I was driving nearby White Sands missile range on Thursday, on my way to the dunes, and I had a pretty interesting experience. First, I spotted this helicopter. Looks like NH-90 to me. What is an NH-90 doing in New Mexico?
About 30-35 miles out of the range, driving on US-54, my GPS started going all crazy. First, it started speeding up uncontrollably, even though I wasn’t. 50-60-70-100-200…eventually it peaked at 237 miles per hour 🙂
Then it cut out completely. It would get a weak signal once in a while, and momentarily it would get good signal, than go completely out again. I suspected immediately that there was some GPS jammer testing going on. Do jammers cut in and out, maybe to confuse the munitions? Why was my GPS speeding up?
Anyway, while driving parallel to the range, about 16-17 miles out, I spot this (sorry for the poor quality photos, it was a long way out) :
Satellite signal was restored instantly. Looks like it was a direct hit on the jammer. Maybe it was some European country testing a munition, since there was an NH-90 in the area.
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July 16, 2012 at 7:47 pm