Jamming wireless shifting in the pro peloton

[bcroslin]

I had a long conversation yesterday with a few friends on our group ride about the pros and cons of wireless shifting in pro racing. I'm guessing in 3 years (maybe sooner) electronic wireless shifting will be common. I'm assuming Shimano and Campy have wireless units they'll unveil the day SRAM puts their wireless group on sale.

With that said, one of my friends is a former conti cat 1 pro who raced all over the country and he insists that wireless shifting will introduce a new level of cheating with teams using jamming technology and that wireless will never catch on with the grand tour teams. My thought is that when wireless electronic groups hit critical mass the component manufacturers will have a product to sell and the pro teams won't have any choice but to ride wireless electronic groups if they want sponsorship. I don't disagree that electronic tampering won't be a possibility but I think the chances are very slim. IMO, if everyone in the peloton is riding a wireless system no one is going to do anything to possibly harm the chances of their own team. He brought up the issues with Mavic's Mektronic shifting and radar guns and he insisted there were attempts at tampering with teams running the Mavic groups. One of the other participants in the conversation happened to be an engineer and he explained exactly how the jamming could be done but it would only be successful if one or more teams was running mechanical components so they could take advantage.

Anyway, I thought it was an interesting conversation and something that hadn't really occurred to me. Wondering what others think.

[oldpotatoe]

I had a long conversation yesterday with a few friends on our group ride about the pros and cons of wireless shifting in pro racing. I'm guessing in 3 years (maybe sooner) electronic wireless shifting will be common. I'm assuming Shimano and Campy have wireless units they'll unveil the day SRAM puts their wireless group on sale.

With that said, one of my friends is a former conti cat 1 pro who raced all over the country and he insists that wireless shifting will introduce a new level of cheating with teams using jamming technology and that wireless will never catch on with the grand tour teams. My thought is that when wireless electronic groups hit critical mass the component manufacturers will have a product to sell and the pro teams won't have any choice but to ride wireless electronic groups if they want sponsorship. I don't disagree that electronic tampering won't be a possibility but I think the chances are very slim. IMO, if everyone in the peleton is riding a wireless system no one is going to do anything to possibly harm the chances of their own team. He brought up the issues with Mavic's Mektronic shifting and radar guns and he insisted there were attempts at tampering with teams running the Mavic groups. One of the other participants in the conversation happened to be an engineer and he explained exactly how the jamming could be done but it would only be successful if one or more teams was running mechanical components so they could take advantage.

Anyway, I thought it was an interesting conversation and something that hadn't really occurred to me. Wondering what others think.

pelOton

and even now, not all the pro teams are on electronic...some are even using Ultegra mechanical..at least at ToC.

[bcroslin]

pelOton

it's early and the coffee hasn't quite kicked in. thanks.

[shovelhd]

With that said, one of my friends is a former conti cat 1 pro

So is he a UCI Continental pro or a Cat1 amateur?

I think the jamming stuff is overblown. The image of some dork sitting on a hillside dumping high power 2.4GHz just doesn't make sense to me. There are much easier ways to disrupt riders. That said, unintentional shifting is more likely. There are still issues at times with wireless power meters interfering with each other. A guy on my team has an SRM that goes wonky sometimes when he is riding within 10 feet of his wireless router. This kind of stuff is going to happen. What I dislike about the SRAM system as seen so far is the need to charge multiple batteries, although carrying charged spares will be easy. Di2 may have wires but the battery is very stout and lasts a long time.

[sandyrs]

So the idea is that everyone's shifting stops working simultaneously except that of the team running mechanical, that team rides away from everyone, and the other 15+ teams all throw their hands up wondering why their drivetrains stopped functioning? This doesn't seem like a real threat to me.

Sure, maybe in a two-man break this could be useful, but it could only happen once or twice before everyone started catching on.

[FlashUNC]

Why would anyone need to jam the SRAM stuff? It'll find a way to break on its own.

[shovelhd]

Why would anyone need to jam the SRAM stuff? It'll find a way to break on its own.

