HFU HF Underground
Loggings => Other => Topic started by: Zoidberg on November 08, 2008, 1008 UTC
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Not sure how to categorize this, whether as pescadore, pirate or CB.
Between 0930-1000 UTC, 11/8/08, on 7000 LSB, I heard voice, music, sound effects, bird calls and general fooling around in language that sounded like German with Spanish accent. I've heard this before between 6900-7000 kHz on both sidebands during 2008, including what sounded rather like a call-in talk show on 6955 kHz several months ago!
A bit of research indicated it might be coming from Brazilian unlicensed operators. Brazil has a large population of people with German ancestry and reportedly many people speak German as a primary language or secondary to the more prevalent Portuguese. One man, who sounded like he was using a speech modifier or synthesizer with echo repeats, repeatedly said what sounded like "bitte", "Larry", "ya, ya", "okay" and, possibly "Yanqui". While I'm not fluent in Portuguese I've heard the language spoken, including on various Brazilian licensed shortwave broadcasts, and the accents were similar despite the differences in language. Some of the Portuguese spoken by certain personalities on Brazilian shortwave broadcasts has a guttural quality more akin to German than Latin root languages.
Faded by 1000 UTC but continued at varying signal strength, at least two men heard. Signal intelligibility was generally good with little drift. If these were indeed from modified CBs, as the following reference indicates is possible, that could be interesting for folks who want more affordable access to the HF spectrum in the U.S.
(N. Central TX - Palstar R30C with indoor antenna.)
5 minute audio clip (635 KB mp3): http://www.mediafire.com/?i2azjnzhqzn
20 minute audio clip (2.6 MB mp3): http://www.mediafire.com/?44mqonnwmfl
Note: Jon-FL on IRC (#wunclub, #pirateradio) has noted similar activity on 7000 kHz and may have audio clips online.
Per: http://mt-utility.blogspot.com/2007_03_01_archive.html:
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
7000 kHz Is Getting Weird (per MT Utility World blog)
For the last several days, there has been a real zoo on 7000 kHz, right at the lower end of the 40 meter band. Some people have heard a STANAG 4285 signal that decodes to the usual French Navy testing loops complete with Voyez le brick and identification as FUV (French Navy, Djibouti). Parameters are 300/L/5N2/ITA2.
It may or may not be coincidental that Djibouti and the African "horn" in general is a world trouble spot you don't hear much about, with several important oil fields, tanker routes, and natural gas pipelines at stake. Military activity is greatly increasing there as of late.
Other signals being heard are hours of conversation in Spanish, using procedures such as "Cambio" for "Over." There is a little of the whistling which seems to be a test tone down there, and a little of the hooty sounding multiband inversion scrambling used by the Mexican Army and/or?
Finally there are at least two ALE signals, one from the Italian Carabinieri phone patch net which passes an AMD string of "DIAL4," another with short alphanumeric IDs which are still unknown.
This is not counting a weird artifact that has been transmitting on a wide range of 40 meter frequencies for years, producing a short beep every minute or so. It is a weird dual-frequency beep resembling a DTMF tone but not one. I suspect it's local to Southern California.
It is not known whether any of this is legal on 40 meters. I personally suspect it is not, but it's a grey area. However, hams who tune up or send CW on 7000.000 in an effort to drive all this stuff off must have a lot of faith in their VFO calibration.
...and a follow up post, with possible confirmation:
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
More 7000 kHz Strangeness (per MT Utility World blog)
This comes from Brazil, describing unlicensed CB-style 40-meter activity in that country:
Regarding your last post ('7000 kHz Is Getting Weird') I would like to
say, perhaps, brazilian RF users are helping on this weirdness.
Unfortunately it is increasingly common to see truck drivers installing
'27MHz->7MHz' transverters on their CB radios. This would explain the
use of words 'cambio' and the whistle (a 'roger beep' signalling the end
of QSO). It is very common to see unlicensed voice traffic between
6900-7000KHz. Here, they call this space as 'faixinha' ('little band').
