchers, who clearly had access to at least some portion of our military’s "dark" GPS technology, detail what a more sophisticated enemy could accomplish. This includes not just widespread and prolonged jamming, but also "spoofing" in which GPS misinformation blankets the real signals.

You can easily imagine the terrible consequences of fake navigation data in foggy harbors and airports. In the aviation world it’s acronymed HMI for "hazardously misleading information" and understood to be much more dangerous than no information at all. But did you realize that many of our telecommunications and power-grid systems are also dependent on GPS for atomic-clock timing capabilities?

The whole scary story is laid out in the Volpe report (available at www.navcen.uscg.gov) and was apparently taken quite seriously by our secretary of transportation Norman Minetta. He released it to the public last September 10, and of course the horrid events of the following day could not have done more to emphasize the presence of malevolent and clever forces in our world.

Blofeld (and his cat) have a handful of short and curlys.
And you are going to love this one lads: TRAINS.
http://www.spy.org.uk/spyblog/archives/000439.html

(Written by journalist Klaus Givskov from the Danish business newspaper, Dagbladet Børsen, and published with kind permission from Dagbladet Børsen. The article was first published in Dagbladet Børsen, Friday 8 Jun 2001).

"Digital safety" is the new buzzword in ISS's British transport division. In the near future, more than half of the 900 staff engaged in cleaning for the London Underground will be equipped with handheld computer terminals.
This allows centralised staff to identify the whereabouts of the staff in the big Underground network. Many small teams are dispersed on 134 train stations in the London area - and some employees work all alone at night in the empty carriages. They handle the cleaning of 2,500 different locations in one week and 21,000 carriages. .....
More and more employees will be equipped with the small computers in the coming period.Initially, the employees have to sign in via the computer and the telephone network, and they sign off by calling the communication centre again via the computer. They are registered on large screens in the ISS Canary Wharfcommunication centre in London Dockland to give a total overview of all employees working in the Underground.
Advanced software
Advanced software applications have been developed for ISS. ISS intends to link them to the GPS system, permitting automatic tracking of employees within a few yards.
Cables will be incorporated in the Underground networkso that the computers automatically inform the centre when an employee has checked off an assignment by using a simple procedure.
The new technology will also enable ISS to organise the work in an optimal manner - based on the large volume of statistical and other data which will be available to ISS when the system is fully operational.
"We will be able to manage our staff much more efficiently", says Les Garnett, who is in charge of the London Underground contract.
http://www.ie.issworld.com/view.asp?ID=1005&mID=112

IT firm SciSys conducted the recent satellite navigation trial with a national rail operator in southern England.
The system is said to have performed better than expected, coping well with, for example, obstacles in the landscape and nearby electrified tube lines, which can interfere with the signal.
To operate Global Positioning System (GPS) technology, the train needs to be able to see the sky to maintain a signal with the satellite. So train tunnels pose a particular challenge.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4247721.stm
Sat 12 Feb 2005
One particular hurdle that remains is how to track trains in tunnels: some scientists have suggested ground-based sensors that could relay train data back to the satellite network.
Rail industry heads, satellite experts and government officials met in London earlier this week to take stock of recent studies of the technology in Britain.
For the past eight months, a private company, SciSys, has been working with a train operator - believed to be Connex - on a trial of the tracking technology. People who attended the conference say the trials had proved more successful than expected. The challenge now is to reach consensus on the technology among the complicated community of train companies and government regulators that make up the UK rail industry.
European transport planners are not the only ones investigating the potential of satellite tracking to increase rail safety.
Several Australian state governments are considering making it mandatory for trains to carry airline-style "black box" data recorders. The boxes would be linked to the GPS system.
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=162482005