The postulate is that Shimano and Campy aren't too far behind, and wireless replaces wired for electronic shifting.

[christian]

Race teams have been doing wireless telemetry for 25 years. I have yet to hear of an instance of nefarious jamming.

This seems remote in the extreme.

[gavingould]

it'll be interesting to see what adoption is like, but many thought the same when di2/EPS came around. i'm sure someone will figure out a way to hack it, but it's much easier just to toss tacks out on the road.
bear in mind there are a lot of things that work over wireless without much issue. think laptops, cell phones, etc. Mektronic was light-years ago in terms of wireless tech, to me that's an AOL dial-up vs Google Fiber comparison.

not much is more annoying than a HRM/power meter having connection issues, so it will be pretty damning for sram if there's any issue at all in the early going. for their sake i hope they're testing the living sh1t out of it, and they appear to be doing so. speaking of that, i totally forgot to take a close look at the HQ guys racing cross yesterday... have seen lots of stuff in testing way before release, from hydro disc to cx1 to the electric stuff last winter.

[tiretrax]

Would the concentration of radar energy make the carbon frames explode like a marshmallow in a microwave oven?

I can't imagine that would occur more than once or twice, if at all. If that happened suddenly in a race, I imagine the commisars would be under intense pressure to neutralize the stage. Also, I don't think team owners would risk that until the technology is very well proven - turn down SRAM's kind offer and purchase some DA or Campy wholesale if they can't get it donated by the manufacturer.

[Elefantino]

Why would anyone need to jam the SRAM stuff? It'll find a way to break on its own.

:banana:

[justinrchan]

I actually thought about sabotage a minute after I heard about Sram wireless. Given the level of sophistication with doping it would surprise me if scheming went on to neutraliize wireless shifting.

I would want a few years of the technology being out before I would buy it. I have no issues with my Di2.....

[Bob Ross]

I actually thought about sabotage a minute after I heard about Sram wireless.

Not sure intentional sabotage occurred to me, but unintentional interference is the first thing that occurs to me whenever wireless shifting is discussed. The RF spectrum is ridiculously crowded, and I don't know anyone in any industry who hasn't experienced a major clusterf**k as a result of RF interference from outside sources.

How unlikely is a missed shift (or an unintentional shift) as you go whizzing by someone's house at the very moment they fire up their remote garage door opener?
Heck, I can sometimes turn on the overhead light in our Master Bedroom by changing channels on the TV in the Living Room. The only reason that's a semi-humorous nuisance and not a life-threatening design flaw is because I'm rarely going >40 miles an hour in my Living Room.

[victoryfactory]

If it was that easy to "Jam" wireless stuff, there would be [even more] chaos in
the Walmart parking lots, no?

They will work it out.

VF

[MattTuck]

Not sure intentional sabotage occurred to me, but unintentional interference/shifting is the first thing that occurs to me whenever wireless shifting is discussed. The RF spectrum is ridiculously crowded, and I don't know anyone in any industry who hasn't experienced a major clusterf**k as a result of RF interference.

Heck, I can sometimes turn on the overhead light in our Master Bedroom by changing channels on the TV in the Living Room. The only reason that's a semi-humorous nuisance and not a life-threatening design flaw is because I'm rarely going >40 miles an hour in my Living Room.

Actually, the earth is hurtling through space at about 69,360.73 miles per hour. So you are going that fast, no matter where you are on our fine planet.

More seriously, I really hope they can get wireless working, probably with the low power bluetooth standard. yes, interference could be an issue, but if each derailleur is independently addressable, I'd think that any interference would only result in a slightly delayed shift (talking milliseconds).

Unless it is an EMP ;)

[Veloo]

Electromagnetic pulse.
Always works in the movies.

#thedarkknight

[jmoore]

Deleted comment. Wrong thread

[Steve in SLO]

About this scenario: two riders riding closely side-by-side. One shifts and both bikes change gears?

More on topic: Much like hackers in today's modern world, it seems more likely that an individual would be jamming riders bikes 'for fun' than having organized team-led sabotaging. ( that is, if you don't believe that all hackers are secretly employed by Norton and McAfee)

[EDS]

Why would anyone need to jam the SRAM stuff? It'll find a way to break on its own.