This page:
(http://www.zamin.com.br/principal.php?id_menu=produtos&categoria=10 )
has CB transverters for 6, 40 and 80 meters (25-50W) costing
US$100-US$200. Although the company's objective is to help licensed hams
operator to start on 6, 40 and 80 meter bands with short budget,
unlicensed CB owners are using this devices to get better coverage, but,
sadly, whithout any licensing and control.
Best regards,
ZZ3HAG Huelbe Garcia
member of DX Club of Brazil
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Wow, nice catch Lex! Thanks for the audio!
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Wee-hour DXing: The unfortunate byproduct of insomnia. At least it's quiet. :P
I'm pretty sure Jon-FL has logged similar stuff on 7000 kHz. I seem to recall him mentioning hearing music, etc. He may have audio clips too.
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More Brazilian Pesque madness on 7000 LSB
11/17/08, 1330-1400 UTC: Several OM voices, two heard strongest, one droning "clack-on-clack-on-clack-on!" while another droned "nunca-nunca-nunca!", similar apparently nonsensical vocalizations. Lots of chatter in dialects that sometimes sounded like German, sometimes like Spanish or Portuguese, occasionally some English slang. After 20-30 minutes, a clear OM voice in American accented English gives out call sign that sounded like W654 (the rest partially obscured), with calls to "Charlie" and "George". Mostly overpowered by the non-English chatter.
(N. Central TX)
Five minute audio clip, condensed from hour-long recording: http://www.mediafire.com/?i1yydumyhzx
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2/17/10, 1200-1215 UTC, 7000 LSB: Same heard again, various OM voices chanting nonsensical vocalizations. As usual, one voice louder than others, seems to more or less lead others in intermittent chanting vocalizations. Peaked around 1215z, faded out by 1235z.
(N. Central TX)
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15:40 UTC receiving what sounds like portuguese male communicating with another station. Can hear various stations in the background one usually stronger. One has a nice strong audio like using some kind of processor. Another is singing a tune. One other saying Hooola HOOOOla; sounds like 40M cb.
Location: Los Angeles
Toys: AOR 7030+
antenna: alpha delta dx ultra @35 feet
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Bumping one of my favorite oldies but goodies, rather than starting a new thread.
3/30/11
7000 LSB
1000z: Hearing our Brazilian chanters again, not quite as enthusiastic a group of call-and-response vocalizations as usual. Someone adding what sounds like "Toga! Toga! Toga!" to the usual chanting.
Not quite as strong as I heard 'em back in 2008, but still stronger here than via any of the global tuners remotes I've tried this morning. Only other tuner they were audible on was in Colorado.
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Here's ~ 4min recording I made back in March of the 7000 LSB activity. I usually check here to see how conditions are in the morning. These guys were in full swing this time!
Audio: https://www.yousendit.com/download/VnBxTG14Z1AyWGRjR0E9PQ
cheers : )
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Pretty heard I have heard this as well, 2 or 3 nights ago. There is always some weird stuff going on around 7000. I guess I thought it was the usual activity coming from Mexico, but it also could have been these guys
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Some of this going on right now 6999.8 to 7000
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Rather than start a complete new thread, I thought I'd add my comments to this one as I've been hearing this stuff also.
First off, although I'm not a language expert, I think the language, at least in Sealord's recording (and in the stuff I've heard between 6999 - 7020 khz around 1200 utc - 1400 utc), is Tagalog or Malay, and I think a lot of these transmissions are coming from SE Asia, because the transmissions seem to match the propagation.
I've noticed guys chattering away around 6999 khz since 2002, when I first heard it.
It would always start up around 1200 - 1300 utc or so, depending on whenever propagation to Asia really opened up on the 40 meter ham band. The transmissions would last until the Asian broadcast stations just above the 40 meter ham band started fading out, and they generally faded out around the same time.
I didn't hear the heavy duty chanting until a few days ago when I heard a racket going on at 7019 khz, and it went on for at least 20 minutes or more. The signals spread across a couple khz of spectrum, and there was just one ham trying to call CQ in that portion of the 40 meter CW band before he just gave up.
The chanting sounded like 5-10 guys all shouting into their mikes at once. Nga Nga Nga, DaNam DaNam DaNam DaNam, etc. It struck me as if they were trying to drive CW hams off the frequency. But maybe they do it for some other reason.
