V07 again, excellent reception

[Rizla]

V07 strikes once again on 14482kHz/13382kHz/11582kHz at 0500/0520/0540 UTC on 20.5.2018. First bdcast was S6; second and third S8 and very, very loud. Local copy on Tecsun PL-880 was super-easy. Once again, I was outside and there was another gorgeous crescent moon in the sky:

435 435 435 1   331 57

04791 40861 02969 46278 05008 20223 68966 34906 41852 36916 20213 49363 05105 58602 03071 77241 72800 65202 99387 29503 19843 86967 27011 75427 81955 35489 58608 82157 35020 83071 84802 02118 94769 65426 23180 89660 58798 05886 59008 78627 29668 41272 44822 91809 65055 05033 37866 60392 31193 99224 76905 79995 58081 73927 84442 56948 29650 000 000   

Regardless of what the brilliant sleuths at Priyom say, "tres" and "seis" are quite easy to differentiate at this volume level, which is extremely loud. One cannot but be floored at the signal strength coming out of Kamchatka or wherever. Really, I haven't heard such a spectacular numbers station in the United States since the Cold War days, this is definitely worth a listen even though according to the Priyom skeds (thanks again! You guys are tops!) this station is about to take a break.

Token: I heard numerous beeps at least half an hour before first transmission, which let me know how loud these stations were gonna be. This station is a fun hunt for old-school numbers station listeners for sure.

[Token]

this is definitely worth a listen even though according to the Priyom skeds (thanks again! You guys are tops!) this station is about to take a break.

Not sure what you mean by Priyom says this station is about to take a break?  Do you mean because their (Priyom) schedule shows no entry for June?

V07 shifted its long standing schedule (since at least as early as 2010) all around, making major changes, starting in July of 2017.  It started using a new voice, but same schedule (times / freqs) in June, 2017, but then in July, 2017, it changed all three frequencies.  Since then it has changed many frequencies and times, keeping some of the old and combining that with some new.

So next month, June, is an unknown.  That does not mean it will not transmit, but rather will it use the 2017 and before schedule or will it change that month also?  To tell the truth, I would not be surprised if there were changes during June, July, and August, there is something a bit off about the recorded schedule from last year in those months, like maybe they (V07) had not decided what to do yet.

Here is the schedule V07 used from at least as early as sometime in 2010 to June of 2017.  The title of the chart says May 2011 start, but that was when I strarted with the intent of making a chart, I had casually monitored this station on what was probably this same schedule as early as 2009:



Here is the schedule as it has been for the last year or so, note that June has not been seen since the changes started, and cells in AMBER color are changes:


Here is a video of the transmission you caught yesterday:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hG8r0-iT5Kc

T!

[Rizla]

Thanks T for the superb charts and info. It'll be interesting to see what they do; I had no idea they'd changed skeds so recently.

I wonder if any of V07's sister stations ever make it out this way (SW desert... I will peruse your YT channel of course  )

[Token]

This station, and others in its family operated by probably the same organization, has some well defined habits.

One of those habits is that if a "null" message ( only the callup, in this case 435, sent three times, followed by 000, all repeating for just over two minutes ) is sent in the first two time slots, the third transmission will not happen.

T!

[[tRMZ]]

I barely caught the tail end of sumthin at 0:51 11182 KHz USB...was that it?

[Token]

I barely caught the tail end of sumthin at 0:51 11182 KHz USB...was that it?

No, it was not.  Tonight, as anticipated, this station started a new schedule, at 0700, 0720, and 0740 UTC.

While the shift in time was predicted, the frequencies used were unknowable.  It turns out the freqs were 13563 kHz, USB mode, at 0700 UTC, 12163 kHz, USB mode, at 0720 UTC, and 10263 kHz, USB mode, at 0740 UTC.

T!

(PS) the sharp eyed might note I posted this at 0716 UTC, before the second and third transmission happened   Such confidence I have....

[Rizla]

Just heard the new June frequencies here too in good quality. For some reason I copied the second one on 12162kHz. Maybe it was me and maybe it was an error? Anyway your instinct was right.

512 (x3) 1 9847 63  94375 40333... (long msg)

[[tRMZ]]

I barely caught the tail end of sumthin at 0:51 11182 KHz USB...was that it?

No, it was not.  Tonight, as anticipated, this station started a new schedule, at 0700, 0720, and 0740 UTC.

While the shift in time was predicted, the frequencies used were unknowable.  It turns out the freqs were 13563 kHz, USB mode, at 0700 UTC, 12163 kHz, USB mode, at 0720 UTC, and 10263 kHz, USB mode, at 0740 UTC.

T!

(PS) the sharp eyed might note I posted this at 0716 UTC, before the second and third transmission happened   Such confidence I have....

Good! I figured I'd let you guys find em and tell me where they are. I understand we expected the freq change. But I noticed SOME pre-2017 frequencies noted on that chart...I figured I'd monitor them around 1:00z. Yea somebody was talking SSB around 11180.

I've been looking at the chart. Thnx for documenting the freq change. I'll listen next weekend :-)

[Token]

Just heard the new June frequencies here too in good quality. For some reason I copied the second one on 12162kHz. Maybe it was me and maybe it was an error? Anyway your instinct was right.

512 (x3) 1 9847 63  94375 40333... (long msg)

Yes, actual TX freq at 0720 UTC was 12162 kHz, not 12163 kHz.  This was almost certainly an operator error, why do I say that?  Look at the transmissions.