SRAM is the new Rapha on this forum - no thread can be complete without the obligatory pile-on.

[bewheels]

Sounds like I have banner days ahead with my tin-foil hat sales.

[eBAUMANN]

About this scenario: two riders riding closely side-by-side. One shifts and both bikes change gears?

The shifters are paired with the derailleurs...like any other wireless tech currently in the pro peloton.

They are all riding on wireless power meters...you think their head unit is accidentally collecting data from the 20 other guys around them? nope.

Personally I'm surprised it took this long...

[FlashUNC]

SRAM is the new Rapha on this forum - no thread can be complete without the obligatory pile-on.

Just to show I'm not totally a hater, I loved their first gen alloy Rival stuff. Wish they'd kept it around.

[EDS]

Just to show I'm not totally a hater, I loved their first gen alloy Rival stuff. Wish they'd kept it around.

I have one of those groups on my Serotta! I got it because at the time I felt the ergonomics were light years ahead of Shimano and Campy.

[roydyates]

Race teams have been doing wireless telemetry for 25 years. I have yet to hear of an instance of nefarious jamming.

This seems remote in the extreme.

Jamming telemetry isn't enough to slow down an opposing rider. Jamming the other guy's shifting could easily be the difference winning and losing. Given that pro riders will cheat for any real edge, jamming doesn't seem at all remote to me.

All it would take is a small transmitter in a jersey pocket. In close quarters, say rding side by side, the jammer's transmitter will be a close to the opponent's receiver as the opponent's transmitter. This is nearly ideal for jamming.

[roydyates]

The shifters are paired with the derailleurs...like any other wireless tech currently in the pro peloton.

They are all riding on wireless power meters...you think their head unit is accidentally collecting data from the 20 other guys around them? nope.

Personally I'm surprised it took this long...

It would be easy to design systems/protocols in which paired shifters/derailleurs share the radio spectrum and no pair interferes with any other. The question is whether anyone wants to cheat by building a jammer that ignores the protocol and intentionally screws up some or all transmissions.

Of course, it would be possible for manufacturers to adopt systems with coding (and perhaps frequency hopping) to combat such jammers.

[Admiral Ackbar]

this is some tinfoil hat sh*t

[wallymann]

I had a long conversation yesterday with a few friends on our group ride about the pros and cons of wireless shifting in pro racing. I'm guessing in 3 years (maybe sooner) electronic wireless shifting will be common. I'm assuming Shimano and Campy have wireless units they'll unveil the day SRAM puts their wireless group on sale.

With that said, one of my friends is a former conti cat 1 pro who raced all over the country and he insists that wireless shifting will introduce a new level of cheating with teams using jamming technology and that wireless will never catch on with the grand tour teams. My thought is that when wireless electronic groups hit critical mass the component manufacturers will have a product to sell and the pro teams won't have any choice but to ride wireless electronic groups if they want sponsorship. I don't disagree that electronic tampering won't be a possibility but I think the chances are very slim. IMO, if everyone in the peloton is riding a wireless system no one is going to do anything to possibly harm the chances of their own team. He brought up the issues with Mavic's Mektronic shifting and radar guns and he insisted there were attempts at tampering with teams running the Mavic groups. One of the other participants in the conversation happened to be an engineer and he explained exactly how the jamming could be done but it would only be successful if one or more teams was running mechanical components so they could take advantage.

