Meaconing is the
interception
In Ball game, ball-playing Competitive sport, competitive team sports, an interception or pick is a move by a player involving a pass of the ball—whether by foot or hand, depending on the rules of the sport—in which the ball is intended for ...
and rebroadcast of
navigation
Navigation is a field of study that focuses on the process of monitoring and controlling the motion, movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another.Bowditch, 2003:799. The field of navigation includes four general categories: land navig ...
signals. These signals are rebroadcast on the received frequency, typically with power higher than the original signal, to confuse enemy navigation. Consequently, aircraft or ground stations are given inaccurate bearings.
Meaconing is more of a concern to personnel in navigation ratings than to radio operators. However, communications
transmitters are often used to transmit navigation signals. Since communications personnel operate the transmitters, they must know how to deal with any communications problems resulting from meaconing.
Successful meaconing can cause aircraft to be lured into "hot" (ambush-ready) landing zones or enemy airspace, ships to be diverted from their intended routes, bombers to expend ordnance on false targets, or ground stations to receive inaccurate bearings or position locations.
The term 'meacon' is a
portmanteau
In linguistics, a blend—also known as a blend word, lexical blend, or portmanteau—is a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together. of ''masking beacon''.
Alleged cases of meaconing
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...
says it used this technique (among others) to capture a
USAF
The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Air force, air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its ori ...
RQ-170 Sentinel drone, causing it to crash land. Meaconing in this case could provide a drone with false altitude measurements, causing a crash landing.
Acronym
* MIJI (Meaconing, Intrusion, Jamming, and Interference)
In popular culture
In the film ''
Tomorrow Never Dies'', a military
GPS signal is meaconed to send a
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...
frigate
A frigate () is a type of warship. In different eras, the roles and capabilities of ships classified as frigates have varied.
The name frigate in the 17th to early 18th centuries was given to any full-rigged ship built for speed and maneuvera ...
off course.
In the novel and miniseries of the
John J. Nance novel ''
Pandora's Clock'', an attempt to warn the airliner about an impending attack is summarily dismissed as an attempt at meaconing.
The villain of ''
Die Hard 2'' changes the
Dulles Airport's
ATC beacon altitude to below ground level, causing planes' altimeters to provide false readings, thus causing landing planes to crash.
In the video game ''
Black (video game)'', the player can destroy "evidence of cell phone meaconing" in the third level of the game.
See also
*
Radio jamming
*
Interference (communication)
*
List of World War II electronic warfare equipment
References
{{Wiktionary
Electronic countermeasures