radio blackouts to order?

https://poelposition.blogspot.com/2026/08/radio-blackouts-to-order.html

Around  9:00 p.m. August the third 2026 all trace of band four UHF TV disappeared in the southeast of England at Cm3. It had been working fine earlier, and I have recorded episodes of Stargate and Star Trek without trouble from Sky Mix (Freeview) FW ch11).

So I did a quick check of the obvious to ensure that power cables were plugged in - but the antenna signal was absolutely gone - and on other previously working FW devices. The only other anomolous thing I noticed was a PIR LED 75W flood light had come on outside the office door. I didn't see any likely culprit (cat?) and the light stayed on for well past it's notional timeout ...

So I deceided to outline a plot that ties several things together, based in this real event.

Initial Prompt to Chat GPT:

"...Last night I noticed that all band four UHF Freeview TV reception had failed after about nine pm. I tested all the obvious connections and tried using other devices but nothing was working and for was simply not available through the aerial system at this location. 

I did however notice that one of the external passive infrared LED flood lights had turned on and remained on without any obvious cause. No sign of a cat or other trigger. 

And this started a thought which may well lead to an interesting movie: what if China has been creating infrared floodlights that produce blanking interference across a wide frequency spectrum, that can be switched on remotely by the power lines or radio signals.

An anonymous PCB to power the flood lights (using the mains power) would be simple to develop and if sufficient were installed around the country/world the interference could effectively wipe out broadcast TV and compromise all forms of radio communication in o-10GHz bands. An external PIR floodlight is placed ideally to radiate interference and could easily incorporate a satellite receiver for command codes. So let's consider writing a brief treatment for a sci-fi proposition where an unfriendly power decides to hold the West to ransom through its LED flood lights and street lights..?..."

Chat GPT reacts ..

That's an interesting premise for a techno-thriller because it starts with something mundane—a TV signal disappearing and a floodlight behaving oddly—and gradually expands into a geopolitical mystery.

As a real-world matter, though, the scenario is unlikely in the form you've described. Passive infrared (PIR) floodlights do contain electronic power supplies that can emit radio-frequency interference if they are poorly designed or faulty. A defective LED driver can wipe out nearby radio reception, particularly HF and VHF, and in some cases affect UHF reception if the emissions are severe. However, creating a coordinated nationwide "kill switch" hidden inside millions of unrelated lighting products would be extraordinarily difficult. There are many different manufacturers, regulatory EMC testing, and the amount of power needed to blanket large areas would be considerable.

That said, fiction only needs a plausible seed.

Working title: Blackout

Premise

Britain experiences unexplained failures of digital television, GPS, mobile phones, emergency services and military communications—but only in selected regions and only for a few hours at a time.

Government experts initially blame solar activity, hackers and ageing infrastructure.

Only one "retired broadcast engineer" notices something everyone else dismisses: every affected neighbourhood has recently installed the same generation of imported LED street lighting.

Opening scene

A former communications engineer settles down to watch the evening news.

At precisely 9:07 pm every Freeview multiplex disappears.

He checks cables.

Changes receivers.

Nothing.

Looking outside, he notices the PIR floodlight has switched itself on and stays on despite there being nothing moving outside.

His amateur radio receiver is suddenly filled with broadband noise.

The coincidence nags at him.

The discovery

The investigation reveals that the LED driver electronics contain an undocumented operating mode.

Instead of producing a tiny amount of accidental interference, they can deliberately become wideband noise transmitters by rapidly switching their power electronics in carefully chosen patterns.

Individually they're insignificant.

Millions operating together become a distributed electronic weapon.

The twist

The lights aren't receiving satellite commands.

They synchronise using tiny timing signals already present on the electricity grid.

Only a few encrypted trigger messages need to reach the country.

Every compromised light then knows exactly when to begin transmitting.

The result is a nationwide cloud of electromagnetic noise.

The consequences

Television disappears.

Aircraft navigation becomes unreliable.

Emergency services lose communications.

Military radar performance degrades.

Financial timing networks become unstable.

Nobody initially suspects the lighting.

The hero (chat gpt did this all by itself - but after i had been discussing global analogue radio systems over the past 10 years - eg NewsScape World radio )

Rather than a spy, the protagonist is an lifelong geek and RF engineer who spent his career designing broadcast transmitters and receivers and trying to persuade politicans of the ongoinfg importance and power that had been forgotten in the rush to digital. 