Anyway, I thought it was an interesting conversation and something that hadn't really occurred to me. Wondering what others think.

guess it depends on the transmission specification used. this isnt the 90s and low power transmission technology has moved quite rapidly.

if the OEMs implemented something with frequency hopping, like bluetooth, then it'd be un-jammable (for practical purposes). BT uses frequency hopping on the 2.4ghz band, jumping freqs 1,600/sec...so while you can certainly get interference, actual *jamming* is pretty difficult. to effectively jam 1 BT operator you'd have to jam everyone using the entire BT spectrum, rendering a given peloton and every nearby BT gizmo and cordless home-phone and baby monitor and motorola talkabout inoperative.

i suspect SRAM and the others will implement something like BT. assuming they use something like BT i dont see one team ever implementing any sort of jamming. but i can see some nefarious jackass on the side of the road wreaking havoc.

just googled. SRAM's patent says "2.4 GHz transceiver utilising AES encryption and DSS spread spectrum technology supporting 16 channels and the IEEE 802.15.4 communication protocol"

sure sounds like BT to me! and this whole "jamming wireless shifting" is a non-starter.

[roydyates]

If it was that easy to "Jam" wireless stuff, there would be [even more] chaos in
the Walmart parking lots, no?

They will work it out.

VF
In licensed bands (eg the spectrum a cellular operator like Verizon paid billions for), jamming is illegal. In other bands with specific authorized uses (like GPS0, jamming is also illegal. You can read about truckers (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/08/12/feds_arrest_rogue_trucker_after_gps_jamming_disrup ts_newark_airport/) on the NJ Turnpike caught with illegal GPS jammers.

In unlicensed bands, like the 2.4 GHz WiFi bands, jamming is really easy and not so obviously illegal as long as you follow the FCC rules for transmitters, but nobody much does it, probably because there is so little incentive.

[roydyates]

guess it depends on the transmission specification used. this isnt the 90s and low power transmission technology has moved quite rapidly.

if the OEMs implemented something with frequency hopping, like bluetooth, then it'd be un-jammable (for practical purposes). BT uses frequency hopping...so while you can certainly get interference, actual *jamming* is pretty difficult and if to effectively jam 1 BT operator you'd have to jam ALL of them, rendering a given peloton shift-free and all that entails. i suspect SRAM and the others will implement something like that.

assuming they use something like BT i dont see one team ever implementing any sort of jamming. but i can see some nefarious jackass on the side of the road wreaking havoc.

bluetooth would be harder to jam, but not actually very hard. It's true that bluetooth doesn't (typically) get jammed because of frequency hoping, but that's because nobody has bothered to try to jam it. Conceptually, you build a receiver that joins the BT piconet and once you know the hopping sequence, you could jam on that exact same sequence.

[Mr Cabletwitch]

After racing R/C cars for years and being involved with national level teams I must say we use wireless control to control all aspects of our cars and since 2.4ghz technology interference is never an issue. Even back in the day using crystals unless you knew the frequency you wanted to mess with you couldn't. with current technology there will be no issues. They can be set up to pair with and grab a different "channel" every time making it impossible to have two bikes interfere with each other and nearly impossible to purposely "jam" someone.

[roydyates]

guess it depends on the transmission specification used. this isnt the 90s and low power transmission technology has moved quite rapidly.

if the OEMs implemented something with frequency hopping, like bluetooth, then it'd be un-jammable (for practical purposes). BT uses frequency hopping on the 2.4ghz band, jumping freqs 1,600/sec...so while you can certainly get interference, actual *jamming* is pretty difficult. to effectively jam 1 BT operator you'd have to jam everyone using the entire BT spectrum, rendering a given peloton and every nearby BT gizmo and cordless home-phone and baby monitor and motorola talkabout inoperative.

i suspect SRAM and the others will implement something like BT. assuming they use something like BT i dont see one team ever implementing any sort of jamming. but i can see some nefarious jackass on the side of the road wreaking havoc.

just googled. SRAM's patent says "2.4 GHz transceiver utilising AES encryption and DSS spread spectrum technology supporting 16 channels and the IEEE 802.15.4 communication protocol"

sure sounds like BT to me! and this whole "jamming wireless shifting" is a non-starter.
It actually sounds more like zigbee. Here is an excerpt from the zibee wikipedia entry:

This standard specifies operation in the unlicensed 2.4 GHz (worldwide), 915 MHz (Americas and Australia) and 868 MHz (Europe) ISM bands. Sixteen channels are allocated in the 2.4 GHz band, with each channel requiring 5 MHz of bandwidth. The radios use direct-sequence spread spectrum coding, which is managed by the digital stream into the modulator. Binary phase-shift keying (BPSK) is used in the 868 and 915 MHz bands, and offset quadrature phase-shift keying (OQPSK) that transmits two bits per symbol is used in the 2.4 GHz band.

