[TCARES 0661] Re: Recent RFI in West Lafayette

[Stephen M. Parker, WR9A]

Interesting story, Earl Thanks for posting it and making us all aware of
it! Here's a link to the online article:
http://wlfi.com/2015/10/07/west-lafayette-neighborhood-falls-victim-to-high-tech-crime/

The quotes from the Lafayette Electronics guy aren't relevant and don't
have much merit in this instance. First he talks about HAMS possibly being
the cause, then he mentions changing your router's default password.
Neither of those points has anything to do with these FCC Part 15 devices
operating around 310, 315, or 390 MHz. Those frequency ranges are smack-dab
in the middle of the military aviation radio band. Has anyone noticed the
high number of military aircraft flying around this week?

There have been dozens of military aircraft from the east coast temporarily
taking refuge from the recent hurricane threat at the Grissom Air Reserve
Base nearby. And there have been multiple touch-and-go practice approaches
at the Purdue airport by F-22, C-130, and Osprey aircraft this week. Think
maybe the RF from the military aircraft might have had an affect on the key
fobs and garage door openers using the same radio spectrum? Garage door
openers and key fobs fail to work on an almost regular basis for residents
living near military air bases. It's common; just "Google" it. How about
using a $20 RTL-SDR device connected to a cheap laptop to look at the radio
spectrum in the area where these consumer devices (unprotected from
interference by FCC rules) operate and "see" the interference. It's simple
to do.

And, if there was criminal intent associated with this incident, then the
thieves would not have been transmitting to jam the signals, they would
have simply been trying to receive the keyfob and garage door transmitter
signals to record and analyze their rolling digital codes. News stories on
Internet tech sites within the past month have shown how simple and cheap
it is to do. Technical topics are not the forte of local news reporters,
sad to say. A junior high student who plays around with a Raspberry Pi
would have made a better "expert" to quote for this story.

That's my take on the whole story, anyway.

________________________________________
Stephen M. Parker, WR9A
WR9Aradio at gmail.com
________________________________________

On Wed, Oct 7, 2015 at 6:35 PM, Earle Nay <fenay1 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Attention all area hams:
>
> On the 6 pm channel 18 news today (10/7/15), the lead article was about a
number of residents in a
> West Lafayette neighborhood experiencing RF interference with their
garage door openers, home
> control RF fobs, and car remote controls while a unfamiliar car was
witnessed in the area.
>
> Unfortunately, in an interview with Channel 18, the owner of  a local
electronics supplier mentioned that
> anyone with the right experience and high power RF amplifier could create
this problem,
> including amateur radio hams.
>
> If a ham was responsible for the interference, I assume it was an
accident.  The incident is assumed
> to be a criminal act as later in the day one of the homes had its garage
broken into.
>
> Just a word of caution, hams may be approached by friends or strangers
and asked if hams could
> be responsible.  With our public service attitude, RFI sensitivity and
concern, and narrow band
> transmitters, only a bad apple would do this.
>
> AB9EN
>
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