jammed the jammers?

 

I was channel hopping  in my mobile phone when I chanced to watch a news program where a high ranking NTC official was interviewed about the possible "jamming" of some (of course) jammers  who are out to disrupt the 2010 polls. The Commission on Elections (Comelec) said that it had received reports as early as three weeks ago that a shipment of 5,000 jamming devices had entered the country. Though still unconfirmed, the COMELEC and NTC  said there was reason to believe that the devices could be used to delay the transmission of election results.

When asked if the National Telecommunications Commission, being the government regulatory agency providing an environment that ensures reliable, affordable and viable infrastructure and services in information and communications technology (ICT) can trace the whereabouts of the jammers  with the use of their available usable equipment, the official stated matter of factly that the  location of the perpetrators  will never be ascertained. 

I was not surprised by such honest reply. 

The official was simply telling the pathetic truth.

We had our share of such predicament when "bogus pilots" and "bogus air traffic controllers" intruded our approach control frequency. I still remember that during those intrusions, we had to hold our arriving aircraft at higher altitudes until we were certain that  the the "pilot" we were communicating with was indeed bogus. Imagine the delays and loses the airlines would incur if the problems stayed  unsolved.

Our Chief, together with other Facility-in-Charge submitted consolidated incident reports to this office for the immediate solution of such problem. Unfortunately, the said agency then was "not equipped" to solve the problem. So the ATCs  innovated some measures to correct and solve the "bogus atc/pilot intrusions". Our solution was crude but very effective.  

As of this posting, we haven't encountered frequency intrusions.

Yet.