This works nicely as long as no one is really trying to jam it.

[FastforaSlowGuy]

Sorry, I just don't see signal jamming as a practical threat to wireless shifting. Lots of reasons:
1. If somebody thought this was worthwhile, they would have tried it in a sport where the money was multitudes higher (e.g., car racing, where a telemetry failure could screw up both driving and pit strategy).
2. Getting caught would be pretty obvious ("Hey, what is Tinkoff doing with that radar dish on his car?!") and likely mean immediate and long-term race expulsion.
3. Whatever might be happening with dope, cheating from within the peloton has largely been limited to "helping" the favored rider rather than physically attacking one's rivals (head butts aside). How many times have you seen an angry Andy Schleck yank out the Di2 wires from Cadel's bike, or scatter tacks on the road? (Hint: not many.)
4. An jamming attack by spectators (EMP "gun" shot, of course, from a grassy knoll) would seem highly unlikely, given how rare the much, much, much simpler attacks are. Again, how many races each year see tacks, oil or other things thrown on the road? Could it happen? Maybe. But that probably requires someone with reasonable engineering expertise to drop some decent money on jamming tech, and then sit through a bike race to wait for the bunch. Most people are just too lazy to pull that off.
5. Crossing signals? This seems slightly more likely, but still pretty darned rare with modern comm tech. Have you ever inadvertently intercepted somebody's phone call because they were on a Bluetooth headset? Not me.
6. Dropped signal? This is where the problems could arise, and while I don't see all-out failure as being common, if it happened enough I could see people getting cranky.

[bcroslin]

It actually sounds more like zigbee. Here is an excerpt from the zibee wikipedia entry:

This standard specifies operation in the unlicensed 2.4 GHz (worldwide), 915 MHz (Americas and Australia) and 868 MHz (Europe) ISM bands. Sixteen channels are allocated in the 2.4 GHz band, with each channel requiring 5 MHz of bandwidth. The radios use direct-sequence spread spectrum coding, which is managed by the digital stream into the modulator. Binary phase-shift keying (BPSK) is used in the 868 and 915 MHz bands, and offset quadrature phase-shift keying (OQPSK) that transmits two bits per symbol is used in the 2.4 GHz band.

This works nicely as long as no one is really trying to jam it.

My buddy the engineer was saying is all you'd need to do is aim some 2.4 ghz noise at the stuff and it would cause the components to not work. Seems easy enough to me but I'm also the one saying its going to be a non-issue when the entire peloton is using wireless technology.

[wallymann]

http://road.cc/content/news/119275-srams-wireless-shifting%E2%80%94-saboteurs-dream

"If you spew out enough shash in the relevant section of the radio spectrum, everything will fail, affecting all teams equally. "

the downside to blanket jamming...is that the jammer is just as blind as the jammee.

one of these guys would easy bring the wireless TdF peloton of the future to a shift-free standstill!

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7108/8165657546_a8fc65081f_c.jpg

[fiamme red]

http://road.cc/content/news/119275-srams-wireless-shifting%E2%80%94-saboteurs-dreamGreat photo of Hedy Lamarr. :banana:

[oldpotatoe]

http://road.cc/content/news/119275-srams-wireless-shifting%E2%80%94-saboteurs-dream

"If you spew out enough shash in the relevant section of the radio spectrum, everything will fail, affecting all teams equally. "

the downside to blanket jamming...is that the jammer is just as blind as the jammee.

one of these guys would easy bring the wireless TdF peloton of the future to a shift-free standstill!

