UHF Mil Satcoms

[FrankJ]

Anybody hearing any MILSATCOM comms "in the clear" in the 240-270 Mhz range? I hear lots of pirates in foreign languages, but nothing in English. I know most of those comms are secure, but just wondering if the U.S. military is still using "un-secure" comms at times?

Frank

[chrismol1]

yeh, I was wondering the same thing, makes me want to buy a 220MHz mobile with a sat antenna and give my friend across state a scanner and give it a key up or two and see what happens

[mancow]

Whatever happens my money says it will involve a grand jury.

[chrismol1]

Originally Posted by mancow

Whatever happens my money says it will involve a grand jury.

ahh, whos gunna find out anyway? LOL, I tell you, it was those spanish pirates!

[prcguy]

There are a lot of people who's full time job is monitoring the UHF satellites among other things and every time you key up they know its not legit and they go to work gathering information. Sounds like a loosing game to me.
prcguy

Originally Posted by chrismoll

ahh, whos gunna find out anyway? LOL, I tell you, it was those spanish pirates!

[vabiro]

Not to hijack the thread, but what does the useful footprint look like for these satellites?

Maybe the reason there are so many Spanish and Portugese-speakers is that the useful footprint is biased towards South-Central America

Victor

[prcguy]

I believe the footprint covers the entire hemisphere under the orbital slot for the UHF sats.
prcguy

Originally Posted by vabiro

Not to hijack the thread, but what does the useful footprint look like for these satellites?

Maybe the reason there are so many Spanish and Portugese-speakers is that the useful footprint is biased towards South-Central America

Victor

[blantonl]

There was a simi-recent conviction of someone in New York City who was using UHF Satcom to chat with his buddies back in Central America. I believe the FCC took enforcement action against him.

[prcguy]

There was also someone caught and fined by the FCC in the Brentwood, CA area for what looks like military UHF satellite use.
prcguy

[chrismol1]

Do the spanish speaking people get away with talking on a UHF Satcom?
How come the satcom is so easy to get into and use?

[blantonl]

Because,

1) We are talking 1980's technology
2) It is a repeater in the sky
3) Because they can

[jimvm]

I posted this a few months ago. Happened in January 2008.

jimvm

[LarryMax]

As with any communications that are "illegal" It's all about what you say, how frequent you transmit, and how frequently you transmit from the same location. It also helps to have a low profile/portable antenna. Giant antenna farms tend to bring attention.

If you're smart about it you can and will get away with it.

As long as you follow those guidelines, not even God can track you down.

People get away with it everyday. So don't play too much into the "oh my, thats illegal, waaah! crap. A few examples of people being fined is such a minuscule part to the thousands of people that do these things on a regular basis.

[n2nov]

Huh?

Just because you CAN get away with something that is wrong does NOT mean that it is OK to do so.

Let's stop lowering the morals bar just for the sake that we are techs/geeks that have the capability to do something that the average person can't.

Rise above the morass, not sink down into it!

[autovon]

Originally Posted by LarryMax

As with any communications that are "illegal" It's all about what you say, how frequent you transmit, and how frequently you transmit from the same location. It also helps to have a low profile/portable antenna. Giant antenna farms tend to bring attention.

If you're smart about it you can and will get away with it.

As long as you follow those guidelines, not even God can track you down.

People get away with it everyday. So don't play too much into the "oh my, thats illegal, waaah! crap. A few examples of people being fined is such a minuscule part to the thousands of people that do these things on a regular basis.

There is finally someone on this site who understands it!

FCC = The Wizzard of Oz

[shell6]

Do you think the FCC would bother people about hitting, say, a British sat to talk?

[prcguy]

From the US on frequencies not licensed to that individual? I think it would turn into something more than a bother.
prcguy

Originally Posted by shell6

Do you think the FCC would bother people about hitting, say, a British sat to talk?

[shell6]

Rats. Not that anyone here is the law breaking type, but I always found this kind of topic quite alluring.

[eorange]

If you REALLY want to mess with sats, get your ham ticket and work AO-51, which is a blast. Now you're legal.

It was prcguy, I think, who posted a link to uhf-satcom.com which has pics of these illegal setups. I had never heard of that site before. I think these pics are fascinating; there's something about seeing a low-tech Alinco rig penetrating a mil sat network that just overflows with irony!

[vabiro]

Originally Posted by eorange

It was prcguy, I think, who posted a link to uhf-satcom.com which has pics of these illegal setups. I had never heard of that site before. I think these pics are fascinating; there's something about seeing a low-tech Alinco rig penetrating a mil sat network that just overflows with irony!

I would be willing to bet money that the US and other governments left these satellites wide open to rudimentary equipment by design. There are a lot of activities by the military and other groups that would be aided by off-the-shelf solutions that wouldn't draw much attention in some countries.

This stuff predates the Internet, e-mail and VoIP, so a low-profile communications medium like these satellites would be just the ticket for some covert activity going on in Latin America or Africa.

I think it is a bit of a problem for them now that so many people have cottoned onto how easy it is to use them. Then again, they may be past their useful end-of-life and the original owners have turned to other communications medium, like the Internet.

Victor