21 February 2005
The London event, organised by Pinpoint Faraday — set up to help develop GNSS in the UK — and the Rail Safety & Standards Board, was the first major forum to bring together rail industry heavyweights and the wider satellite technology community.
The results of two trial projects designed to test GNSS in the rail environment were outlined for the first time, offering a mixed picture of its effectiveness.
One was a 25-week trial of the accuracy of GPS operating on a high-speed train running between London and the west country and South Wales. It involved space software specialist SciSys and rail engineering group Parsons Brinckerhoff, with the support of the British National Space Centre.
Gareth Close of SciSys said the satellite system proved a success in delivering sufficiently reliable position and time fixes across the trial area.
To his surprise, Close said it also worked deep into centralLondon. 'We had valid positioning all the way to the buffers at Paddington,' he said. 'There are many tall buildings, so it's a poor environment for GPS — but it worked.'
The system also seemed to function well in the presence of potentially disruptive rail systems such as overhead power lines and the electrified third rail.
There was, however, a problem with 'cold starts' when the train left Paddington after standing at the station, and failed to secure a valid GPS signal until it reached the west London suburbs.
Close suggested these and other technical issues could be resolved through augmentation with alternative systems.
The Paddington trial did not, however, attempt to overcome the most obvious drawback to widespread use of GNSS on the rail network — what happens when a train is in a tunnel.
The conference was told that accounting for time spent underground — possibly with a surrogate GPS signal source known as a pseudolite, or by switching to an alternative position sensing technology — is a key question for the industry.
Simon Atkinson, a location and tracking specialist for R&D company Roke Manor Research, claimed that predicting the performance of GNSS across the UK's vast rail network presents significant challenges. Alongside poor reception areas such as tunnels and cuttings, there is also the problem of multipath, the distorting effect of signals bouncing off buildings and other rail traffic.
In the second trial Atkinson, tested a standard GPS unit on a train running between Southampton and Winchester, and then in a car on the equivalent stretch of the M3, which runs virtually parallel with the rail line.
While the car-based system secured a consistently good signal, the rail journey saw wide variations, with significant dips through cuttings and the complete loss of signal through tunnels.
Cached

Re: London traffic signals
http://www.serco.com/about_serco/glance/history/index.asp
In both road and rail transport our reputation is strong and our expertise diverse. We manage road traffic management and control systems – including England’s national Traffic Control Centre, which we designed and built. And we operate complete rail networks such as the award-winning Docklands Light Railway in London and Manchester’s Metrolink tram system. In July 2003 we began operating the Merseyrail Electrics network and in December 2004 operations began on the Northern Rail franchaise.

http://www.serco.com/about_serco/glance/operate/unitedkingdom.asp

Serco’s operational role (of the up-and-coming Skynet 5) includes network maintenance, training, supply management, through-life maintenance of the buildings and facilities, installation of communication systems in operational zones such as Bosnia – and spacecraft operations. Our spacecraft control teams work round the clock, manoeuvring the satellites to maintain their orbital position, orient them in the right direction and keep them in optimal condition. There are planned operations – such as regular station-keeping manoeuvres to return the spacecraft to their normal orbital position – and unplanned, in response to onboard failures or factors such as solar activity.
http://www.serco.com/about_serco/markets/skynet5.asp

Your Ad Here

The Pentagon jet-fuel blaze was put out by water.
In airport rescue and fire fighting training situations, a fake jet chassis is used and instead of using the very expensive foam, the trainees use regular water which may or may not be attached to a foaming agent. The fire is propane which burns cleanly and has little environmental impact and the instructors control the amount and intensity of the fire which complies with OSHA rules and lessens accidents and the resultant workmans comp claims.

Serco is the only significant non-government provider of air traffic services in the world. We operate on a global basis and handle about 6 million aircraft movements each year at airports in Europe, the Middle East and North America .... At the International Fire Training Training Centre located at Teeside Airport, we deliver training in a wide range of fire-fighting and rescue skills - it is the leading facility of its kind in the world. ..... In the US, we operate 54 air traffic control towers for the Federal Aviation Administration. We also provide air traffic engineering, meteorological services, rescue and fire-fighting services, electronic and electrical maintenance services and other airport support services such as catering and cleaning.
http://www.serco.com/about_serco/markets/transport/Air.asp

01/04/2005
The development of a wireless internet network could potentially allow passengers to access real-time Tube and London travel information on the move through their mobile phone or lap-top. Passengers could access information on travel disruption before they arrive at affected stations and could amend their journey as appropriate.
http://www.digitalmediaasia.com/default.asp?ArticleID=7067
By 2008, London mayor Ken Livingstone plans to have transmitters in place in Tube stations that will allow mobile phone reception as well as possibly wireless internet and digital radio signals. If feasible, the coverage may also be extended to trains, as well. Liberals and conservatives alike stepped in to voice their opinions on the technology rollout, with officials on both sides feeling compelled to pull The Fear card: “it could enable terrorists to set off bombs remotely,” cautioned transport spokesperson Roger Evans. All too true, but why stop there, really, when we could just ban cellphones completely and truly sleep soundly at night?

http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000077037254/
READ THE COMMENTS

