Mobile Jammer

Hi Rishi,

This type of device is illegal in the US and probably everywhere. There is a danger that you might be jamming when someone else is trying to use their phone to call for emergency medical help. If you really want to eliminate cell phone signals the best way is with a Faraday Cage.

John

Respected Mr Wiltrout

I am making a jammer as my college project. I don't have any intentions of using this in the public. I want to keep it short ranged.......to the size of a room.

I just have one query that, if I block the mobile signal.................will the mobile network operator company be able to know that their signal was blocked??

Here in the UK Ofcom is very clear about the use of Jammers. http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/enforcement/spectrum-enforcement/jammers/

They do suggest alternative means, though I doubt that would constitute a college project. As John has already pointed out they are illegal in the US and likely to be in many other jurisdictions.

If you absolutely insist on such an endeavour it has been done before: How To Create Your Signal Jammer

Not that it is so relevant here, but in the states if you are found guilty of jamming in commission of another felony, it's an automatic ten-year term, no parole, in the federal pokey after all other time has been served.

Kind of messed up I would say... There are a LOT worse crimes that are not automatic sentencing LIKE murder or child molestation. Sounds like FCC felt left out of the power struggle.

Committing a crime and putting others at risk while committing a crime are two very different things.

Well, I'm not a lawyer*, but. . .

The feds are punishing a rational actor when they prosecute jamming.  I'm not sure that murderers and child molesters are typically rational actors who are weighing the benefit/risk ratio a priori.

The feds are interested in what interests them, sedition, tax evasion, counterfeiting, economically significant/organized dope-peddling, et cetera rather than individual crimes.  It is pretty hard to get their attention, if one does, he will find them to be doggedly thorough.  Local prosecutions may tend to balance community interests when setting punishments in the cases of less heinous crimes to which the feds are basically indifferent.

It isn't the FCC, AFIK setting the punishment standard in this case, I think it was the FBI who made the push in this regard.

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* My uncle was

Rishi,

If you disrupt service, I suspect that you will be found very soon.

A jammer is like starting a campfire during a forest drought.  JUST SAY NO!

If you persist in this project, you will probably get into trouble.

Do yourself a favor and do something else.

DAB

Boy, DAB, if I haven't said it before, you are a helluva skilled information scientist and an equally nice guy!

Projects of this magnitude are things you will want to show off when you apply for a job.  I would suggest doing something that would not be against the law.  This will improve your job chances as they will show more useful skills.  Also the difficulty as to jamming radio transmissions is not hard, so it would not show range.  Try something such as a cell phone repeater that would boost the signal, it would be along the same theory but show a as a apply-able skill.