GPS jamming ends, says report

The apparent intentional jamming of Global Positioning System (GPS) signals that has disrupted service near the Korean border has stopped, Yonhap news reported on Tuesday.

The jamming has caused inconvenience to hundreds of commercial aviation flights and international shipping since it began on April 28. The source of the interference isn’t known but South Korean media have quoted government sources as saying it’s been coming from the North Korean city of Kaesong.

The signals ended on Monday, said Yonhap.

The end of the interference came on the same day that South Korean President Lee Myung Bak and Chinese premier Hu Jintao met in Beijing and the two said they would work together on the issue. A report on the meeting from The Korea Herald didn’t specify what the countries planned to do.

The latest round of jamming is the third to hit the area.

The first occurred in August 2010 hitting GPS communications with the second interfering with cell phone navigation services in March 2011.

report to the South Korean parliament later in 2011 said the DPRK had imported “about 20 communications and radar jamming devices from the old Soviet Union.” Such units mounted on vehicles had been deployed near the border and disrupted GPS signals within a range of between 50- and 100 kilometers, the report said, according to a Yonhap at the time.

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