0700z 13563 kHz USB
0720z 12162 kHz USB
0740z 10263 kHz USB

Habitually, in every other time slot this station transmits in through the year, the ones and tens digit for a given callup are the same, in this case all the frequencies should end in 63.

Other habits to note with regards to frequency.

Concerning only the MHz digit of the frequency, the frequencies go down by 1 or 2 MHz increments for each successive time slot.  XX20 is 1 or 2 MHz lower than the XX00 time slot, and XX40 is 1 or 2 MHz lower than the XX20 time slot.  This habit is true for the far eastern outlet of this station, the western outlet (when one is active) inverts this, so each successive transmission is 1 or 2 MHz higher than the last.

Concerning only the 100 kHz digit of the frequency, the callup matches the 100 kHz digit for each time slot.  The callup, the 3 digit number repeated over and over at the beginning of the transmission, for the transmissions this month is 512.  Note the 100 kHz digit in each frequency, 13563 kHz, 12163 kHz, and 10263 kHz, 5, and 1, and 2.

This makes it easier to find unknown frequencies.  If you find any one frequency in a callup set you can narrow down the other two freqs to a couple of options each.  By finding 13563 kHz at 0700z with a callup of 512 that told me the 0720z transmission was probably going to be on 12163 or 11163 kHz, and the 0740 TX was probably going to be on 11263, or 10263, or 9263 kHz.  And if you look at the July and August transmissions for last year you will see this station used the 13563 / 12163 / 10263 kHz set those months.  SO that was a safe bet for this month.

For whatever reason this station has reduced itself to 4 sets of frequencies, and so 4 callups, it has used in the last year.  In previous years it had more sets in use.

T!

[Rizla]

Interesting, a rare mistake by this "Operator". Looking at today's Priyom skeds, there were some other sked changes/searches today.

Your post and sked above really deserve to be in a wiki somewhere. What a wealth of information. I've seen your YT, do you have a proper webpage? If not, long overdue, kudos and thanks. You've got a book in there somewhere.

I'm curious Token if you've heard any of the western transmissions of this "operator" at your location. Also, if the far eastern tx have included any stations other than V07, historically. Sig is so strong, almost akin to China Radio, certainly beats out Radio New Zealand, in comparison. Obviously some thought has gone into which freq's to use, at what must be very high power. There are some conclusions one could speculate on as to what this means as to the importance of these transmissions, which would of course be mere smoke of opinion.

[Token]

Interesting, a rare mistake by this "Operator". Looking at today's Priyom skeds, there were some other sked changes/searches today.

Pretty much every numbers station has made mistakes.  Some stations are well known for their mistakes, with others it is uncommon, but still happens.  Mistakes are not all that common on this V07, but have happened.  For example, I have a set of recordings of this station with the first transmission (in that case ate 0300 UTC) was in USB, as expected.  But the 0320 UTC transmission was in AM.  And it ended up the set with the 0340 UTC signal being in LSB.

As for other changes / searches, it is the beginning of the month, so that is not horribly unusual.

Your post and sked above really deserve to be in a wiki somewhere. What a wealth of information. I've seen your YT, do you have a proper webpage? If not, long overdue, kudos and thanks. You've got a book in there somewhere.

I have a couple of web pages around, but all of them waaayyy out of date.  Pretty much all the information I have can be found on the ENIGMA 2000 web site, the Numbers and Oddities web site, and Priyom.org.

I'm curious Token if you've heard any of the western transmissions of this "operator" at your location. Also, if the far eastern tx have included any stations other than V07, historically. Sig is so strong, almost akin to China Radio, certainly beats out Radio New Zealand, in comparison. Obviously some thought has gone into which freq's to use, at what must be very high power. There are some conclusions one could speculate on as to what this means as to the importance of these transmissions, which would of course be mere smoke of opinion.

I am pretty sure, based on RFDF and TSOA, that this V07 is transmitted from someplace around Kamchatka.  There are several other numbers stations that might be from the same location or at least someplace else in the far east of Russia, an M12, M14, and S06 are all active from probably that region.

A western area V07 has not been regularly active in several years now, however what may have been a test transmission of V07 was heard a few months ago in Europe.  The western area V07 was transmitted from a western Russia location in the past.

Yes, thought has gone into selecting the frequencies for this V07, and that is pretty normal for the Russian numbers stations.  People who monitor such stations often will model propagation, and over time you can end up getting an idea of the region the intended recipient is in.

T!

[MDK2]

Copying now on 10 JUN 2018 @ 0700 UTC, 512 512 512 000 (null message). Not very strong, but able to make it all out.

[sat_dxer]

Another Sat..err, Sunday at the spies

10 June 2018 in Spanish YL w/random pre qtc tuning tones
0700z 13(5)63 kHz cinco uno dos cero cero cero
0720z 12(1)63 kHz cinco uno dos cero cero cero

0740z 10(2)63 kHz

[[tRMZ]]

I figure I might as well give a reception report...I took one for the team! I got up at 6:50z and monitored the 3 frequencies. Couldn't hear nothin! EXCEPT I did hear very faint voice on 12163U...so that's my reception report!

I'm on a big hill in a gr8 location but no EXT antenna

[sat_dxer]

17 June 2018 in Spanish YL w/random pre tuning tones
0700z 13(5)63 kHz cinco uno dos uno 5FG...  0708z cero cero cero
0720z 12(1)63 kHz cinco uno dos uno 5FG...  0728z cero cero cero
0740z 10(2)63 kHz cinco uno dos uno 5FG...  0748z cero cero cero