Tenacious Search

Yes it is possible to ping Jim’s type of Cingular cell phone (and get a burst transmission back containig serial number) from an aircraft flying the appropriate equipment. With that type of phone, assuming it is in standby, and not being charged, we have another day or two on its internal battery. I’ve been working with folks at Alcatel-Lucent this morning, as well as folks in DHS. It turns out that Lucent has such a system under test with the Coast Guard for exactly this purpose.

-Tony Tyson
Contact:

Ted Fidder  1-303-920-6201  or Stuart Carpenter  1-303-920-6302

They have been building this tactical base station for GSM.  They have
versions that work at both 800MHz and 1900MHz.

The device was used by the Coast Guard strapped to the bottom of a helecopter during Katrinait can scan for a cell phone 32 KM away. Consequently we can scan a 64 KM swath. The device is in Denver. Lucent is willing to put it on a plane right away. I’m now trying to figure out where to send it and how to get it in the air.

–Gary

Does anyone who has sailed with him remember?

–Gary

I have heard that depending on the type of cell phone you have the carrier can remotely “flash the firmware” thereby activating the microphone on the cell phone so a monitoring station can hear the background noise / conversations.   Perhaps this is an alternative, were the right resources in place, to 1) determine if Jim’s phone can be activated and 2) using the E911 service determine geographically where the phone is.   However, once the transmitter on the cell phone is activated, the battery life dramatically shortens on the cell phone.

I heard this idea on another list discussing the Kim search. Does it make any sense at all to take a portable “pico cell tower” out to see whether his cell will try to link up with it? I’m not a cell geek, so I don’t know the technical/legal issues.

I’m sure others have thought of this but here it goes anyway: The fact that his phone was active on the Cingular network at 7:30PM Sunday night would seem to indicate that he was on his way back in since he “called his wife as he was leaving cell-phone coverage” on Sunday. If there was a signal before that, the two positions could be triangulated by Cingular and at least the direction of his boat approximated. If triangulation isn’t an option, what is the furthest away from shore he could be and still have Cingular pick up his signal. Can the signal strength be used to approximate distance from the tower that received it? I just called Cingular and apparently law enforcement must contact them for them to release or even investigate his possible location. This is most likely already happening, but with the mixups in the recent Oregon case, I’m not willing to assume that. Hopefully someone in touch with Jim’s family can follow up with police if this hasn’t already happened.

Many phones have 7 day standby times. If Jim’s phone was in standby mode could the signal be some how be utilized?

I want to be mindful of providing signal and not noise but I woke up thinking about the clue around contact with Jim’s phone @ 7:30 pm. Have we used that information as a constraint and to generate scenarios and further clues from that? For example:

1.  The fact that Jim was within signal range @ 7:30 PM constrains his location. Has the coast guard used this fact in their drift simulations?

2. Do we know if Jim’s phone was in range for some duration prior to loss of signal? If so, we can think through scenarios such as: if he was on course and motoring along path towards the marina we could determine where his signal was acquired and fix an approximate position to where the signal was lost based upon acquisition location along course and estimated speed.

3. Can we cross the signal range and time with a list of vessel traffic in and out of the bay to look and ask for clues from the ships and crew?

4. Does Cingular have information about signal footprint along the shoreline to soft constrain and prioritize search efforts? (Jim would have called if he was near shore and had a signal).

 

We could get a group of folks to formulate scenarios if it would be helpful. Does anyone have additional detail on the phone data? I am in Shanghai but I’m sure I can help mobilize some folks in Redmond to think about this if helpful.

    -dave.