Productivity thread by @TrentTelenko

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There is a lot to unpack here about Star Link jamming.

Star link terminals require GPS signals to most accurately determine Star Link satellite locations to aim their AESA antenna signals.

To beat...

Star Link Weaknesses 🧵
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Philip Pilkington@philippilk

The Guardian is confirming that Starlink was effectively jammed in Iran and that its impossible to do anything beyond sending messages. It also speculates that Starlink signals can be used by the Iranian government to detect dissidents. New developments in EW are gamechangers.

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...GPS spoofing and jamming requires Star Link to revert to a previous list of satellite constellation orbital elements to calculate where to aim its signals.

This reversion reduces Star Link signal bandwidth via the less accurate aim of the weak ground antenna beam.

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3

Iran is orbiting its cities with drones with ELINT & Jamming capability.

Some of these drones are locating Star Link terminal uplink signals.

Further drones are jamming GPS and some are aiming jamming at Star Link Terminals, further reducing bandwidth.
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Hash@Hash2di

@AJEnglish ✈️🔹️A drone was seen flying over an anti-government protest area in the Iranian capital, Tehran.

👇🔸️What is Israel trying to do in Iran?

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SpaceX is working on a software update to beat both GPS Jamming and uplink jamming.

If Elon was serious, it should be feasible to use telemetry from the satellites to determine where the jamming is originating from - i.e. geolocate the jammers.

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Dr. Eli David@DrEliDavid

🚨 Breaking: Per @elonmusk's instructions, engineers at SpaceX are working around the clock to bypass Starlink jamming by the Islamic Republic and allow access to Iranians

                            5
                        
A high gain AESA antenna, depending on its design, might be able to "put nulls" on the jammers as a CRPA does.

This is done by beam forming (see gif⬇️)

AESA = active electronically scanned array
CPRA = Controlled reception pattern antenna

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6

The "put a null" trick to "not hear" jamming is based on the time of arrival of the signal and its angle to the receiver.

For which, see the figure below ⬇️
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If SpaceX can
1. Put together software patches giving both geo-location of the jammer and
2. Update the SpaceX designed the beamforming code in the Starlink satellite AESAs.

It will be possible to vastly increase the bandwidth of terminals in Iran.
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8

The most important thing Star Link needs to do for Iran is remove the GPS jamming weakness.

This is possible.

SpaceX has proposed to the FCC using Star Link as a GPS replacement to provide Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) data in May 2025.

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pcmag.com/news/spacex-to…

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Star Link likely already has software to replace GPS this with its satellite AESA antenna's signals

It hasn't implemented it yet because of FCC regulatory process (& possibly installed hardware issues).

A Presidential executive order would clear the way to get SpaceX-GPS
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10

Ukraine has found ways to beat Russian Star Link Jamming.

A Star Link antenna in a meter deep hole is immune from ground jammers more than 500 meters away.

This doesn't work in cities.

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focus.ua/uk/digital/562…

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Ukrainian found wrapping Star Link antenna is mesh worked in Cities.

""We bought 3 nets in a hardware store in increments of 2-5 cm. The results are as follows:

one-layer mesh — 30% EW suppression
two-layer mesh — 60% EW suppression
three-layer mesh — 100% EW suppression"
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To beat Orlan drone jamming:

"...Russian Armed Forces use GPS suppression and spoofing tools installed on Orlan-type UAVs. The expert suggested covering the Starlink terminal with a grid from above.

"Since the terminal works with a satellite at frequencies above 10 GHz,
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...this grid step does not interfere with it. The signal passes through the grid without the slightest loss. But if Orlan starts to "guess from above" at GPS frequencies of 1.5 GHz, then the grid will protect Starlink," Flash writes."

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Sending simple Ukrainian anti-jamming tricks will help the Iranian revolutionaries in the short term. (2-3 weeks)

In the medium term (4 months) there needs to be a concerted effort to field and smuggle cheap & small Star Link decoy emitters to give the Mullah regime too  

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...many Star Link signals to chase revolutionaries with its limited number of military signals intel geeks.

It is possible for the USA & SpaceX to remove Star Link weaknesses to "Axis of Evil" jamming & geo-locating in Iran.

Political will and money are required.
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@threadreaderapp unroll please

There is a lot to unpack here about Star Link jamming. Star link...

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