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7108/8165657546_a8fc65081f_c.jpg

those are pretty much gone except for the USMC..now

[oldpotatoe]

Sorry, I just don't see signal jamming as a practical threat to wireless shifting. Lots of reasons:
1. If somebody thought this was worthwhile, they would have tried it in a sport where the money was multitudes higher (e.g., car racing, where a telemetry failure could screw up both driving and pit strategy).
2. Getting caught would be pretty obvious ("Hey, what is Tinkoff doing with that radar dish on his car?!") and likely mean immediate and long-term race expulsion.
3. Whatever might be happening with dope, cheating from within the peloton has largely been limited to "helping" the favored rider rather than physically attacking one's rivals (head butts aside). How many times have you seen an angry Andy Schleck yank out the Di2 wires from Cadel's bike, or scatter tacks on the road? (Hint: not many.)
4. An jamming attack by spectators (EMP "gun" shot, of course, from a grassy knoll) would seem highly unlikely, given how rare the much, much, much simpler attacks are. Again, how many races each year see tacks, oil or other things thrown on the road? Could it happen? Maybe. But that probably requires someone with reasonable engineering expertise to drop some decent money on jamming tech, and then sit through a bike race to wait for the bunch. Most people are just too lazy to pull that off.
5. Crossing signals? This seems slightly more likely, but still pretty darned rare with modern comm tech. Have you ever inadvertently intercepted somebody's phone call because they were on a Bluetooth headset? Not me.
6. Dropped signal? This is where the problems could arise, and while I don't see all-out failure as being common, if it happened enough I could see people getting cranky.

and the fix?? mechanical or hard wired groups-back to the future.

[FastforaSlowGuy]

and the fix?? mechanical or hard wired groups-back to the future.

What fix? Nothing broken (yet).

[roydyates]

Sorry, I just don't see signal jamming as a practical threat to wireless shifting. Lots of reasons:
1. If somebody thought this was worthwhile, they would have tried it in a sport where the money was multitudes higher (e.g., car racing, where a telemetry failure could screw up both driving and pit strategy).
2. Getting caught would be pretty obvious ("Hey, what is Tinkoff doing with that radar dish on his car?!") and likely mean immediate and long-term race expulsion.
3. Whatever might be happening with dope, cheating from within the peloton has largely been limited to "helping" the favored rider rather than physically attacking one's rivals (head butts aside). How many times have you seen an angry Andy Schleck yank out the Di2 wires from Cadel's bike, or scatter tacks on the road? (Hint: not many.)
4. An jamming attack by spectators (EMP "gun" shot, of course, from a grassy knoll) would seem highly unlikely, given how rare the much, much, much simpler attacks are. Again, how many races each year see tacks, oil or other things thrown on the road? Could it happen? Maybe. But that probably requires someone with reasonable engineering expertise to drop some decent money on jamming tech, and then sit through a bike race to wait for the bunch. Most people are just too lazy to pull that off.
5. Crossing signals? This seems slightly more likely, but still pretty darned rare with modern comm tech. Have you ever inadvertently intercepted somebody's phone call because they were on a Bluetooth headset? Not me.
6. Dropped signal? This is where the problems could arise, and while I don't see all-out failure as being common, if it happened enough I could see people getting cranky.
I tend to agree with you that such cheating is unlikely, but playing devils advocate is more fun:

1. Telemetry is different from wireless shifting. I doubt any F1 team would implement wireless control.

2. All it would take is a rider carrying a small (say the size of a USB stick) in their jersey pocket. A rider might use it once or twice in a stage at a crucial moment?

3. The residual evidence is far more ephemeral than with more old-fashioned forms of cheating.

4. The engineering tech is pretty simple. I think some EE undergrads could build a prototype as a project.

5. Systems like zigbee are engineered to accomodate multiple transmitters, however a jammer is engineered specifically to cause trouble.

6. The jamming, if used discreetly, would be very hard to distinguish from a "dropped signal"

[Louis]

https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSl4DLoqY5XzFVj66Mu2nn-n6Rxk9w3bGdnwwgvd4FUIf3I-Bbw

[gavingould]

three pages of getting way ahead of yourselves with speculation... i mean, no one in their right mind would use sram to begin with?? according to most here it'll just fall apart immediately anyway. all pros should run Campy. :banana:

[soulspinner]

three pages of getting way ahead of yourselves with speculation... I mean, no one in their right mind would use sram to begin with?? According to most here it'll just fall apart immediately anyway. All pros should run campy. :banana:

this

[merlinmurph]

There are still issues at times with wireless power meters interfering with each other. A guy on my team has an SRM that goes wonky sometimes when he is riding within 10 feet of his wireless router.

