I worked with a pirate radio station for a while and heard a story that one of their transmitters had got wet, or an insect in it or something like that, which caused the frequency to drift into Gatwick's ATC frequencies. Apparently the station got an immediate call from Ofcom, and dutifully went and retrieved the transmitter. This was highlighted as an example of Ofcom turning a blind eye to a popular (and well-run) pirate station in the area, they were aware of them and only got in contact when there was a QRM issue - I'm not sure if any of this was true or not, but having seen the transmitter rigs that were in use, I really wouldn't be surprised.
Oh one more thing, recently in Edinburgh they thought someone was jamming the air band, turned out it was a faulty LED light bulb in someones kitchen in the flightpath! funny how Ofcom will rush to sort that out but bugger anyone else who has any problems.
I used to be in that line of work, it definitely did happen around the country from time to time. Very malicious and dangerous, in the same category as people who shine green lasers at aircraft and helicopters.
FWIW in the mid 1980s there were very significant problems with ILS created by a pirate link transmitter operating not far above Band 2. From memory I think the transmitter was in the region of 100w output. I worked for the RA at the time and did do a full test on the confiscated transmitter. Pirate broadcasters did not always create harmful interference but many did, a popular way to create 90MHz for instance woud be to start at 30MHz into a tripler, no bandpass filters on the output meant lots of spurs.
most of this type of stuff is done by licensed ham operators. In the US nearly every FCC forfeiture involving interference with public services and such are by licensed hams not random "Joe Publics" with an Amazon Baofeng.
Brilliant quality video production Lewis. Interesting story that could have had a really scary, horrific ending. I was watching another channel (construction company near Heathrow) where they were using a drone, then the police turned up and confronted them with evidence that the drone had been used over 30 times in that year near Heathrow. Clearly they are now able to track and trace individual drones. Keep up the great work.
I actually heard some of those transmissions, and tower telling pilots to ignore directions. The strong Mancunian accent gave them our way. Ere, our kid, climb to 5,000 feet stuck out a bit.
My parents had a police scanner that was always on, I mean it sat on the fridge and never turned off. It picked up Indianapolis In police and fire, in the mid seventies a guy that called himself "Super star" wreaked havoc for several months. I remembered dispatchers and officers trying to reason with or argue but it went on for months, I mean this guy was sick, he would "key the mic"? blocking dispatchers and officers, he was loud with a deep voice, I don't remember if he thought it funny or anger or how it ended.
Hi Lewis, shame they never caught the idiot. In CB days we could find the bucket 🪣 mouths 👄 and interference stations. Not like now when there are so few operators on CB. One near me is very loud and always drunk. Threatening and swearing all the time. It puts you off! Nice video, Thanks 🙏 Regards. G4TZV Eamonn.
@@bigpimp347 The reason we could find, or DX stations was because several members from different cb clubs would work together, the more, the easier it was. Now I don’t know any CB clubs, and in this area there are very few stations, hence much harder to find them.
Thankfully it's common practice for pilots to repeat any commands they've had back to ATC and have them confirm it before taking action. Because even when there's not a jammer, it can sometimes be easy to mishear what the controller said for normal reasons.
Lewis another great video. Just hate how people like that can and will mess it up for the rest of us. Good news that these pilots can work out what is true and false. Motters M7TRS 73's
Super interesting, love the way the newspaper show a 10mw 49Mhz walkie talkie on the front of the paper thing probably wouldnt interfere with the radio if you were sat inside the plane besides being a mile off frequency, there was a lot of PMR gear that his the rallies in the late 80s early 90s ( I Know as I got hold of a lot of it) that was almost on air band and with the use of Chris Loreks conversion hand book could easily and cheaply be modified and dropped right in there. All aeroplanes use unencrypted analogue radio systems still mainly for safety reasons, leaves them a little vulnerable to this sort of japery still though, very easy to play about, especially with a beam antenna and a copy of flight radar, luckily it doesnt seem to be a thing and as most modern planes land themselves most of the time its not even really a major safety issue as it was in Die Hard 3. Seems like all the pranksters like this now have more fun trolling the internet or shit posting on Twitter, another great video, I will have to get making a few as well.
Oh good Archive footage Lewis in audio i could at odd times hear some of these characters doing there stuff up here on the 17th floor here in Bletchley back in the late 80's and early 90's. Luton Airport and small airfield Cranfield is line of sight with me i could hear on there AM Frequencies although some what distorted interference. Mostly what i picked up was the 'Worked All Cop Shop Awards' and dont forget there is the 'Worked All Community Repeater Awards. where they would scroll through the CTCSS tones opening up the various Two Links. Happy days back listening Marc In Bletchley Towers G6XEG PS even myself have had a few visits in the past for experimenting!! HI!
well i bet they have a network building top based sdr arrays that just log directional info signal strength and record it all these days so it you gotta be careful now
A few years ago, there was a jammer called “Apollo Stains” who used to jam near Gatwick airport, broadcasting snippets of Fawlty Towers, Monty Python and his own bizarre vocalisations. Stopped after a couple of weeks, but he could have caused the most awful harm. Daft lad...
Meanwhile in Germany, just days ago: A man has been arrested in Berlin on allegations he made radio contact with air traffic, including police helicopters, and gave fake flight orders while impersonating an aviation official, German police said Friday. The 32-year-old, whose identity wasn’t released in line with German privacy laws, was arrested Thursday night in the capital’s eastern Koepenick district, police said. Police were able to swoop in on his apartment after he made contact with a police helicopter that was dispatched to the neighborhood in the hope of flushing him out. During a search of his home, police found two radios that transmitted on the frequencies needed to make contact with aircraft. “For everyone who has been asking about our police helicopter operations in Koepenick, an unusual arrest,” Berlin police tweeted, with a link to more details. The man is alleged to have made contact with pilots of passenger and transport aircraft, as well as state and federal police helicopters, over the past six months, giving “potentially dangerous” instructions and becoming increasingly professional with his communications. No accidents or other incidents are known to have been caused by his actions, police said.
There are some right idiots around, I don't know if they realise just how dangerous this actually is or they just have not stopped to think! It is just stupid to say the least and it could be their friends or relatives that could be at the wrong end of this, but do they care? Shame they were not caught and thrown inside for a while to think about it.
This, and the Aylesbury Repeater Bomb were nothing whatsoever to do with the LPWS or its members. The Aylesbury device was set by amateurs from North London after previous devices were stolen, and we understand that the Air Traffic Control incident was an attempt to get a fee from newspapers for the story following a demonstration of how easy it was.
Hi Lewis . A place I worked was close to the airport in Aberdeen. They bought a Mavic drone and tried to flying in the yard where we worked but it did not go very high and the guy that was flying it discovered that it was due to being close to the airport. I'm not entirely sure how the guy flying it arranged this bit one day were in the yard when we heard over our PMR 446 " hello Aberdeen control tower this xxxc ,we would like permission to fly our drone please " and the the tower replied something along the lines of "Aberdeen tower to xxxxx ,go ahead and fly the drone and report back when finished" . The drone was up for 5 mins and the flyer spoke to tower again to say he was finished. The tower replied too. Would it be safe to say the tower was monitoring pmr446 ? It was only Motorola 8 channel radios and on our normal channel 7 . Paul
I remember a story of GB3GV causing havoc at East Midlands airport, cause it would take out half of their radar system as it pointed towards the repeater site. Not sure what the fix was, seeing as it was the transmitter overloading the front end of their radar, but I assume they just beefed up their filtering to notch GB3GV out.
