After Mr. Luster activated the jammer, the ship went crazy. Looking at the display of the navigation system, Galata suddenly appeared, as if it was flying over Northern Europe and Ireland at Mach speed. The alarm went off and the ship’s backup gyro compass for navigation crashed. This is because the gyro compass uses GPS for correction. The same is true for radar. Even communication with the satellites on the ship was lost. This is because GPS is also used to point the antenna in the correct direction. "The crew is well trained and explained clearly, so I know exactly what happened," Last said. "But like us, they are also surprised."
・The driver’s trick is an accident
I tried a simple jammer on the market last time. The U.S., U.K., and other countries also prohibit their use, but these low-tech devices can be purchased on the Internet for $30. The seller claims that it is used to protect privacy. It can block devices that record the location of a car, making it popular among truck drivers who don’t want to know their location. You can also use this GPS Jammers to block the radio waves of on-board equipment for road tolling. It can also be used to disable trackers connected to cars stolen by criminals. Luster said: "At first, I thought the jammer might have been secretly assembled by a young man in his bedroom, but now it is produced in a factory in China."
The last worry is that the GPS jammer will cause the same damage on the ground as Galatea, and he is not the only follower. In November 2010, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) sponsored the "Space-based positioning, navigation and timing" executive committee warned that if the jammer is activated in the city, it will be catastrophic. I don't know how much money is in the market, but committee members pointed out that the risks are increasing. In the future, a device called "spoofer" will subtly change the information received by the GPS receiver, making the problem worse.
An accident at New Ark International Airport in New Jersey last year found that only one jammer can cause chaos. The airport controller has just installed a new GPS-based landing system to allow the aircraft to enter places with poor visibility. However, the system was shut down once or twice a day, and it took several months to find out the cause. The reason is the portable GPS jammer, and the driver used to cheat highway tolls near the New Jersey Turnpike. The driver passes by this place twice a day, each time he descends from the airport system.
Without GPS, future airport control systems will not work, but the same is true for railways. The Federal Railroad Administration is trying to use GPS as the core of its railway management plan. When the police and fire department arrived on the scene, GPS became more and more important.
・ GPS is an invisible tool
When GPS is unavailable, it is not only impossible to navigate. Donald Jewelry, editor of "GPS World" magazine, said: "We rely on GPS unknowingly," he once built GPS systems for the US Air Force. According to him, there are more than one billion GPS receivers in operation today, but more than 90% of them are only used to receive accurate time data from satellites. ..
Mobile phones are a classic example of this usage. In a radio tower, as the user moves, it is handed over to another radio tower, so it must be synchronized with each other. GPS time signal is a cheap and reliable method. The time adjustment of each radio tower is also used for mutual recognition. In fact, many wireless communication devices use GPS time adjustment for synchronization. Perhaps this is what caused the turmoil in San Diego in 2007.
·Time is money
GPS time adjustment is also used as a time stamp for financial transactions such as stocks. ATM can also communicate wirelessly. This is because it uses time-based encryption codes that need to be synchronized. The cause of the ATM shutdown during the San Diego accident is still unknown, but it may be relevant.
Power companies also use GPS time to manage their Power grids. If the frequency periods of multiple Power sources do not match, these Power sources will partially cancel each other, thereby reducing efficiency. With accurate time signals, you can accurately understand the beginning of each cycle. For example, the US grid needs to synchronize more than 5,000 Power sources. However, in 2006, there was an incident where GPS was temporarily disabled due to the sun's black spot activity, which made it impossible to know the Power supply destination and billing errors. This means that there may be a Power outage due to GPS errors. Taking into account the possibility of these problems, the law is taking action to combat GPS jammers. In February of this year, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced that it would impose fines on sellers and owners of jamming devices. However, the problem facing the authorities is that most of the sellers are in East Asia, and the law only covers the use of jammers, and usually does not even own jammers.
