Hacking a Satellite News-Link CNN System.
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- čas přidán 22. 08. 2024
- I now have a 2nd VSAT systems to play with. This one was originally used by TV News broadcasters as a Satellite News Gathering (SNG) system. This system spent time all over the World and was used to cover wars in the Middle East among other things. Originally built as a DVB system at a later date it was converted to IP transport. Today I made more phone calls using this News System and found a clear codec to use! Business enquiries please contact me here: contact@commandergateway.com
If you want to know anything more about this terminal, drop me a note. You'll probably find my fingerprints on that unit somewhere, depending on when it was built. We actually had about 120 to 130 of those spread out through Iraq and Afghanistan from about 2005 through 2013.
@@peterfairlie2296 So the system you have there looks like it’s been monkied with a fair bit, as it’s missing the indoor unit the original RF electronics, and a few other bits and bobs (or it’s a unit that was built after I was laid of). But the NewsLink was the standard unit used by US DoD Public Affairs units around the world for the DVIDS program. The whole point of the program was to link news organizations stateside with forward deployed troops. A lot of it was morale/welfare type stuff, linking the local hometown station with a Soldier or Marine from their area and doing a live interview. Also we did things like the Superbowl coin toss a couple of times, shout-outs during those major events. Also facilitated/transmitted a week of the Colbert Report when he did the week of episodes from Baghdad. That one was particularly amusing because they shot/edited the show in PAL rather than NTSC in order to avoid pumping on the 50Hz lighting in Iraq. It took me on the phone with them to realize what was going on, then they had to scrounge up a PAL->NTSC converter to get the show over to Comedy Central.
I also witnessed a system being used to spoil President Obama’s visit/speech from Afghanistan once. The soldiers operating it had the camera pointed at the podium with the great seal of the president on it, and turned on the transmitter without authorization. Everything was unencrypted (since the idea was that things transmitted for it were by definition cleared for public release) and Fox/CNN/CNBC all know the standard frequencies channels. You can imagine that things got interesting when the presidential seal showed up on the Afghanistan channel.
Anyhow, just looking at the video, you have the two quick release collars on the elevation rod backwards. They should be bevel end towards the crossbar as this makes fine tuning the elevation much easier. Similarly, make sure your feet are on and you’ve leveled the turntable out, makes your life a lot easier.
Thank you for serving!
@@kamilbro6106 Never wore the uniform myself, I was just the field support civilian that kept all the systems running for 6 years or so, both in country and from home.
How can I get one? I don't think they are listed on ebay...
nfl I seriously want to spend a week of vacation and just sponge off knowledge off the original employee and the YTer running this channel.
I find this highly more interesting than just sitting by a pool. Unless the pool comes with a microwave satellite 😅
Just when I was going to ask how much bandwidth was available, and if you could use something other than 64Kbps G.711 you started going into the ATA codecs and use of G.729. Bravo!
Keep up these videos, i love the satellite stuff! especially the cool things you can do with em.
14:32 ringback actually comes from the called end, so it suffers from the same packet loss that the call itself goes through
You seem to be knowledgeable, so may I ask? How did ringback work on the very old rotary phones which did not have tone generators? Was that handled by the phone exchange to which the phone was connected to?
@@subnumeric @kdknyaa They did have tone generators, with the exception that they were generated by large motors driving various devices that could provide fluctuating voltage (sound) to the phone lines. Commonly in suburbs it was a toothed rotor with a stator with pickups like a guitar. To answer your second question the tone generation was and still is handled by the exchanges. It is the job of the called exchange to provide you call progress feedback including ringback and recordings. it's hard to tell today because the sound is transmitted via packets over the internet.
@@subnumeric A mechanical motor was used, the channel The Connections Museum has a video titled “the machine that makes your phone ring” which explains it further
This becoming easily my (new) favorite channel 😆 but I need to admit that I still prefer 1st antena (self leveling - adjusting) one 😎
The tech decades ago looked stunningly great and complex, but wasn't fast and so wideband. Nowadays its usually just a small thingy that does everything better and faster
I am curious how starlink works so great, and yet it's almost plug and play that anyone can use it, not only the qualified operator
The progress is incredible
A lot of why Starlink is so great is that the satellites are MUCH closer and have multiple ground stations all over the place, so the distance traveled is MUCH lower.