(bad links)
A new type of magnet has been tested in the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the USA. It is powerful enough for use in magnetic levitation applications, but is not electromagnetic ie does not require any power. (July 17th 1999)
The construction of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link in Britain will be aided by a Global Positioning System by Trimble. The GPS uses satellites to establish one's exact position and is widely used for navigation purposes. However, the system's precision is down to the centimetre. (July 20th 1999)
British Connex Rail, an offshoot of Vivendi of France, is to remove seats from one its most modern train types to create more standing room for commuters to London. The privatised company runs trains into London on some of the busiest commuter lines in southern England. Connex said removing seats was the only way of achieving an immediate increase in capacity on the trains. Running 12-carriage trains instead of the eight-car trains at present would require longer stations at some stations and the boosting of power supplies to the track. The proposal requires the approval of the railway safety authorities which is expected within the next month. (July 28th 1999)
Great Western Trains has been fined a record £1.5m for safety lapses that led to the Southall train crash that killed seven people and injured a further 150 outside London in September 1997. Two safety systems on the train were either not working or had been switched off and the driver was not looking ahead just before the crash. A Swansea to Paddington express passed a red light at 125mph and hit a freight train. See also BBC stories. (July 28th 1999)

GNER is the first and only UK transport operator to offer a wireless data communication system (Wi-Fi)-an innovative service set to revolutionise rail travel.
http://www.gner.co.uk/GNER/wi-fi/
This link has a really cool diagram explaining how GPS works inside tunnels.
http://www.gner.co.uk/GNER/Wi-Fi/How+does+it+work.htm
GNER began trialling on-board Wi-Fi in December 2003 on two trains running between London's Kings Cross and Scotland along the UK's East Coast main line. In April 2004, it announced it would expand the service to ten trains by the end of the year. Over time, GNER plans to install Wi-Fi on all 302 cars destined to be part of its Mallard fleet.
dailywireless.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2773

Feel free to use any or all of this info however you please.

nlc.natca.org/OLD%20files/MM%20Feb%2099%20senate%20test.htm

I've used this piece before about the FAA turning off primary radar: look at this passage

In the push to modernize, we must ensure we do not lose the current system safeguards. Surveillance alternatives to radar, such as Global Positioning System (GPS) based on Automatic Dependant Surveillance – Broadcast (ADS-B) will provide coverage in areas currently non-radar. These areas include oceanic airspace, remote areas, and mountainous terrain where a ground-based system cannot be maintained.

It doesn't say where or when they were going to use GPS but if it was covering mountainous areas and was switched off... well?

Interesting mag -- GPS World
Archives -- August and June 2001 are empty.

gpsworld.com/gpsworld/issue/issueList.jsp?pageNo=6&start=45&id=38
Interesting article
gpsworld.com/gpsworld/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=53495

.... If the highjackers jammed the GPS signal, the system would put the plane in a holding pattern until it reacquired a clear signal. By refusing to turn off the jammer, terrorists could force the aircraft to run out of fuel and crash - but could not guide it to a target. .....
Further reading: "Soft Landings: Navy Proves Hands-Off Touchdown," by Matteo Luccio and Glenn Colby, GPS World, August 2001.
gpsworld.com/gpsworld/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=1804
More about that touchdown.
findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0IAX/is_5_83/ai_78052563

Every structure moves, if only imperceptibly to the unaided human eye. Its “natural frequency” — the frequency at which it naturally wants to oscillate — depends on such factors as its geometry, the materials with which it was built, and the soil on which it rests. However, when a structure moves by an abnormal amount (for example, in an earthquake), those responsible for it need to know, especially if it is a very large one — say, a dam, a highway bridge, or a skyscraper. To monitor the deformation of such structures engineers increasingly use GPS-based systems.
gpsworld.com/gpsworld/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=30091
Remember those abnormal spikes in seismic activity?
Were they deliberately trying to do something to those skyscrapers?

Hayden 9/11 + the NSA part 1
Hayden 9/11 + the NSA part 2
Hayden 9/11 + the NSA part 3

Gps - 9/11 Encyclopedia

Hijackers used GPS to pinpoint WTC

Arinc 9-11 Encyclopedia

Atta Gps - 9/11Encyclopedia

archives nanog 2001 world trade center

GlobalHawk - 9/11 Encyclopedia

Air Traffic Control Center Ronkonkoma- 20th Hijacker

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911Review

911review WIKI index

GPS testing and posible effects or uses in terror attacks. Relations to London bombings and september 11th 2001

Heritage Security Report Urges GPS Changes