Drone Beacon and Hack for RID

Eagle928 · Jun 27, 2023

Many here will want to watch this video about the "DroneBeacon" (not DroneTag) and the hack available to keep the karen's of the world at bay by not showing the drone or the pilot's location on the apps. I personally don't care if they see the drone's location but it's wrong on every level to allow them to see the pilot's location in my opinion.

DroneBeacon: ($149) DroneBeacon Db120 RemoteID Broadcast Solution With Battery

There are other options that allow you to install a module inside the drone that uses the drone battery for power.

kenautelevo2pro · Jun 27, 2023

im not the most technical person but from what i understand, this "hack" put the rid module in a mode which makes it undetectable by some mobile phones in their default configuration. (not sure how long that is going to last). anyway, the module has an fcc doc but im not sure if it is still valid if you go into the module and reconfigure it. i would be concerned the faa would pull the doc.

Eagle928 · Jun 27, 2023

kenautelevo2pro said:
im not the most technical person but from what i understand, this "hack" put the rid module in a mode which makes it undetectable by some mobile phones in their default configuration. (not sure how long that is going to last). anyway, the module has an fcc doc but im not sure if it is still valid if you go into the module and reconfigure it. i would be concerned the faa would pull the doc.

Yes, a lot of unknowns right now, but hopefully we will be able to stop the karen's of the world from knowing our location. That was a terrible oversight and a dangerous one by the FAA. Their first priority is safety. How did they miss this?

kenautelevo2pro · Jun 27, 2023

Eagle928 said:
Yes, a lot of unknowns right now, but hopefully we will be able to stop the karen's of the world from knowing our location. That was a terrible oversight and a dangerous one by the FAA. Their first priority is safety. How did they miss this?

not sure how they missed it either. i can understanding making the details available to those that need to know but everyone in public seems so unnecessary. we only have a few more months to sort this out and like you said, i'm sure everyone is working on countermeasures because more than half of the drones i own have built-in (standard rid) so will have to be creative.

Eagle928 · Jul 4, 2023

kenautelevo2pro said:
not sure how they missed it either. i can understanding making the details available to those that need to know but everyone in public seems so unnecessary. we only have a few more months to sort this out and like you said, i'm sure everyone is working on countermeasures because more than half of the drones i own have built-in (standard rid) so will have to be creative.

Don't quote me on this but I have heard that the drone needs to broadcast its location to be RID compliant. Whether that's built-in or a module. Commercially operated drones have to have their own modules and be registered separately with the FAA.

However, to my knowledge, there's no rule about the remote control needing to broadcast or have the GPS turned on. Of course that would likely mean losing the radar and RTH functions. Good pilots rarely depend on them anyway. They know where the drone is because they have good situational and spacial awareness. Naturally the screen helps a lot in maintaining these things.

Infocusaerialmedia · Jul 13, 2023

So it is my understanding that you must have RID detectable by the authorities.ie Police, FAA... They have special equipment that will detect the RID information.
I have not seen where it says that it needs to be detectable by John Q Public, Karen or ...

kenautelevo2pro · Jul 13, 2023

Infocusaerialmedia said:
So it is my understanding that you must have RID detectable by the authorities.ie Police, FAA... They have special equipment that will detect the RID information.
I have not seen where it says that it needs to be detectable by John Q Public, Karen or ...

I'm not sure what it takes to achieve full compliance but this may be a good place to start: UAS Declaration of Compliance

If you ask me (I am not involved in this one way or another), pretty sure no one is actually testing any of this so whether it is a "requirement" or not doesn't mean so much.

pedals2paddles · Jul 13, 2023

This "hack" is just disabling the Bluetooth RID signal and enabling the WiFi RID signal. The free apps for Android and iPhone can only scan for the Bluetooth signal. A RID receiver can scan for both Bluetooth and WiFi RID broadcasts.

The law does not require you to use both. No random people or karens wondering if there's drones flying over their house will have a big expensive RID broadcast scanning device. In reality, only government agencies are going to spend the money on those things.

So by disabling the Bluetooth, you have effectively made it it so only people willing to spend a lot of money on a RID receiver will pick you up. The Wi-Fi will use more battery power on your RID broadcast module then Bluetooth. However I don't think anyone gives a crap.