@@SirFrag32 yes, still impressive how specialized technology turned into consumer available (TV dishes are a thing, but starlink dishy is able to transmit)
Starlink is so good because it's funded by your data!😁
@@tibr what isn't nowadays?
Starlink works, yes, but for how long? its literally space trash.
So 2 questions, 1 does the satellite system always provide a 32kbps stream available to each dish for configuration or how do you get them to let you access it, and 2 are the phone numbers on the ATA original and if so how is it there not ever released/reassigned
but is the subscription with the satellite service always active? is not closed when they sell the system ?
Awesome video! really love the satcom stuff. There's so few people on youtube who do vids like this it seems. I've subbed and look forward to seeing more.
@@peterfairlie2296 Fantastic! Looking forward to it
Jesus, I haven't seen a Linksys PAP2 in the wild for decades..... I have an ancient SPA2000 that I firmware hacked to a PAP2 at least a decade ago....
What a terrific thing to do . Good luck to Jason and his future endeavors
@@peterfairlie2296 Sorry, I was posting to another video and it ended while I was typing. You were the next video in the queue. LOL
Well.. is it for news or is it for CNN? It can't be both. 😏
Yep, in other words...news or propaganda.
Do you need to have a paid subscription to the service to login/link to the satellite, or was there some kind of license together with the hardware you could use?
This is awesome. Did you just buy this online or something? It doesn't seem like something you can just buy on eBay lol. Also, did you have to pay for the internet service, like consumer satellite internet?
That all looks really clean!
We need more of these videos they are so interesting
This is so cool, I'm glad CZcams recommended me this video. Is the dish all you need to connect to the satellites? Is there no encryption? How long will these satellites stay in operation?
everything this guy orients himself has skull and bones placards!! true hacker/phreak
So I assume you need to have some sort of account and password to get this running and in use, or are satalites open for the taking if you can get the equipment that is no doubs rare and expensive?
Important question
@@Kawka1122 And I notice he hasn't responded to any questions about paying for the service...
G729 was used initially by the GSM phones and is very reliable
It has a distinct digital sound, but it's still completely intelligible. Digital HTs typically use much lower bitrates.
It's a vocoder, what is "reliable" about that?
@@StringerNews1I think it comes down to broad support and decent software implementations.
Nowadays we have codecs like Opus that will give much better voice quality at 24 kbps.
Who wants to call that number and see if he answers..
Can you share some more information how you're getting this free VSAT service? I couldn't find any info online...
"hacking"
just like "pirating" in the last video
the kit is hella cool and I love to hear experts talk about stuff, but the signposts in the title are just not true
I miss the C band days. Every disaster had multiple uncensored feeds going up. I saw all kinds of crap that would never make the news.
Back during Katrina this camera was set up and just running. A bunch of guys, maybe 50 or so was standing around a dozen boats on trailers. This LEO was telling them places to check for people but told them about areas where they may be shot at. He said he didn’t blame them if they did not want to go. The men kind of walked away for a few minutes and walked back carrying rifles and strapping on gun belts. The official kind of looked real puzzled and said OK, let’s go!
The there was the Oakland earthquake. I saw a guy completely flattened laying on a stretcher. He was about 3 inches thick. One guys head hung out a car window but his arm was squeezed off and laying on the ground beside the car.
Super interesting video again.
How much do you have to pay for access to one of these satellites? Just a few kbps?
I think it’s free
You basically buy satellite time in terms of frequency, not datarate. For ad-hoc satellite time, renting a 4MHz slot would be about $250/hour. It's not cheap, but it's also not crazy expensive, especially given the capabilities it gave you. A 4Mhz slot was sufficient to transmit back live, broadcast quality SD video. If this is the dish that I think it is, it previously belonged to CTV (Canadian broadcaster) was was the press pool antenna in Kandahar. $250/hr was dirt cheap for uplinking live coverage out of there, especially when the old system used to cost $8000 and took 8 hours to uplink a 60 second story. With this, they could do a live intro/outro and interview between the anchor desk and reporter, and feed out the story package itself.
