HFU HF Underground
Loggings => Other => Topic started by: BoomboxDX on October 27, 2026, 0711 UTC
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Usually when I switch on my SW radios I'll start tuning below 40M, because you never know what you'll find there.
I don't generally search for pirates, but the wide range of weird stuff -- HFT, STANAG, Russian FSK, UNID carriers, etc. -- makes it interesting to tune with SSB, even if it's just to check on propagation.
Earlier tonight I tuned in to 6838, an HFT racket frequency, that at night often is silent, or a varying carrier. The past month or more it's been silent at night, and putting out its horrid digital racket during daylight hours.
However, as soon as I tuned in this evening, it was full on RTTY, S5 out of 5. There were some very deep fades, sometimes taking it to the static level, but coming back full on again. I've never heard RTTY on this frequency before. What it was doing on an HFT frequency is a good question.
Earlier in the morning of the 26th I tuned the trusty PL-330 across the same range, and the 6838 kHz transmitter was putting out HFT racket, there were weak UNID carriers on 6845 and 6915, and Russian 7 kHz FSK on two separate pairs, one pair having signals about twice as strong as the other. The weak pairs were 6942-6949, and the strong pair being 6964-6971.
The stronger pair were around S4+, the weaker pair around S2. I still think that these Russian FSK that I hear in the morning in Western WA are out of the Russian Far East, possibly from two different locations (Vladivostok and Petropavlovsk?). Nothing from Europe or the Caucasus could reach this location especially when overall conditions that morning weren't terrific.
They also must be using very powerful transmitters. The Petropavlovsk 'K' beacon on 7040 was buried in static, just barely audible.
As per usual, the Russian FSK shifted frequencies. They were all off like a light right at 1600 UTC.