I have just listened to the recording that Sealord posted, and the chanting I heard sounded a lot like that, and the speech during the non-chanting portions of the recording is similar to the speech I have heard. And it sounds to me like Tagalog or Malay. If it is coming from SE Asia, the inclusion of some English words would be natural, because English is taught in Philippine and Malaysian schools.
I have heard transmissions in Mexican Spanish on these frequencies, but it's usually around 0000 utc - 0500 utc or later. Around 1200 utc or later I usually just hear the Asian-sounding stuff.
It's a bit curious that I never see much reference to these transmissions on any of the publicly viewable ham radio forums.
PS -- Thanks for posting that mp3, Sealord. It's a good recording of one of the strangest things I've heard on the shortwaves....
[Edit: Woops. The clip I was referring to was the "7000LSB, 11/17/08, 1330-1400 UTC" one posted by Lex. Got the links confused.]
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Hiya BoomboxDX - you must've grabbed that mp3 awhile back
I'm not very good on languages unless it's really obvious. I've also heard activity (all in LSB mode) around 6933, 6940, 6943 & lately 6970. There's one particular fella that's easy to spot - he has a lower range voice with good sideband audio, usually speaking in a calm manner with whoever. I get the best reception from these guys when my array is pointed SE.
Here's an updated link for the 'gang tx' :)
http://archive.org/download/ShortwaveOddsSodsTransmissions/BrazillianPirates7000Lsb1130z-1143z03-04-11.mp3
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This is really interesting!
I checked the IARU Region 3 Monitoring System Newsletter (http://www.iaru-r3.org/ms/r3msnl.htm), and it turns out these stations are indeed Asian – or Indonesian to be precise (I see on Wikipedia that they speak Malay in Indonesia). The newsletter calls it 'village radio'. Fascinating!
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I'm wondering whether we're hearing different regions on the same frequency, depending on our own locations? A fellow who speaks Portuguese listened to my recordings from 2008 or 2009 and confirmed those did sound like Brazilian radio operators. Here in Texas I can often pick up Central and South America very well but rarely hear any Asian stations. The last time I heard any 40m Asian amateur stations clearly was around 2007-2008 when propagation was still very good.
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This is really interesting!
I checked the IARU Region 3 Monitoring System Newsletter (http://www.iaru-r3.org/ms/r3msnl.htm), and it turns out these stations are indeed Asian – or Indonesian to be precise (I see on Wikipedia that they speak Malay in Indonesia). The newsletter calls it 'village radio'. Fascinating!
Thanks for that link. After doing some web research on the Indonesian chanting last night I found the IARU region 1 site, wasn't aware of the Region 3. The Region 1 monitors in Europe heard this also, but didn't call it "village radio", they just said it was Indonesian pirates, and one monitor referred to it as "whining?"
I also noticed, looking over some of those Region 3 logs, most of the loggings of the 'village radio' transmissions were done by VK4TJ. And he was hearing them around 0900. The weird stuff we're hearing is around 1200-1300, maybe it's a different thing, maybe the same thing and it's after his monitoring period...
I wonder what "village radio" is.
[edited -- got region #'s wrong]
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I'm wondering whether we're hearing different regions on the same frequency, depending on our own locations? A fellow who speaks Portuguese listened to my recordings from 2008 or 2009 and confirmed those did sound like Brazilian radio operators. Here in Texas I can often pick up Central and South America very well but rarely hear any Asian stations. The last time I heard any 40m Asian amateur stations clearly was around 2007-2008 when propagation was still very good.
I think you're right. Where I live it's closer to Asia -- whereas in Texas you're much closer to Latin America.
On some of those IARU logs on their website, where hams are monitoring ham band pirates and intruders, they seem to hear more of these guys from different regions depending on where they are located.
6999-7000 khz and thereabouts may be some sort of 'freeband' in various parts of the world.
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Hi Lex!
