Amateur radio operators claim to know where flight 370 crashed in Indian Ocean

[DougSpindler]

A story is on 60 Minutes Australia claims amateur radio operators claim to know where flight 370 crashed in Indian Ocean  Complete BS?
Or might there be something to the claim.  Amateur radio operators use a protocol called WSPR for probing potential propagation paths with low-power transmissions RF waves storing signal strength in a data base.  The claim is when an airplane crosses one of the WSRP paths a measurable drop can be detected by the receiving station.  It looking like it’s plausible, and their claims would be easy to test. 
But then again someone else is saying satellite imagery has the plane crash landing in Cambodia.

Anyone know much about WSPR?  Could the flight path of a plane be determined by WSRP?

[DougSpindler]

That aquatic listen system was find down US airmen in the sea.  They carried with them metal sphere that would sink in the ocean.  When the water pressure was great enough the spheres would implode.  The listening system would hear the implosion and could triangulate the position of the airmen to be rescued.

If the amateur radio operators have found the location of the plane this would be like cracking the code the Zodiac killer used.  The police, FBI, CIA and naval cryptographers could not decipher the Zodiac killers’s messages.  But a couple in California say the coded message in a newspaper one Saturday and decoded the message in a few hours.

Could this be the same?  Amateur radio operators have had the data this entire time and might have the answer.  They claim the plane was in an oval holding pattern for a period of time before continuing on it’s journey and crashing.  A piece of the wing washed up on the shore of an African beach.  There goes the satellite imaging theory of the plane crash landing in a Cambodian jungle.

[fourfathom]

I've seen VHF WSPR reflected off aircraft exhibit doppler shift, and even doppler modulation caused by the vapor-trail or exhaust plume vortices.  But this was line-of sight stuff and the WSPR data as received and stored doesn't contain this level of data.  It is possible to save the demodulated FSK WSPR carrier as an audio file, and that could show the doppler effects, but very few hams save the raw signal data.  You would need to use HF WSPR for long-distance detection, and I don't think the aircraft would be large enough to provide a usable reflection or other path anomaly at HF wavelengths.  Also, for direction-finding or position localization you would need precise timing along with the raw signal storage, and the WSPR system only requires timestamp accuracy on the order of 10 or 100 ms and few hams try to do better than that.  10 ms only gives you about 3000 km resolution -- a pretty wide range uncertainty.

The whole thing sounds very unlikely to me.

[DougSpindler]

I've seen VHF WSPR reflected off aircraft exhibit doppler shift, and even doppler modulation caused by the vapor-trail or exhaust plume vortices.  But this was line-of sight stuff and the WSPR data as received and stored doesn't contain this level of data.  It is possible to save the demodulated FSK WSPR carrier as an audio file, and that could show the doppler effects, but very few hams save the raw signal data.  You would need to use HF WSPR for long-distance detection, and I don't think the aircraft would be large enough to provide a usable reflection or other path anomaly at HF wavelengths.  Also, for direction-finding or position localization you would need precise timing along with the raw signal storage, and the WSPR system only requires timestamp accuracy on the order of 10 or 100 ms and few hams try to do better than that.  10 ms only gives you about 3000 km resolution -- a pretty wide range uncertainty.

The whole thing sounds very unlikely to me.

Thanks for your perspective on this.  Sounds like in theory there might be something to it but then there's reality.

[Ed.Kloonk]

A story is on 60 Minutes Australia claims amateur radio operators claim to know where flight 370 crashed in Indian Ocean  Complete BS?

We can safely presume that most of that TV program is garbage. I mean, it's good that the question is posed, but at the same time offensive that it can give false hope.

[DougSpindler]

A story is on 60 Minutes Australia claims amateur radio operators claim to know where flight 370 crashed in Indian Ocean  Complete BS?

We can safely presume that most of that TV program is garbage. I mean, it's good that the question is posed, but at the same time offensive that it can give false hope.

The Australian 60 Minutes show seems to be more on the hype and sensationalism than the science.

[Ed.Kloonk]

The Australian 60 Minutes show seems to be more on the hype and sensationalism than the science.

Show went down hill after George Fungus left. 

[DougSpindler]

The Australian 60 Minutes show seems to be more on the hype and sensationalism than the science.

Show went down hill after George Fungus left. 

Need to get rid of the boobs on the show and bring George Fungus back.

[james_s]

I think they will probably find it some day, but it's going to require an incredible stroke of luck. The problem is that the ocean is absolutely vast, and depending on how the aircraft hit the water it may have fragmented. The fact that so little debris has washed up suggests that it may have hit at a relatively shallow angle and sunk mostly intact though.

[DougSpindler]

I think they will probably find it some day, but it's going to require an incredible stroke of luck. The problem is that the ocean is absolutely vast, and depending on how the aircraft hit the water it may have fragmented. The fact that so little debris has washed up suggests that it may have hit at a relatively shallow angle and sunk mostly intact though.

There's a claim/rumor/speculation that the plane was in an oval holding pattern for nearly an hour as the pilot was negotiating some hijacking/ransom deal.  It would have been nice if the Australian 60 minutes would have talked about the technology instead of repeating the fluff of the story over and over.

If 60 minutes Australia really cared about the people in the story they should have demonstrated the technology and talked to some experts who know the technology.

[Ed.Kloonk]

I think they will probably find it some day, but it's going to require an incredible stroke of luck. The problem is that the ocean is absolutely vast, and depending on how the aircraft hit the water it may have fragmented. The fact that so little debris has washed up suggests that it may have hit at a relatively shallow angle and sunk mostly intact though.

There's a claim/rumor/speculation that the plane was in an oval holding pattern for nearly an hour as the pilot was negotiating some hijacking/ransom deal.  It would have been nice if the Australian 60 minutes would have talked about the technology instead of repeating the fluff of the story over and over.

If 60 minutes Australia really cared about the people in the story they should have demonstrated the technology and talked to some experts who know the technology.

That show's whole purpose is to frighten the grannies that watch it.
 
To address James' point: a very long time. 73 years for Titanic and 107 to find Endurance.

We still have to drive over an area while looking at a screen. Maybe the sharks with fricken lasers will find it.