Dutch Radio Geek Tracking Libyan Airstrikes

jfruhlinger writes "The days when citizens could only learn about a distant war from the government or the institutional press are long over. A Dutch ex-military geek exemplifies the new way information comes out, tracking attack flights on Libya, and even tweeting messages to the US command responsible for the strikes."

Comments

HF

[fauxhemian]

I've been able to track a lot of aircraft movements on Shortwave/HF radio from Ireland - and it's surprising just how much information still goes out over unencrypted links. Friday night, there was a marked increase in French AWACS and support aircraft activity - and then on Saturday other frequencies came alive with a whole host of NATO aircraft; for instance RAF Transports, Tankers, Surveillance, Strike and Fighter aircraft. Some aircraft discussed the targets they'd hit, the ordinance they had used and their current bearings and distance from Benghazi. There have been some intriguing transmissions - for instance aircraft operating at altitudes which are beyond their published service ceilings and voices co-ordinating movements from countries whose governments voiced opposition to the NFZ. Over the years frequency hopping and encryption have reduced the number of military transmissions to be read and understood on HF, but clearly there's still interesting ones out there. On a tangent - an Israeli Numbers Station , designated E10 and famous for lending the title to a Wilco album amongst other things, stopped transmitting on March 1st of this year - given the recent events in Egypt, it's interesting timing.