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Comment by mc32 | Hacker News Reader

They could also just use one of these[1] jamming devices to take down the drone.

[1]http://newatlas.com/battelles-dronedefender-beam-gun-uavs/39...

Control systems for drones typically run on 2.4GHz, but they don't have to. The 70cm band (433MHz typical) is available for people with amateur radio licenses (or people who don't care). There are also 3G chips (Particle Electron) that you can use to send telemetry commands if your drone has a GPS and a compatible auto-pilot flight controller.

Getting a video signal back is normally done on 5.8GHz, but there is hardware readily available for 900MHz, 1.2GHz, 2.4GHz, and 3.3GHz. And if you're an enterprising fellow you can send the video on any frequency (NTSC or PAL).

Basically, you can't block it all without serious collateral "damage".

Edit: I've been building and flying drones for over two years, both FPV racing types and larger photography/videography platforms.

This is becoming a tad complicated and with a lots of steps involved for just bombing things isn't it? I mean Tony Stark could it in a cave, but could Joe Terrorist do it?

ps: I shouldn't talk about the costs effectiveness of terror bombing, but it doesnt' seem like something those guys would do, car bombing seem like a "good" enough approach in general.

As a constant follower of the /r/syriancivilwar sub-reddit for the last 2 and a half years all I can say is that one should never under-estimate the technical capabilities and know-how of the other side, be they religious fundamentalists like ISIS or tha AQ-affiliated factions from outside Aleppo and from the province of Idlib. Judging by the many videos of ISIS in action thag I've seen I can say that they were pretty quick in using and mastering drones for their military purposes, along with satellite maps and (I think custom-made) tablet apps.

I agree. It's the XXI century. There is Internet. Point any country on Earth, and you can bet you'll find there many software developers and electrical engineers, be it hobby or professional.

I've seen this or other similar ideas a number of times, and I have no faith that they would work outside commercial copters- I mean, right off the bat, the jamming is more likely to explode any bombs than anything else- and the military already has anti-jamming technology, or you could just use a nonstandard frequency, which from what I understand would also circumvent any jamming.

As far as I'm concerned, almost all anti-drone devices are complete shams.

Then they just use what the military call an "anti radiation" method of target homing.

A crude suicidal drone with programming to 'avoid obstacles' + 'head to the source of the jamming signal' + 'blow up as near to the target as possible'.

Side note: "Anti Radiation Drone" sounds like some sort of scifi awesome sauce if you ask me.

The military already uses anti-radiation missiles with home-on-jam capabilities extensively.

Here's the US model, which will carry a 66kg HE warhead to 150 km: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGM-88_HARM

The Israeli Harop[0] and Harpy[1] are literally Anti-Radiation drones in service today.

0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAI_Harop

1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAI_Harpy

Doesn't work if the drone is autonomous.

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