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Loggings => Utility => Topic started by: AlanC on November 18, 2016, 1259 UTC

Title: XLA/XLB ALE who are they?
Post by: AlanC on November 18, 2016, 1259 UTC

Anyone know who these are?

XLA and XLB net
5106.2, 5210.2, 6393.0, 7505.7 ALE USB

Every 2-3 minutes on each frequency yesterday 17th November 2016, always XLB calling XLA:

[2016-11-17 20:07:03] [NORMAL MODE][TO][XLA][TO][XLA][EOM]
[2016-11-17 20:07:04]
[2016-11-17 20:07:04] [NORMAL MODE][TO][XLA][EOM]
[2016-11-17 20:07:05]
[2016-11-17 20:07:05] [NORMAL MODE][TO][XLA][EOM]
[2016-11-17 20:07:05]
[2016-11-17 20:07:05] [NORMAL MODE][TO][XLA][TO][XLA][EOM]
[2016-11-17 20:07:07]
[2016-11-17 20:07:07] [NORMAL MODE][TO][XLA][CMD USER UNIQUE WORD][TIS][XLB][EOM]

Suddenly went QRT at 22:00 utc.

Cheers
Alan

Title: Re: XLA/XLB ALE who are they?
Post by: Cornel on November 18, 2016, 2020 UTC

Hi Alan
It's unknown i guess. http://www.ominous-valve.com/ale-list.txt

What antenna and radio did you use, signal strength, direction?

Historical ICAO Callsign
Expo   XLA   JN   XL Airways UK Limited - United Kingdom

If i had to guess i'd say it's chinese or mexican. Who knows...

Edit: it could be XLA US DoD loc: unknown

73
C.

Title: Re: XLA/XLB ALE who are they?
Post by: AlanC on November 19, 2016, 1132 UTC

Hi Cornel,

Many thanks for this.

I was using the Twente SDR, my long wire antenna blew down earlier this year and I've not put it back up yet!

The only thing I noted was that as the evening wore on, the signals were stronger on the higher frequency channels- in fact I stopped hearing them altogether on the two 5MHz channels after about 21:00. I thought this odd as it is the reverse of what you would expect if they were 'local' i.e. European. But it could also indicate a source far to the east (in the daylight zone) I guess.

Best 73
Alan