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« Close the government gun loophole? | Main | Things getting lively in People's Republic of California »

Dealing with IEDs

Posted by David Hardy · 15 February 2007 07:18 PM

I'd earlier posted an idea for dealing with IEDs. The detonating mechanisms often use cell phones, or sometimes walkie-talkies. All radio receivers also emit RF radiation to a small degree, and cell phones periodically send out a short signal (so the system knows where you are). A device to detect this could be quite useful. Even if short-ranged, (1) range can easily be extended by several factors by use of a directional Yagi antenna, which also would tell you whence the signal came, and (2) you could put the detector on a small remote controlled car to sniff around. It could not only scout for you, but also be useful sniffing out buried or hidden IEDs, in a way that's a lot safer than digging for them.

Just in case anybody from DARPA is reading this, they already had cell phone detectors. Here's one, and here's another. I believe a similar device could be designed for walkie-talkies, albeit of shorter range. And mass produced for a fraction of what's being charged here.

They make you turn cell phones, and computers off, on plane for just that reason. They radiate radio frequency signals, even when not transmitting.

6 Comments | Leave a comment

Rivrdog | February 15, 2007 11:19 PM | Reply

If it wasn't for our military's attitude about not wanting to acquire weapons from smaller countries, we could have been protected from IED's years ago.

During the Second Intifada in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the Israeli Defense Force was taking a lot of casualties from IEDs, just as we are now. They developed some sort of pulse-transmitter which sends out strong pulses of electromagnetic energy, which detonates the bombs before the troops get in range of them.

There was a point in time, about 4 years ago, that the IDF quit encountering these bombs. That was because of the pulse-generator, and the fact that the Israelis used it pre-emptively, detonating a lot of explosive while it was still in the hands of the terrorists. That was sufficiently discouraging to the terrorists that they stopped using IEDs, since they were taking so many casualties.

We could have done the same, but if the runor I heard is true, we didn't because we didn't have the guts to stand up to the terror-apologists' counter-charge of irradiating innocent bystanders.

Rather than deal with several different detonation mechanisms, the IDF weapon simply created inductive current in the detonator wiring, causing the detonators to set off the main charges.

We have developed EMP generators ourselves, and should be putting them to use in Iraq.

Jim | February 16, 2007 12:54 AM | Reply

If the terrorists are using cell phones to detonate IEDs then just shut down the cell network. End of problem. I doubt they are though, as they need to be close to the IED to see when to set it off. That means that we would know (1) which cell site was used and (2) exactly what time the call was made. We can then find out whos phone was used. We should not allow disposable cell phones in Iraq.

Too often, they are using simple radios like Motorola "Talkarounds," which you might use to talk with your family on a trip. They modify these by adding a touch tone pad. The receives has a simple touch-tone decoder. This allows the terrorist with the transmitted to enter a sequence of touch-tones to detonate the bomb. It's all actually very simple to build and any 12 year old geek could do it. When I was 12 I did it and now a touch tone decoded is on a tiny chip at Radio Shack.

Radio receivers actually transmit radio signals generated by a part of them called a "local osscilator." The terrorists are probably not using a wide variety of transceivers, so it may be practical to listen for these emissions, just as a police officer can listen for a radar detector. Then again, there may be too much radio noise to do that, but along highways it could work.

Also, these signals transmitted to detonate a bomb can be jammed. The terrorists won't use a radio signal alone to set off an IED bacause there is plenty of radio traffic. They need the touch tones. So, we can transmit a much more powerfull signal to wipe it out. Our jaming signal won't set off the bomb, but it will prevent the weaker signal from the handheld radio from reaching the bomb.

If we can really detonate them as RIVRDOG said, I'm all for that as well.

KCSteve | February 16, 2007 11:28 AM | Reply

The problem with something that will detonate pretty much any detonator in the targeted area is the huge amount of ordinance laying around Iraq. They're still finding buried stockpiles from past wars that would have been enough to supply, say, the IRA for decades.

I think the only reasons Iran (and others) are sending in new stuff is partly to adapt to our responses to what they've been using and largely just so they know where it is.

And I've heard that a lot of convoys run with jammers enabled but they're not much use against wires run to an observation point.

vinnie | February 16, 2007 11:41 AM | Reply

Why not triger the cell system to ring all of the phones @ random intervals. Blow up the guilty and annoy the innocent.

Doug In Colorado | February 19, 2007 4:01 PM | Reply

They've also gone back to manual detonation and simple tripwire detonation...putting the wire high enough to clear cars but not tanks/trucks...not just cell phones.

bud | February 20, 2007 1:56 PM | Reply

Cell phones are rarely used - too expensive, when a simple garage door opener, or, as JIm pointed out, one of the cheap ($25/pair) FRS radios will do. Don't even need a touch tone decoder - those things already have tone decoding for alert tones.
A simple mechanical timer to disable the device for awhile while the bomber is carrying it and getting away from it, and it's done.

Another countermeasure would be to change the ROE to allow the troops to shoot the sumbeech who's 50 yards away and running like hell after one goes off.

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