As we enter the second decade of the 21st century, it seems that digital technology has so completely taken over our lives, it can feel we are simply reduced to a series of signals. Signals have even taken over our language; we often feel like we are receiving mixed signals; we signal for someone across the room; we are invited to signal boost causes that we believe in and warned to take care that we don’t get our signals crossed. It’s no wonder that a recent holiday season boasted a ‘Christmas cell phone jammer promotion’;

On a more serious level, with so much communication around us, people and organisations are taking a good long look at different types of jammers to quell the noise and limit how much of it is going around. While there is a wide variety of signal types, the way signal jammers work is actually pretty straightforward. Once you know the frequency of your target signal, simply overpower that signal by emitting a stronger signal of your own. If you want to target not just a device, but the signal traffic in general, point your jammer at the base station/relay antenna (for example, mobile phone jammers used in public places to preserve silence). The further away it is, the more power you need to drown it out. If the signal jumps frequencies, cast a wider blanket of signal disruption by covering a range of frequencies. Sometimes, as with drone jammers, the jamming signal needs to be narrowly focused in a specific direction.

What are the young folks jamming to these days?

Younger generations, having grown up with so much ‘signal pollution’, they are willing to welcome various jamming technologies to help clean that up. At home, they are adopting mobile phone jammers, in order to take more control of their lives. These devices can define quiet, ‘no-phone zones’ for a better quality of life. In many families, there are 1.5 devices per person, and it is hard to have a meaningful conversation with all these screens in the way. Young parents are realising that the intimacy of a family dinner is in danger of extinction. To avoid conflicts, they are turning to mobile phone jammers to both to enforce ‘dinnertime’ and to help rediscover ‘cellphone discipline’.

In the workplace, organisations have come to understand that protecting sensitive proprietary and personal data may require them to use WIFI jammers around the office, that will provide security by preventing data from leaking out or from being stolen. And the exponential growth of drones and their sometimes-nefarious purposes has convinced security-minded professionals to deploy drone jammers as a standard operating procedure to protect people and places.