[Starlink] Re: Starlink and Iran

[Hayden Simon <h@uber.nz>]

Sorry, I was envisaging being above the terminals - above the leo birds (so, in orbit realistically) and then blasting the target area - wide band, high power, just noise, effectively drowning out the starlink birds from the dishy perspective.


HAYDEN SIMON
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-----Original Message-----
From: Ulrich Speidel <u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz> 
Sent: Friday, 16 January 2026 10:07 am
To: Hayden Simon <h@uber.nz>; starlink@lists.bufferbloat.net
Subject: Re: [Starlink] Re: Starlink and Iran

On 16/01/2026 9:30 am, Hayden Simon wrote:
> That leaves the most likely alternative as the action occuring from reasonable altitude. Be that in orbit, weather balloon(s)....drones.
>
Not really. Think of a Starlink satellite's beam as a laser pointer pointing at Dishys on the ground that look at the satellite with a good old fashioned telescope (which is what the phased array effectively does). And vice versa (laser pointer at the Dishy, telescope at the satellite). To disrupt that signal, you have to get yourself in front of the telescope with your laser pointer so your interfering signal can even be seen. Getting in front of the telescopes on the ground is mission impossible because there are a few 10000 of them. Moreover, they suddenly switch direction to point at another satellite typically every
15 to 75 s (which shorter intervals dominating).

Getting in front of the telescopes on the satellites is somewhat easier as there are fewer of them and - with a drone - you'd be further away and they'd already be pointing in your general direction if you're close to the Dishy you're trying to interfere with. But even so, you'd need one laser pointer per visible and usable satellite - in each cell you're wanting to take Starlink out on. Moreover, you wouldn't know whether the satellite is currently receiving from that cell on a red, blue, or green light frequency - so you'd have to pump power into all of them. Not trivial.

GPS interference is much easier.

--
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Dr. Ulrich Speidel

School of Computer Science

Room 303S.594 (City Campus)

The University of Auckland
u.speidel@auckland.ac.nz
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/
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