More Details On Drug Cartel's Clandestine Communications Network 84
K7DAN writes "The AP reports that Mexico's drug cartels have built their own sophisticated two-way radio communications system using computer-controlled linked and local repeaters on mountain tops, walkie-talkies, mobile transceivers and and base stations. The solar powered system covers vast areas of Mexico that are unserved by cellular phone network and has the advantage of being more difficult to trace." This article adds much more substance about the technology than was included in the report several weeks ago of the seizure of thousands of this network's components; from the description in this article, the earlier headline overstated the case by saying that the network had therefore been "shut down."
Re:When there is financial incentive (Score:5, Informative)
WE (the technically oriented community) should be doing this as well with 802.11 networks
THEY (the FCC) have rules that make such a thing difficult outside of densely populated areas. Point-to-point wifi links across long distances are doable under the FCC's rules, but low-gain antennas (read: not-highly-directional) can only legally be used to transmit at low power. Even point-to-point links can be difficult if the conditions are bad: vegetation, rain, etc.
If you have an amateur radio license, you can transmit at higher power levels...but then you are subject to Part 97 rules, which forbid conducting (most) business over amateur radio systems. This effectively means that you could not log on to Amazon; even if that were allowed, you would not want to do it, because the rules also forbid encrypting most communications. Part 97 also prevents you from communicating with people who are not licensed, which would make any such network useless to most people. If it were not for such rules, amateur radio operators would have enabled national wireless Internet service long ago.
Re:Anyone have actual news about this? (Score:5, Informative)
The Washington Examiner has some higher-res images available (download the pic and zoom in) [washingtonexaminer.com]
I'm seeing:
Kenwood TKR-750/850
Kenwood TKR-720/820
Motorola XPR8300
Motorola CM200 pair (presumably using a RICK)
Also an Icom rack-mount something or other (sorry, I don't do Icom)
As far as RF conditioning, I'm seeing:
Simple fiberglass sticks with radials (such as a Comet GP-3)
A couple Stationmasters
UHF yagis
DB-408/420s
The subscribers they show include two Kenwood business-class radios, a Moto HT1250 and MTS2000, and the FRS crap. Antennas appear to be UHF.
However, the duplexers are all sized to be VHF. If they're UHF, they're designed for some seriously high power output.
I'm thinking simple analog repeaters (the XPR is an oddball, but maybe they're just using it in analog mode) and analog links, like many wide-area amateur repeater systems. These systems would be relatively easy to set up, and would provide what they'd want with a minimum of fuss. Delivering traffic to some radios while bypassing others could be accomplished using MDC, FleetSync, etc.
Considering the geographic area, I'd also not be surprised if we're looking at pieces from multiple systems. They may have basic UHF conventional stuff in places, MOTOTRBO in others.
As far as OpenSky - as powerful as they are, I don't think the Zetas have whats necessary to successfully deploy OpenSky (don't tase... err, slaughter my family... bro!) - that technology hasn't been invented yet!
Re:When there is financial incentive (Score:4, Informative)
Then you would probably lose the cash.
The primary reason for the strong restrictions it to ensure that if you are deploying a long range commercial service of some sort you should use licensed spectrum instead of causing interference in the tiny space of bandwidth reserved for ISM.