Funny you should mention this.
When I push my bike thru the halls at work, there are moments when my wireless bike computer hits 60+ mph. :eek: Happens to be when I'm going past some closet with electronic stuff in it - networking, etc. One time I had a conversation with someone outside one of these closets and put on 5 miles just standing there. So if I claim I rode 20k miles this year, well....

Murph

[palincss]

this is some tinfoil hat sh*t

Yes, because professional racing has shown itself to be such an honorable group of highly principled people that any thought of cheating would be utterly inconceivable...

[charliedid]

Sounds like a good plot for Breaking Way II but not much else. How would you identify or segregate a rider or couple of riders?

Poisoning their meat sounds easier.

[palincss]

Again, how many races each year see tacks, oil or other things thrown on the road?


There's an annual criterium in Leonardtown, MD. Every year for the past several years tacks have been thrown on the road. You can watch it here:
http://vimeo.com/11792756 and read about it here: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mabra-uscf/3x6_l0RdOL4

[biker72]

In order to jam just one or two riders, you'ld have to have a fairly large antenna to generate a narrow beamwidth at 2.4 ghz. Possibly a 1 kw transmitter might do the job depending on the distance between the rider(s) and the jamming source.

Rather than have a single frequency, there are transmitters that can sweep a narrow band.

A 2 meter dish at 2.4 ghz would produce a 4.3 degree 3db beamwidth...a little too wide.
A 6 meter dish would get it down to 1.4 degrees..but now the dish size is getting rather large.

[charliedid]

In order to jam just one or two riders, you'ld have to have a fairly large antenna to generate a narrow beamwidth at 2.4 ghz. Possibly a 1 kw transmitter might do the job depending on the distance between the rider(s) and the jamming source.

Rather than have a single frequency, there are transmitters that can sweep a narrow band.

A 2 meter dish at 2.4 ghz would produce a 4.3 degree 3db beamwidth...a little too wide.
A 6 meter dish would get it down to 1.4 degrees..but now the dish size is getting rather large.

Sounds good :)

[Louis]

A 2 meter dish at 2.4 ghz would produce a 4.3 degree 3db beamwidth...a little too wide.
A 6 meter dish would get it down to 1.4 degrees..but now the dish size is getting rather large.

As long as they don't use 108 to 117.95 MHz...

http://www.lancesanders.com/pix/newdfw.jpg

[Bob Ross]

Have you ever inadvertently intercepted somebody's phone call because they were on a Bluetooth headset? Not me.

I can't count the number of times I've experienced overt crosstalk from the wireless RF microphone transmitter in Ballroom A to the wireless RF microphone receiver in Ballroom B (or C, or D) even though they were tuned several gigahertz apart. Or, even more commonly, from Mic transmitter #1 into Mic receiver #2 in the same ballroom...and a ballroom is typically the size of a ~150 person peloton, +/-.

For that matter, how many times have I picked up taxi drivers' two-way radios (no idea what frequency band they operate on) leaking into those same wireless RF microphone receivers? Answer: a f**k-ton.

[shovelhd]

But those are analog transmissions. These are encrypted digital. Still can be overwhelmed by focused power though.

[roydyates]

Funny you should mention this.
When I push my bike thru the halls at work, there are moments when my wireless bike computer hits 60+ mph. :eek: Happens to be when I'm going past some closet with electronic stuff in it - networking, etc. One time I had a conversation with someone outside one of these closets and put on 5 miles just standing there. So if I claim I rode 20k miles this year, well....

Murph
Just curious, is your bike computer a VDO, or do other brands also do this?

[roydyates]

In order to jam just one or two riders, you'ld have to have a fairly large antenna to generate a narrow beamwidth at 2.4 ghz. Possibly a 1 kw transmitter might do the job depending on the distance between the rider(s) and the jamming source.

