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From: motcid!sirakide%cell.mot.COM@uunet.uu.net (Dean Sirakides)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: Neighbor Bugs Family By Eavesdropping
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Date: 15 Dec 89 17:21:51 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 9, Issue 576, message 3 of 11


jim@eda.com (Jim Budler) writes:

>In Tom Clancy's "Clear and Present Danger" one of the intelligence
>gathering methods used was intercept of cellular phone conversations
>by satellites. How real was this use in a fictional story? Is it
>possible. I would assume it's picking up the cell transmitters, not
>the 4 watt portables, but...

In his book, you'll recall, the bad guys used *portables* to make
their calls.  Portable cellular phones transmit at a maximum of 0.6
watts and usually less to conserve battery life; it seems hard to
believe that this would be detectable from space.

The base sites use 50+ watts, so detecting them may be more feasible,
although, it is commonplace to use directional transmit antennas,
further complicating things.

The whole situation is made worse by the pleathora of frequencies used
and the variety of cell locations.

When I read the book, I wondered why everyone went through the trouble
of a satellite and supercomputer.  After all, cellular calls still
make use of land lines. Why not just tap the trunk at the EMX where
ALL cellular calls pass?


Dean Sirakides			uunet|motcid|sirakide
Motorola Cellular		Arlington Heights, IL
Of course I speak for myself, not my employer...