22.606MHz CW Marine?

[Looking-Glass]

For the past few days I have been receiving weak CW at 0200z on 22.605.70MHz which may suggest a maritime station? 

Mixed letters and number suggest a weather reports being issued but too weak to get a full copy of some of the text, it floats in and out. Starts promptly at 0200z, transmissions last anything from five to 20 minutes.

Just up the band on 22.611MHz is HLF CW marker from Seoul, which runs 3Kw to a log periodic peaking 549 report. 

I presume the station I am hearing maybe in Japan as I picked up "de JUW" after a lot of messing with filters and widths on the radio.  However, JUW doesn't appear on any maritime sites for 22MHz CW.

Any help would be appreciated. The Japanese HF marine web site has no mention of this one.

[prldx]

Hi !

Looks like one of the Japan Fishery Radio Stations.
Sometimes it is a little bit difficult to get the correct letters from their handkeyed transmission. So maybe JFW instead of JUW ?

73,
Patrick

[Looking-Glass]

Thanks Patrick, and yes the hand key CW was lousy in the "manual" warm up, they then go to computer driven morse after with a perfect fist!  Just about totally sure it's JUW.

Cannot hear the trawlers it's working though, either their signals too weak or they are most likely working split. 

Managed to note three callsigns from base end and all three were belonging to Long Line Tuna boats out of Japan.

Been searching to find out where JUW is and all I get is HF marine SSB and weather data/fax freqeuncies and calls in Japan, nothing on CW at all.

[R4002]

I'm surprised that Japan is still running CW on the HF marine bands considering their heavy use of FAX and SSB voice (plus AM voice on the higher parts of HF and lower parts of VHF). 

What's "The Japanese HF marine web site"?  I'd like to take a look through that. 

[prldx]

Hi !

Here´s a list of the Fishery Radio Stations with frequencies (in Japanese):
http://www.tele.soumu.go.jp/resource/j/material/dwn/06.pdf

But no JUW in there.
Another possibilty ? JFM (.--- / .._. / --) instead of JUW (.--- / ..- / .--)

73,
Patrick

[R4002]

Patrick,

Thanks for the listing.  I don't read Japanese but its a start

Luckily the listing has the callsigns, frequencies, modes, power levels and station lat/long locations.  It even includes 27 MHz AM/SSB 1WDSB fishery radio information [there are literally thousands of fishery stations listed there and most of them are on 26-27 MHz or a combination of MF/HF, 26-27 MHz AM, VHF low band 38-40 MHz AM, VHF-FM marine or 347 MHz UHF FM marine band, which must be another Japan-only allocation] and apparently lists A1A as modes for several frequencies and stations so I stand corrected.

[Looking-Glass]

Have JFG listed on 22.606.5MHz CW so it may be that?  The signal is poor here and propagation has been miserable to say the least. 

The station idents in a warm up at 0130z and then a brief ident before the main transmission at 0200z.  The warm up and ident are done by an operator on a hand key, sending is not the best.  The main transmission seems to be computer driven morse.

Cannot hear any of the Long Line tuna vessels he is working, suggesting they are on split frequency.

Thanks for the list Patrick, I can read some Kanji and Hirigana but not much so can do a rough interpretation. Saved the list to my main screen as a lot of weird Japanese voice traffic pops up between 4 and 8MHz here too so some mysteries may be solved.

R4002 had some Japanese on 6.707MHz USB a few days ago so will look for that frequency on the list too and possibly solve another mystery.

[R4002]

22606 kHz (and 22606.5 kHz) aren't listed as duplex channels on the ITU split frequency duplex HF frequency list (it starts at 22696 kHz for coast TX and 22000 kHz for ship TX and goes up to 22852 kHz for coast TX / 22156 kHz for ship TX.  I bet they're using a non-standard split (if they are indeed running a split).

Looking-Glass, I haven't logged any more traffic on 6707 USB since the first logging.  I have logged several other frequencies since (there's several threads that I'm sure you've read).  I admire your dedication - would be awesome if you heard those guys on 6707 kHz USB as well. 

[Looking-Glass]

Confirmed on 22.606.5MHz CW today as "JFG"...no thanks to the very sloppy hand morse they use for the pre transmission "warm up", they were a little stronger today, again none of the vessels were heard.

It's stated that "JFG" is at Gyogyo, Shizouku and runs just 1Kw, so if it's weak here then the lower powered vessels will be a bonus during this current rubbish propagation.