Rather than have a single frequency, there are transmitters that can sweep a narrow band.

A 2 meter dish at 2.4 ghz would produce a 4.3 degree 3db beamwidth...a little too wide.
A 6 meter dish would get it down to 1.4 degrees..but now the dish size is getting rather large.
If you have such a narrow beamwidth, the you will have fantastic antenna gain. You won't need much power.

[wallymann]

those are pretty much gone except for the USMC..now

mebbe so, but it could still lay down enough electrons to warm up your lunch nicely ...heck, some cramped fast-jet with jammer pods will never replace a proper 4-seater jamming platform...BAH!!!

[biker72]

If you have such a narrow beamwidth, the you will have fantastic antenna gain. You won't need much power.

Very true but not knowing how much shielding the electronic shifting units have it will take some experimentation. One KW may not be enough or may be overkill.

[roydyates]

Very true but not knowing how much shielding the electronic shifting units have it will take some experimentation. One KW may not be enough or may be overkill.
You are describing an electromagnetic attack on the circuitry that would cause wired Di2 to fail. That may be possible with 1kW transmit power.

For a wireless system, shielding is a non-issue since the attack is straight through the receiver antenna. You don't shield an antenna since that defeats the purpose of the antenna.

[biker72]

You are describing an electromagnetic attack on the circuitry that would cause wired Di2 to fail. That may be possible with 1kW transmit power.

For a wireless system, shielding is a non-issue since the attack is straight through the receiver antenna. You don't shield an antenna since that defeats the purpose of the antenna.

Good point...:)

[oldpotatoe]

mebbe so, but it could still lay down enough electrons to warm up your lunch nicely ...heck, some cramped fast-jet with jammer pods will never replace a proper 4-seater jamming platform...BAH!!!

Well, the Growler is a little more than a 'F' model with pods. Plus the 'G' can sorta defend itself, something the Prowler couldn't do.

[zennmotion]

I can't wait for the Android apps for the tifosi who want to "participate"...

[wallymann]

Well, the Growler is a little more than a 'F' model with pods. Plus the 'G' can sorta defend itself, something the Prowler couldn't do.

i thought the Growler was a pretty serious rebuild of the electronics avionics suite, since 1 guy is doing the work of 3 guys from the Prowler.

i wonder how good a Growler would *really* be at protecting itself. methinks not good, about as good as a "Bombcat" was at actually doing useful ground-attack -- more theoretical than anything useful.

http://www.check-6.com/gallery/img/attack/f14_bombcat_twomey_s.jpg

edit: apparently the growler aint to shabby in the A/A mission -- http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-dewline/2009/02/growler-power-ea-18g-boasts-f/

http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/mt/flightglobalweb/blogs/the-dewline/assets_c/2009/02/ea18g_f22kill-thumb-445x333.jpg

[oldpotatoe]

i thought the Growler was a pretty serious rebuild of the electronics avionics suite, since 1 guy is doing the work of 3 guys from the Prowler.

i wonder how good a Growler would *really* be at protecting itself. methinks not good, about as good as a "Bombcat" was at actually doing useful ground-attack -- more theoretical than anything useful.

http://www.check-6.com/gallery/img/attack/f14_bombcat_twomey_s.jpg

edit: apparently the growler aint to shabby in the A/A mission -- http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-dewline/2009/02/growler-power-ea-18g-boasts-f/

http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/mt/flightglobalweb/blogs/the-dewline/assets_c/2009/02/ea18g_f22kill-thumb-445x333.jpg

All about avionics and technology. The F-22/F-35 far superior in situational awareness and weapons systems than even the F-18E/F, Eben even with just a pilot. Far superior to F-15/16. Last gen Turkey, D model, was a joke. Not even the cat4 A/C like 16/15/18.

Growler GIB easily does what the 3 skulls did in the station wagon. Plus superior A-A weapons system of F model.

Bombcat should have been the F-14E, ala F-15E but $ and Hornut mafia nixed that.