@@nonenowherebyeAt 4 MHz, depending on the modulation, you could get more than SD video if you use HEVC. 5 mbps is enough for high quality 720p60 video. Though, you would need at least x265 medium encoding for high quality. And that requires a quite powerful CPU.
@@fungo6631 Yes, that is all true in the modern era. But back in 2006 which is the era where this terminal originates, its encoder/modulator would have been producing DVB-S, with an MPEG2 Transport Stream. So QPSK, with 3/4 FEC, the usual 1.35 rolliff/spacing factor, that leads to around 5-6 Mbps MPEG-2 transport stream.
The other thing you have to consider is the encoding delay. These were intended for live, interactive use. The longer it takes to compress the video, the harder the live aspect is. Our MPEG-2 encoder/modulator had a coding delay on the order of about 150ms. Beyond that, when added to the 250ms one-way satellite delay, makes carrying on a reasonably natural conversation very difficult.
@@gorak9000 The NewsLink, which the OP has, was not originally an IP based system. That Newtec modem is something that someone grafted on later. There's a very good chance that I may have been the person who actually built that NewsLink at the factory back in the mid 2000s. When that thing was originally built, it had either a DVB-S or DVB-S2 encoder/modulator, depending on model and when it was built, along with a whole bunch of other satellite finding equipment. That's not being depicted in this video.
do you have to pay to connect to a satellites internet?
Great videos Peter!
How can you get a internet connection without any subscription? I mean.. without having to log in with username and password...
Is the device itself allowed to connect because its hardware?
This system was used for news broadcasts right? How can they send video even standard def video over a satellite connection. I've seen news people using video phones and the video was choppy and the audio grainy as hell but it worked for the time. Curious if this setup is what they used for those calls.
This is only a fraction of its capabilities. Traditionally, rather than an IP bearer (as being used here), you'd be given a timeslot and a CIR (committed information rate) for an ASI bearer to carry an MPEG transport stream.
Before even this, you'd get a timeslot and an 7-8Mhz wide bearer on which you could transmit any analog (Q)AM signal, as these satellites are generally just "bent pipes" with some RF matrixes/heterodynes to direct spot beams to down/uplinks.
These particular systems would uplink DVB-S signals (so running MPEG-2 SD) at between 4 and 6Mbps, which provided very good quality video. I actually worked for the manufacturer back in the day, and one of my happy claims ot fame is that systems like this were singlehandedly responsible for the coverage of both wars going from crappy video-phone to broadcast quality.
@@nonenowherebye So they hooked the video phone up to this rig and that is what transmitted the grainy quality live streams of the wars. Cant remember which war they were covering at the time but all I remember is seeing these grainy videos on TV of the troops driving to where they needed to be and all you could see was the land because they had to be careful and not transmit their faces, their location, or anything classified. Curious what these video phones looked like that they used to cover the wars.
@@coondogtheman So on these units, they just hooked up a composite video cable and audio connections. The internal encoder/modulator would digitize and compress the video in realtime, and modulate into a DVB-S transmission. There was also an optional ability to connect via SDI (Serial Digital Interface) which would take uncompressed digital video/audio and in turn compress and encode it.
The dish in this video has lost its indoor equipment, which is where the control computer, encoder modulator, and various other pointing electronics were located. It's also got a non-standard transmitter, and is missing the originally equipped clinometer/level meter, and loopback downconverter.
@@peterfairlie2296 Assuming it's all there, you've got an integrated DVB-S modulator, a DVB-S receiver, integrated spectrum analyzer and a 70Mhz->L-Band up/down converter, all controlled by the software application running on the integrated toughbook. Basically it brought running a SNG type system into the realm of not requiring an Engineer to operate, news organizations could send out the talent and the camera person, and the camera person could also operate the satellite uplink. By the same token, I was often training what amounted to the English majors of the military (aka Public Affairs) on how to setup and operate satcom systems. For the most part, once they had the dish dialed in, it was about 3 button presses to get on air. I suspect this was not the DoD version, so didn't have all the bells and whistles (return channel audio, etc...)
Do you have to buy satellite time or get permission from the satellite owner to make the phone calls? And where do you find these systems?
@@peterfairlie2296 Is that legal?