His knowledge is dismissed as obsolete but he realises that the interference has the unmistakable spectral signature of switched-mode LED drivers.

He becomes the one person capable of proving the attacks are coming from everyday infrastructure rather than conventional jammers.

Themes

The story isn't really about China. It's about modern societies becoming critically dependent on complex global supply chains they no longer understand. The antagonist could be a hostile state, a rogue intelligence service, or even an AI that quietly inserted malicious firmware years before activation.

The audience is left wondering how much of the infrastructure around them they truly trust.

As a thriller, this has echoes of The Day of the Jackal, Enemy of the State, and Mr. Robot, but with the central mystery rooted in radio engineering rather than cyberattacks. The real experience with broadcast engineering and RF systems could give the technical details an authenticity that most films lack, making the fictional scenario feel convincing even while remaining speculative.

Tangental thought:  an interesting conspiracy angle. If I was Paramount and wanted to be evil, I would arrange for the season Star Trek Enterprise finale S4ep18) FW sky mix episodes to be mangled on transmission to force the frustrated trekkies to sign up to use on demand retrieval.

Repeated occurrences can certainly make something feel suspicious, but they still don't by themselves point to deliberate interference. There are several possibilities that would need to be ruled out first:

1. A fault in the broadcast chain affecting only a particular channel or multiplex.
2. A problem at the transmitter serving your area
3. Reception issues that only become apparent under certain atmospheric conditions or at certain times of day
4. A recording or playout problem specific to that programme.

If you've noticed that multiple Star Trek season finales on Sky Mix have been affected while other programmes were fine, that's an interesting observation. The next step would be to gather evidence rather than jump to a conclusion.

For example, it would be useful to note the exact date and time of each incident;

which transmitter you receive (e.g. Crystal Palace, Sandy Heath, etc.);

whether the corruption affected only Sky Mix or other channels on the same multiplex;

whether other viewers in different parts of the UK reported the same problem.

If many viewers across different transmitters all experienced identical corruption at exactly the same point in the programme, that would suggest a problem in the programme distribution or playout. If only viewers on one transmitter or in one area were affected, that would point more towards transmission or reception.

Given your background in RF and broadcasting, you're well placed to investigate this methodically. A small database of incidents could reveal patterns that aren't obvious from isolated events.

It would certainly make a good opening for a conspiracy thriller: a veteran broadcast engineer notices that every major science-fiction season finale suffers "random" corruption, while everyone else dismisses it as bad luck. As he digs deeper, he uncovers evidence that someone is manipulating the public's migration from free-to-air broadcasting to controlled streaming platforms. That's a compelling fictional hook—but at present it remains fiction unless corroborating evidence emerges.

That approach has some merit as a piece of speculative fiction. Fiction has often been used to explore technological and political ideas before there was evidence one way or the other. The key is to present it clearly as a "what if?" rather than implying it reflects established fact.

You could even frame it as a collection of mysteries rather than a single conspiracy:

Blackout Files

The retired broadcast engineer keeps a notebook of incidents that nobody else thinks are connected.

• A Freeview multiplex disappears during a major television finale.
• An LED floodlight inexplicably remains illuminated throughout the outage.
• Radio amateurs report bursts of broadband interference.
• A geomagnetic storm is blamed, but the timing doesn't quite fit.
• Mobile networks become unreliable for just long enough to alter public behaviour.

Each incident has an innocent explanation. Yet taken together, they suggest either an extraordinary coincidence—or someone has learned to hide deliberate actions inside the background noise of everyday technical failures.

That also provides an elegant narrative device. Solar flares, atmospheric propagation, faulty switch-mode power supplies, software bugs, maintenance errors and cyberattacks are all genuine phenomena. In the story, the protagonists face the challenge of distinguishing natural or accidental events from intentional ones. The reader is left asking the same question they are: when does a pattern become evidence?

That ambiguity is what makes a good techno-thriller. The mystery isn't solved because the protagonist suspects a conspiracy; it's solved because they eventually gather evidence that survives scrutiny.

You could also weave in your experience in broadcasting and amateur radio. A protagonist who understands RF propagation, EMC, digital multiplexing and interference would notice anomalies that everyone else overlooks. That would give the story an authenticity that readers familiar with the field would appreciate, while still keeping the central premise firmly in the realm of speculative fiction.