HFU HF Underground
Loggings => HF Beacons => Topic started by: Looking-Glass on July 30, 2017, 0134 UTC
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The past week I have been hearing Petropavlovsk "K" on 8.495.3MHz CW transmitting the usual letter "K" but also with a letter "A", the sequence is:
K K K K K A K K K K K A K K K K K A and so on, so "K" five times and then "A" etc.
Also the same transmission is also heard on 8.504MHz at the same time.
I wonder what the inclusion of the letter "A" denotes?
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It's a transmitter failure. As I know, they are still using old mechanical systems to provide CW keying: rotating barrels or plates with groups of contacts. Some of the contacts can fail after long time of operation.
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Looks like on the 6th go around it loses the first dash.
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I think, the barrel (plate) includes 6 K's per one revolution at least. And one of the "dashes" is defective.
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ulx2: Thanks very much for that, didn't know they used such old equipment, but it still serves the purpose.
Unusual the second transmission on 8.504MHz CW too, it fades out same time as the 8.495.3 transmission.
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"K" heard 10872.3kHz with a random "A" at 0605z 23 Jul 2017
"K" heard 10872.3kHz with irregularities and marginal signal at best from 1420z 3 Aug 2017
"K" heard fade in on 10872.3kHz at 1815z 7 Aug 2017
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"K" heard on 8495.3kHz with random irregularities noted from ~1430z until fade out around 1900z 9 Oct 2017
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K" from 1230z on 8495.3kHz 25 Oct 2017 w/o any noted "irregularity"