Open signal map on the NTS

open signal map closeup
open signal map wide

Some NTS employee, or maybe just a trucker on the Mercury Highway, decided to run the Open Signal Map android app while on the Nevada Test Site. These government agencies tend to use Blackberries under BES, so I suspect the phone is a personal one. [It is an Android app. Even if it was a Blackberry app, you can't install your own software under BES control.]

I provided a close up and wide link The close up link shows the app tracking a bit west of Yucca Lake. The wide app is so you can see it is in the restricted zone.

I guess I'm easily amused. ;-)

Originally posted by gariac
open signal map closeup
open signal map wide

Some NTS employee, or maybe just a trucker on the Mercury Highway, decided to run the Open Signal Map android app while on the Nevada Test Site. These government agencies tend to use Blackberries under BES, so I suspect the phone is a personal one. [It is an Android app. Even if it was a Blackberry app, you can't install your own software under BES control.]

I provided a close up and wide link The close up link shows the app tracking a bit west of Yucca Lake. The wide app is so you can see it is in the restricted zone.

I guess I'm easily amused. ;-)

edit on 5-9-2012 by gariac because: (no reason given)

Miss this one? A blip right at Area 51:
Open Signal Map Area 51

reply to post by FosterVS


I think the blue dots are cell site locations. The problem is in the US, cell sites are no longer documented by the FCC. Or rather the documentation is haphazard. I will attempt to explain this, but I'm not an insider to the cellular business, so this is only my interpretation of what I have read.

Presently, the FCC assigns regions to cellular carriers. So you win an auction, and you own spectrum in a region. If you can get the local governments to agree to your cell site (and the FAA if meets some airport proximity regulation), you can put the cell site up wherever you want. Obviously the land owner is in the mix of approvals. With digital service, there are lots of cell sites just slapped on the sides of buildings. It became a mess for the FCC to approve all these scattered sites.

But some towers do show up int the FCC database. Now why exactly some are documented and others are not isn't clear to me. The ones that are documented are always on a real tower as opposed to slapped up on the side of a building. The there are towers that are not on the FCC database.

Now onto the blue dot at Groom Lake from open signal map. Maybe they have a tower, and maybe not. Most of the websites that do cellular signal maps use a database provided by Google. Google bought some company that created the database. The trouble is the database is just crap. I've gone to locations where the cell sites are supposedly located and there is nothing there.

There is no direct search engine for these sites. Rather google provides an API for the database. There is no way to offer to correct this database. Google being google, they can't be contacted by mere mortals.You need to be a developer of some sort. [It's like all those nuclear explosions on Google Earth "community" on the wrong side of the highway. There is no responsible person to contact to remove them.]

In Tonopah, the cell towers are at n38.051753 w117.226149 and n38.094432 w117.186456. But open signal map shows this:
open signal map for Tonopah

The vendor maps are pretty useless too. The AT&T map shows coverage near Groom Lake Road. This is because they own a site in the hills in Alamo, but that site is not active yet. The T-Mobile maps depend on data from their roaming partners.

I do believe the "hits" on open signal maps are legit. They use the gps in the phone. There are other services with the same idea, but none I saw with hits in the restricted zone. I assume the NTS hit is on Verizon, but the open signal map interface is so bad that you can't see the vendor.

So I'm confused. The blips on the map that are orange. Are those cell towers along the main road inside the restricted area of groom? Or are those actual cell calls happening at the time the screen shot was taken? Sorry for the stupid question. Just want to understand what I'm looking at.

reply to post by BASSPLYR


The way these maps are generated is you put an app on your smartphone. The app uses your phone's GPS to detect the reception location, and it uses data from the OS of your phone to determine the signal strength received from the tower to your phone, at the tower from your phone, and parameters relevant to the signal from the tower. So the orange spots are real readings.

Where you see orange, somebody ran the app. It is an actual indication of signal strength from some phone on site.

Incidentally, CDMA towers report their location in lat/lon. GMS towers don't report their location. You would think CDMA cell sites would be well documented, but that doesn't seem to be the case. All the apps use the same crappy Google database.

Google is well known for starting projects but not finishing them.

If you run google on cell site signal strength app, you will find all the flavors I mentioned. In addition, you can get similar data from the phone screen if your know the tricks.

so it looks like those are the signals coming from all the phones the camo dudes are wearing as they chill on the side of the road leading to the base. if thats the case its pretty interesting because it could give you a way to, you know... like... maybe...tracks some security guys without them knowing it. could be a useful method to exploit in the future. cool stuff OP!

reply to post by BASSPLYR


Basically to report to opensignalmap or similar website, you need to run an app. It is a very overt, deliberate act. You don't run this app continuously.

In a well administered IT department, you would not allow your employees to put apps on phones. I suspect someone who is not an employee ran the app just to see it show up on the map.

Oh. There goes my idea of tracking the camo dudes. So someone who was not an employee ran an app from their phone while inside area 51 grounds? Could they be a civilian contractor with a disregard for security? Just wondering. And if so wonder how long it takes for said contractor to get fired for using a non approved phone or app.

Or it could be sightseers infiltrating the restricted area of groom and it's also just a matter of time before the sherif knocks on their door asking where they were on such a such date.

Curious OP what is your interest in these signal maps? Just seeing where your going with this.

reply to post by BASSPLYR


The NTS is not Groom Lake. It is in the NNTR, as is Groom Lake The dudes are different in theory. In practice, some guards from the NTS claim to have worked at Groom Lake.

If you have every been to the area, you could appreciate the sparse cellular reception. [NTS employees use sat phones in areas. There are holes in their trunked radio system.] I was looking at some user generated maps to see if new areas were added. That is where I spotted the hits on the NTS.

You don't have to track the camo dudes. Just go to the border and they will appear.