An unsolved mystery...

[Lord Manhammer]

I was reading an article yesterday which referenced a well known incident that happened in the 1980's in Chicago. One November night in 1987, two stations, WGN and WTTW, had their signals hijacked by an unknown entity. This entity took over each broadcast and in each time showed an individual in a creepy Max Headroom mask swaying around. The first time it was only live for 15 seconds and the figure didn't say anything. The second time however, the figure randomly spewed bits of weird information and since it was later in the evening (around 23:20), there were no engineers in the station to fix the broadcast and the individual cut the broadcast themselves. Here is a copy of the incident on YT:

Do any of you remember this at all? Despite an investigation, the perpetrators were never caught and even though the statute of limitations expired in 1992, they have never come forward. It remains a talked about mystery to this day.

 

[Genie+]

College students! If I had to guess. And that whole incident is just so totally 80s

 

[Lord Manhammer]

College students! If I had to guess. And that whole incident is just so totally 80s

Catch the wave! The 80's are back man.

Some people speculated college kids, but did you listen to the speakers audio? They don't sound or speak like a college student. Not to mention, the first station they hit was WGN. That's a HUGE station with a powerful signal. It required some heavy hardware to be able to do that and I don't think college students would have access to it.

 

[Music City Mama]

No, I don't remember ever hearing about this. That was truly bizarre, but I have to admit I started laughing at the whipping part.

 

[Genie+]

If any of you young whippersnappers are wondering what a Max Headroom was to even begin with:

This existed before the pirate takeover of airwaves.

 

[sam_gordon]

It required some heavy hardware to be able to do that and I don't think college students would have access to it.

Unless they had access to the signal between the station and the transmitter. Assuming they could tap into that, not really difficult.

 

[tvguy]

Unless they had access to the signal between the station and the transmitter. Assuming they could tap into that, not really difficult.

Exactly. Very easy to do with some very basic microwave gear. At a station I worked at in the analog microwave days we had what looked like a security camera bleed into our intercity microwave relay from the station to the transmitter 35 miles away and get broadcast on our main channel. Turns out it was a wireless FBI surveillance camera set up very near our transmitter that faded in and out as it overpowered our signal. Somebody didn't bother to check active microwave frequencies in the area. If the person whose house was under surveillance was among the 100,000 or so people watching our channel when it bled in and recognized their house, they would have been tipped off something was going on.

 

[PollyannaMom]

I don't think I ever heard of this incident. I was in high school at the time, but far away from Chicago.

 

[Dan Murphy]

I very much recall the incidenta though not viewing either station at the times of the incidents. They were certainly on the news after the instanances. Both stations are among my favorites. WTTW is a PBS station.

 

[sam_gordon]

According to Wiki (yea, I know, it's wiki, but it's on the internet, so it must be true)...

The broadcast intrusion was achieved by sending a more powerful microwave transmission to the stations' broadcast towers than the stations were sending themselves, triggering a capture effect. This was a difficult task in 1987 but was possible before American television stations switched from analog to digital signals in 2009.[9] Experts have said that the stunt required extensive technical expertise and a significant amount of transmitting power, and that the pirate broadcast likely originated from somewhere in the line of sight of both stations' broadcast towers, which were atop two tall buildings in downtown Chicago.[12]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Headroom_signal_hijacking

Another part of the article says there were no engineers AT THE TRANSMITTER, and engineers at the station couldn't do enough to combat the hijack.

ETA: When the station I was at moved their transmitter away from the studios, there were two paths from the studio to transmitter... one microwave, and one via the local cable company. But that didn't happen until the early 2000s. Now stations are using microwave, fiber, and IP. Most engineer can probably access the systems from their homes and make the switch. To say nothing about the encoding that happens before being sent to the transmitter.

In analog days, you could take the cable with the system going to the transmitter and plug in straight into a monitor. So a home VCR could feed the transmitter. Not so much any more.

 

[gmi3804]

I very much recall the incidenta though not viewing either station at the times of the incidents. They were certainly on the news after the instanances. Both stations are among my favorites. WTTW is a PBS station.

I remember it being reported too, as I wasn't watching at the time.

Those are two favorite channels of mine too. I love the WGN Morning News show; it always cracks me up!

 

[Lord Manhammer]

According to Wiki (yea, I know, it's wiki, but it's on the internet, so it must be true)...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Headroom_signal_hijacking

Another part of the article says there were no engineers AT THE TRANSMITTER, and engineers at the station couldn't do enough to combat the hijack.

ETA: When the station I was at moved their transmitter away from the studios, there were two paths from the studio to transmitter... one microwave, and one via the local cable company. But that didn't happen until the early 2000s. Now stations are using microwave, fiber, and IP. Most engineer can probably access the systems from their homes and make the switch. To say nothing about the encoding that happens before being sent to the transmitter.

In analog days, you could take the cable with the system going to the transmitter and plug in straight into a monitor. So a home VCR could feed the transmitter. Not so much any more.

But another article I read on the incident mentioned line of site so they would've needed to be on the top of the tower or in a high rise apartment nearby.

 

[john7994]

Now we have AI and deep fake videos - makes this feel like a bit of a #yawn - so glad to see the advancement of our society these days has evolved into more destructive and subversive behavior

 

[Lord Manhammer]

I don't think I ever heard of this incident. I was in high school at the time, but far away from Chicago.

I heard about it at some point in grad school since I was in Detroit which isn't far from Chicago. I find the story fascinating and can't help but smile at the audacity of the perpetrators. Not to mention, they could've said some sort of political or religious screed but instead rambled, made jokes and spanked a guy on the ***. Epic.

 

[gmi3804]

Now we have AI and deep fake videos - makes this feel like a bit of a #yawn - so glad to see the advancement of our society these days has evolved into more destructive and subversive behavior

And, more alarming, a population willing and able to believe it all without deciding if it's fake or not.

 

[john7994]

And, more alarming, a population willing and able to believe it all without deciding if it's fake or not.

And not long ago, we were spellbound by what naughty words we could spell on a
Calculator…

 

[gmi3804]

And not long ago, we were spellbound by what naughty words we could spell on a
Calculator…

And upside down!

 

[lovesmurfs]

A DOH moment. I was 50, visiting London before I realized where the term Max Headroom came from:

 

[tvguy]

ETA: When the station I was at moved their transmitter away from the studios, there were two paths from the studio to transmitter... one microwave, and one via the local cable company. But that didn't happen until the early 2000s. Now stations are using microwave, fiber, and IP. Most engineer can probably access the systems from their homes and make the switch. To say nothing about the encoding that happens before being sent to the transmitter.

Redundancy?!?! Ha! That went away at my last station with the digital switch. They didn't want to spend the money. So when our network last had the Super Bowl, which of course is a HIGH REVENUE program, they brought in a Live Truck operator to establish a microwave shot from the station to the transmitter, and had an engineer at the transmitter so that if something happened to the fixed link to the transmitter, they could switch to the Live Truck signal.
That station didn't even upgrade their backup transmitter to digital because "the main transmitter will never go down and besides nobody watched over the air anymore anyway" Boy, has that changed in recent years as people cut the cord. The main transmitter is at the site of our 2,000 foot tower. They still are part owners of the old 1,500 foot tower but do not keep a transmitter there.

 

[Dan Murphy]

I love the WGN Morning News show; it always cracks me up!

For sure.