10 Commandments of Wireless

[nlarson]

This is a white paper that has some good information about wireless communications. If you shoot using wireless, or even want better wifi signal in your home, check it out.


http://www.bb-elec.com/Learning-Center/All-White-Papers/Wireless-Cellular/10-Commandments-of-Wireless-Communications.aspx

[carrant]

That is a really informative article!

Thanks for posting it!

[Rick_In_Tampa]

Wow... So this brings up something I never thought about.

What are the chances someone else with a wireless firing system can trigger my cues if we're both firing in the same area?? Is there a way to change the freq on the Cobra (or any!) system to help prevent this from happening?

[nlarson]

I can only tell you about the SimpliFire Mongoose system - The radios we use have built in spread spectrum frequency hopping. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency-hopping_spread_spectrum for a detailed definition.

This means that the settings you input for "Channel" cause pseudo random frequency hopping in this band. Transmissions not on the correct "hop" frequency are ignored. Messages that do not have the correct System Id are ignored as well, as the system Id acts a network Id or password character. Further, the message contents are encrypted by a key that you set, both on the Field Unit and the Base Radio. Unencrypted or non decryptable messages are ignored.

To send a spoof message, the hacker would need to send a correctly formatted message on the correct channel hop, with the correct System Id and have encrypted the message using your encryption key.

As for operating multiple systems independently in close proximity to each other, we do that all the time, especially at trade shows when we have several people doing demos at the same time. We will be at the trade show at Western Winter Blast if you want to check it out.

Neil

[Rick_In_Tampa]

I can only tell you about the SimpliFire Mongoose system - The radios we use have built in spread spectrum frequency hopping. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency-hopping_spread_spectrum for a detailed definition.

Neil - I'm familiar with the work of the lovely and talented actress Hedy Lamarr! Brilliant and not too painful on the eyeballs either. But I digress...

Thank you for that info. I appreciate the input.

[Northern Sky]

Is there a way to change the freq on the Cobra (or any!) system to help prevent this from happening?

Your Cobra is fine. Don't mess with it. You wouldn't be the first to screw it up in the process.

[WPS firing systems]

Wow... So this brings up something I never thought about.

What are the chances someone else with a wireless firing system can trigger my cues if we're both firing in the same area?? Is there a way to change the freq on the Cobra (or any!) system to help prevent this from happening?
Most advanced firing systems these days use encryption and synchronisation, hence chances of this happening is next to none. WPS employs few additional steps to prevent man in the middle and similar attacks.