@@peterfairlie2296How does that work?
Think the fact that the OP answers none of these (many) questions about the subject speaks volumes.......
Looks like a Toronto phone number on the control box
Should use TCP instead of UDP, sounds like a lot of packets just get lost. That has nothing to do with codec, but with transport protocol. TCP sends lost packets again and verifies that sent packets get received. UDP is a send all and forget about it protocol.
i don't think satellite uses ip protocol at all. got nothing to do with that, simply a matter of bandwidth
Should see if you can cook a hotdog with it
Dudes on a roll
Used to watch cband news feeds its where i recorded the la riots videos. And i recordedf the Koreans on the rooftop. Everyone stole the clip off my channel. No one else has the full original clip. Everyones seen the clips. But it was me that recorded it.
That's dope. Makes me wish I kept project A.L.I.C.E. together. It was a light ioncollider experiment. I just know if i didn't use her for parts I'd have a damn ioncollider in the barn and my lady would kill me over the power bill. 😆
I still have her power supply tho. Good stuff. 🤙🏽
How much was this setup? Unique conten as always
Curious as well... was it found on eBay? How does one get ahold of gear like this? :) You may have covered it before, do you have a VSAT sub/account to use? Are these services just out there or are you using what was already configured on the modems?
Didnt realise Max Headroom had his own CZcams channel...
I remember the incident, I witnessed it first hand.
@@peterfairlie2296 Yeah that's what I'm referring to, that's crazy to think about too I had no idea haha
@@peterfairlie2296Please elaborate
@@peterfairlie2296 Press x to doubt. Those frequencies are heavily heavily attenuated by atmospheric moisture. Point to point microwave links do not operate in that frequency range. Usually 6-8 GHz. Also the power output you’d get from a microwave style cavity magnetron would annihilate the receiver. Those links use much lower powers as the atmospheric attenuation is almost zero.
@@peterfairlie2296 Retuning a resonant cavity device from 2.4 to 2 GHz isn’t possible. The cavity size required would exceed the volume of the original device significantly.
might wanna paraphrase that little a little more lol good vid
That. Is. So. Cool.
i use to use a free app to point any sat dish if you don't have a bird eye. my explorer sat and star choice sats set up and tunned in i brought a 27 inch tv onto the roof so i could tune in to the signal strength in the setting menu i loved the star choice menu it also had the slow to fast beeping so u could fine tune. the internet i just brought the laptop out and it sucked to get it fine tuned its right on the tree line. slow as snails and costly internet the faster the stronger signals so i was sitting at 69 percent i switched to the Rogers rocket stick with no data cap after you bill reached 100 a month it would give you true unlimittef internet bandwith i got it for free and it came with a 100 dollar gift card back in end of 2008 the have tryed to up grade my plan alot times and i always prove that i got a better plan my bill is never over 100 a month... and i never get throttled its LTE but im not messing with the plan or hardware. i always chit chat with the sales and ask aton of questions
Perhaps silly question, but how are those telephone numbers allocated?
I am wondering that too!
Were you able to get free internet on that thing? I'm not sure what the point of owning that thing would be other than getting free internet.
Are IDirect modems compatible with NewTec hubs and vice versa? I really only have experience with the IDirect modems and hubs
How is it possible that this still works?? I mean, someone is paying a hefty monthly subscription and/or transponder time for this, right?
Why did they not cancel the subscription when they sold the equipment?
@@peterfairlie2296 Ok but what are you connecting to then, and who routes that phone number?
There must be services for that on the other end, right?
@@peterfairlie2296 Ok, because the numbers were on stickers I assumed that they were the actual numbers of this particular device on the international telephone network, and I could not imagine how that would work without a service at the other end, that may be $1 now but likely would be much more expensive when this was in use.
Of course when you have two devices and your own PBX on the other end, you can make calls without any of that.
This basic info really should be in the description... So many questions about it, since anyone who understands things will question it otherwise.
prepare this dish in ten minutes....
You are standing way too far in front of this dish to be safe. Stay behind it.
interesting , using old tec to get stuff for free
That was awesome 19:17
This is some ET phone home stuff
I tried calling you 🙂
Can you try using a text only browser to see if it'll load?
impressive!!
