L beacon 5157khz

[Edgar Souse]

Listening to the University of Twente SDR online, at 0450 utc. Came in at about s2, just a bit above the noise, repeated the letter "L".

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[Looking-Glass]

Good catch, "L" for some reason is always very weak here and thus is a rare catch for me, data is as follows:

5.156.8MHz  CW  "L" St Petersburg, beacon/marker Baltic Sea & Neva River, Russia.

There are 10 Russian beaons/markers listed for that frequency from 5.153.7MHz to 5.156.8MHz all same format as "L"...

[Terry]

Still hearing "L" on the Twenty SDR but nothing direct which was no surprise. I tuned a little lower and was copying "D". Checked it direct and there it was! 5153.7 on the TS-480. That was a surprise. Lots of noise but EZ copy. Also looked good on the fldigi and spectran waterfalls.
I am in SE Fla using a vertical.  

Edit to note I am in grayline right now. Sunset 6 minutes ago at 00:18:59

[Edgar Souse]

Any idea where the beacon originates and why? 0522 UTC, still hearing it via University of Twente SDR.

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[Teotwaki]

Any idea where the beacon originates and why? 0522 UTC, still hearing it via University of Twente SDR.

google Russian military HF beacons and look for the HF Underground wiki

fascinating stuff!

[sat_dxer]

From footnote #21 in the Letter beacon HF Underground wiki:
"Cluster beacon was also active throughout July 2011...that "L" transmitted from St Petersburg but so far there is no evidence to support this...It moved (in freq) on July 23...and again (in freq) on July 24"(2011).  

However the  "Number and Oddities", issue 166, pp.7 cited link in the footnote points to issue 165 by mistake.

And footnote #23 links to the current IARU R1 report (2017) not 7/2011 as cited.