What you heard (http://www.mediafire.com/?i1yydumyhzx) sounds very much like this recording from IARU Region 1’s monitoring system:
http://www.iarums-r1.org/iarums/sound/7000-ins.wav (an Indonesian net, according to IARU)
On both your recording and the one from IARU the ops end their overs with something that sounds like ’ganti’ – which is ’change’ in Indonesian (according to Google Translate)! (In Portuguese that would be câmbio).
So perhaps you can have heard Indonesian ops after all (I admit its hard to believe given the distance and the fact that you’re in Texas and not on the West Coast).
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Ooops, I made a mistake on an earlier post.
The sound file I thought was Sealord's was actually Lex's 7000USB "Pesque Madness" 11-17-08 1337z Mp3. That sound clip is eerily similar to what I heard on 8/28, including the didgeridoo like chanting in the background -- and the speech and chatter sounds similar.
I think I got it confused with Sealord's April 23, 2011 sound clip because I tried to get that one to load and had trouble loading it....
But the newest one Sealord posted, the Brazillian Pirates 7000LSB 1130z-1143z 3-04-11 also sounds a lot like what I've heard.
I have found a couple files on Youtube that are also similar:
this one from a guy in Australia who calls them "lima pirates" because they chant 'lima' 'lima' 'lima':
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1J5FQ_IduQ&feature=related
This one a guy (also from Australia) calls the "Indonesian horse races":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTWsNvR80xk
There's some others on Youtube I haven't checked out yet, and I still need to check out some of the other sound files here.
It's possible this chanting thing isn't confined to one particular part of the world.
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I monitored 7000 khz a few mornings back, and heard something that may give a clue as to this 'chanting' stuff our SE Asian ham pirate friends seem to engage in from time to time.
Around 1400 UTC 9/3 I tuned in to hear a guy say "hallo hallo ganti ganti... grup a grup...." It registered S4 on my DX-398. Then there was some chanting, although it could have been one guy using an echo box. Another guy shouts out "Lima, Lima". Then 3 or 4 guys chanting. Then some chatter. This went on for around 15 minutes, and I tuned further up the band.
I returned to 7000 khz at 1435 UTC to hear strong chanting, and then a break. Then I heard what clearly was a recorded playback of the chanting I'd just heard. Then the main guy says some stuff in Malay/Indonesian, and OK OK, and then there's more chanting. Then it stops, and the main guy plays it back for the rest of them.
This chanting, and recorded playback went on for maybe 20 minutes, at least until 1448 UTC. During the prompts, some of the language sounded territorial, like Java, Cebu (Sibu?), Sulu, etc., but because of atmospherics I'm not really sure if those were references to different regions, or were just similar sounding words.
So maybe this chanting stuff is some sort of game, where a guy prompts others in certain areas to make all this noise, and then it's recorded and played back for them. Or, this could be a fairly new take on the game.
At the same time there were other QSO's in the same language higher up the band with frequent use of the word "ganti". So I think Kai is correct in that they use the word "ganti" the same way we use "over" in the U.S. and they use "cambio" in Latin America.
73
BoomboxDX
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Fascinating stuff! If my recordings were of Asian comms rather than Brazil that's encouraging - perhaps propagation to my area isn't quite as bad as I'd assumed. Thanks for all the research and tips, folks. This has been one of the more interesting radio oddities I've ever heard.
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Fascinating stuff! If my recordings were of Asian comms rather than Brazil that's encouraging - perhaps propagation to my area isn't quite as bad as I'd assumed. Thanks for all the research and tips, folks. This has been one of the more interesting radio oddities I've ever heard.
Well, it looks like your Palstar and whatever antenna you were using picked them up quite well!
FYI: If you want to hear some legit SE Asian hams, there's a Borneo Net on 7045 khz that I hear on a lot of mornings around 1300-1400 hours, signals at varying strengths depending on propagation. They generally rattle out their suffixes, with the international phonetics, but sometimes you'll hear entire calls, mentions of territories like "Sabah" or "Kalimantan", etc.
If you're into hearing Asian as well as US pop music you may also try for Traxx FM Malaysia, it comes in at varying strengths on 7295 khz around the same time frame, with announcements in English. Also, Sarawak FM Malaysia on 9835 khz, with Asian pop and announcements in Malay might be worth a try.