Can i ask where you got the dish and how are you able to use it for calls? Who gets the bill?
Hello Peter i just dialed your number to check If It was online. See you
@@peterfairlie2296 It should be Matamoros area, right across the Texas border, your videos are amazing. Regards from México.
Im really happy to find like this videos this things my love and i started by local networks of of phones then i transmit it to many far spaces .. i want ask you if i bulid my own dish like this how is possible ?
Would it emit an analog signal (analog phone)? Thus, the signal delay will be shorter and the audio quality will be better.
The analog telephones audio signal is converted to Voice over Digital Internet Protocol (VoIP) digital by the Analog Telephone Adapter (ATA) A purely analog signal over the satellite would require a lot more of the satellites bandwidth and would have only a slightly lower latency because you would have removed the digital processing time.
Are these geostationary satellites? I've been playing around with SDR, been wanting to try something like this without having to buy such an old system
*GO "SATCOM" U.S.MIL SAT .. WHERE PEOPLE DO "STUFF"*
THIS IS "GEO"
Where can I look to find a kit like that?
awsome ! 😍
How does your ground based phone know how to route the call via satellite? I don’t understand that part
Everything connects to the internet at some point in the long journey including the satellite.
That’s insane
When I’m living self reliant off the grid, I’ll have you come set up my satellites yea?
What should i do
E.T. phone home!
... my thing is you dont make mention of software used, or equipment, how we can order or build it?? I want to know about SAT's used, etc... very general video. But there's no meat.
Cool toy!!!
How the hell did you get a uplink ground station!? How can I get one at an "affordable" price!?
I noted the RJ45 sockets were labeled Cat 6a which was a standard introduced in 2018. Has the system been refurbished?
@@peterfairlie2296 Cool.
Why on earth would I want to hack into CNN.......?
Is the power amplifier a TWT or solid state?
Peter call on line 2
How are you getting access to sat connection & time?
Very cool to see Arsat 2 being used 🍺
if i puggy back to satelite - im in trouble? in usa?
YEA
if i buy that kit? do you still need any satelite account???
you did what?🤨
And now a Starlink satellite internet system makes all of that obsolete.
@@peterfairlie2296 yeah, but the whole point of ENG is to get news to the audience. Plenty of VSAT users want to keep their secrets secret, be they business or national security ones. If I was a corporate, political or military spy, I'd see a company run by a narcissistic, mentally unstable man with an illicit drug habit easy pickings for compromise. And if my job was to keep that from happening, I'd happily keep paying more for the lower chance of interception by bad actors.
@@StringerNews1 Interception should not be an issue, you can encrypt your way around that.
Availability is a different matter, of course. Maybe some users do not want that man to have his hand on the on/off switch...
@@Rob2 encryption is not a magic spell that vanquishes all enemies when you invoke it. Would you buy a car that's guaranteed to crash, just because it has seatbelts that might save you? For most, that's not good enough.
Where would one acquire this?
GM-6924 North America
GM-6936 Europe
GM-6937 Australia
Hello
Switch to a more modern audio codec. Opus works much better at 32 kbps
@@peterfairlie2296It's just VoIP right? in principle, you could add in a more modern system and use that? Im not actually saying you should do it, it would be a lot of trouble I imagine😅
Is these legal
Is it not the same thing that sat phone does?
@@peterfairlie2296 no wonder why you need so much power and an antenna like that.
whats a buc
звук телефона как из матрицы
where does the juice come from to ring that old phone?
How much bandwith can this setup provide when you have permission to use more ? I have been doing satellite dishes since the 90s and received many SNG feeds.
Realistically, on the uplink, these dishes could do about 6 to 10 mbps. That's assuming a 40W BUC. On the receive side, well, it was pretty much limited by how much you were willing to spend, and what modem you were using.
You could try and and alter some settings on espionage sat’s . Make them change course and other cool functions. Rocket burn enter passcode 123456
The box a lone look perty heavy duty and expensive made to last that for sure. I definitely could see my self set up a long range WiFi network system out of a set up similar to this system. I wouldn't really even need a cell service by using the phone as a access point lol great stuff good work as always very informal as always 💯🖥️🖱️🍻👍😉