Messages

721

North American Shortwave Pirate / Re: Wolverine Radio 6940 USB 0029 UTC 22 Jan 2017

« on: January 22, 2017, 0036 UTC »

As usual, excellent sound for a USB signal. not quite as strong as normal, but still about S8 and I am sure it will improve over the next hour since it is still a bit to sundown.

Heard the "testing 1, 2, 3" and started the recorders, wife is taking a nap, so I will restart it on the house sound system after she gets up.

T!

722

Spy Numbers / New V24 prediction chart, first quarter of 2017

« on: January 16, 2017, 1656 UTC »

It looks like V24 underwent some pretty significant schedule changes 1 January, 2017.  Below is a best guess of the new schedule, but keep in mind it takes a couple months to confirm changes, and we are only half way through the first month of the new schedule, so this probably is not 100%.

Of note they appear to have killed the 6215 khz frequency again, or they have moved it to a new sched near the end of the month, and so not seen so far.

Version 16.0, V24 schedule, first quarter, 2017:
http://www.tokenradio.net/Radio/SharedFiles/NumbersTfer/V24_sched_V_16_0_1Q_2017.JPG

And as always, the latest schedule (V16.0 at the moment, but will change as new scheds are made) on my web site can be found at:
http://www.tokenradio.net/Radio/SharedFiles/NumbersTfer/V24_M94_latest_sched.JPG

T!

723

Peskies / Re: 6900 KHz USB Spanish speakers

« on: January 16, 2017, 0044 UTC »

I know enough Spanish to get a general idea of what these guys are talking about.  I'm pretty sure they're not pescadores (fishermen, fishing fleets, "peskies", etc), but are in fact "freebanders" or "outbanders" operating below the 40 meter ham radio band.  

The 6800-7000 range is full of all sorts of Spanish and Portuguese language traffic, using both USB and LSB.  Seems like the fishing fleets mostly use LSB.

It has become something of a habit to call Spanish or Portuguese language traffic in this area "Peskies" whether they are pescadores or not.  Often in the past such a name would be applied if you heard something like motor sounds in the background.  Today listeners looking for Pirate transmissions are often plagued with these guys, pescadores or not, they are a "pest" to the Pirate listeners, so they are a bit pesky, and so "Peskies".

The name Peskie should probably not be taken to apply only to pescedores.  I cannot speak for everyone, but for my part if you see me use the term "Peskie" I just mean SS / PP language traffic in this frequency range, if you see me use the term pescadore there was something in what they said or what I heard that made me think "fishermen".

T!

724

North American Shortwave Pirate / Re: UNID 6925 USB 0131 UTC 15 Jan 2017

« on: January 15, 2017, 0156 UTC »

Station has been up and down a few times, maybe working on audio.  Back right now (0151 UTC) with "Who can it be now", but also heavy hum.  Periodic MARS digital also heard on freq.

(edit)  Off 0158 UTC mid song.

T!

725

North American Shortwave Pirate / Re: Skippy Radio 6930 USB 2225 UTC 14 January 2017

« on: January 15, 2017, 0140 UTC »

Looks like John got his QSL

0117 UTC SSTV image.



T!

726

North American Shortwave Pirate / Re: UNID 6925 USB 1422 UTC 1/13/17

« on: January 13, 2017, 1431 UTC »

1427 UTC Swinging on a Star

Weak but understandable, in the Mojave Desert, so interesting conditions this morning.

T!

727

Other / Re: 4.887MHz Chinese "chanters" weird!

« on: January 13, 2017, 1339 UTC »

Your 6493 kHz USB and 4887 kHz USB signals were probably the Chinese Robot, also called VC01.  They would have also been active on 6829 kHz LSB and 6209 kHz LSB.  This set of 4 frequencies has been in use since early Dec, 2016, and is due to change right about now.

Compare what you heard to one of my recordings here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57H6x2OOuNg

Keep in mind there are two speed versions of this station (actually, I believe it is between 4 and 8 stations in a network), one is very fast, the other slightly slower.

T!

728

General Radio Discussion / Re: ShortWave : What are these signals

« on: January 08, 2017, 1832 UTC »

There are at least three different kinds of signals in that picture.  I assume you are asking about the ~2.5 kHz wide signals in your screenshot.

The ones at 6390, 6408, 6411, and 6435 kHz (all center freqs, not tuned freqs) are all STANAG 4285 modems.  Most, but not all, 4285 is encrypted.  In some circles they just call this "STANAG" and be done with it (notice the "STANAG" on the labels across the top of the waterfall), however that is not a good way to label these.  There are multiple types of STANAG signals, not just 4285.  STANAG 4285, 4481,4529, and 5511 are the most common to see in the HF region, and each is different.  4285 and 4529 look somewhat similar, but are different, and 4481 and 5511 look nothing like the others.

STANAG is simply a STANdardization AGreement within NATO.  There are STANAGs for everything from bullet specifications (7.62 NATO round, or .308, is STANAG 2310, the 5.56 NATO round, or the M-16 .223 round, is STANAG 4172) to how to handle food, how to write intelligence reports, what symbols to put on maps, how to handle captured enemy documents, pretty much every military activity or hardware you can think of has a STANAG addressing it.  And of course communications must be covered.

T!

729

Other / MOVED: Mystery CW stations, can any one help ident?

« on: January 07, 2017, 2309 UTC »

This topic has been moved to Spy Numbers.

https://www.hfunderground.com/board/index.php?topic=32122.0

730

Spy Numbers / Re: Mystery CW stations, can any one help ident?

« on: January 07, 2017, 2308 UTC »

This is the Chinese military station that is sometimes called M89 ( see here for info http://www.numbersoddities.nl/Chinese-military-nets.pdf  ).  They appear to have started using these frequencies around the first of the year (at least that is the first I have in my logs).

Also, while this is military and not really Spy Numbers, it was assigned an ENIGMA designation and these stations are watched closely by some in the numbers monitoring community, so I have moved the thread to that forum.

T!

731

Spy Numbers / Re: V15 started to broadcast on FM

« on: January 07, 2017, 1900 UTC »

For those not familiar, V15 is broadcast on the regular Pyongyang Broadcasting Service, they just throw the numbers station in between other programming on PBS.  This mornings broadcast that Moomin is reporting on FM would also have been on HF and MW frequencies.  At the time Moomin heard this I was monitoring the same transmission on 6400 kHz and 3320 kHz, also possibly 873 kHz, but audio was too weak to be sure 873 kHz was valid.

T!

732

North American Shortwave Pirate / UNID 6925 USB 0230 UTC 7 January 2017

« on: January 07, 2017, 0237 UTC »

UNID station, 6925 kHz, USB mode, about 0230 UTC, 7 January 2017.  Very weak at first but came up a bit.  By 0232 I could hear the start of Crazy Train, Ozzy Osbourne.

Then at 0235 it was either covered by or changed to a digital signal, maybe FAX.

SSTV at about 0239 UTC, too weak to get a decode but some mode that resulted in a short SSTV, so maybe not one of the Scottie or Martin modes.  (Edit, was Robot 24 mode)

And apparently off after the SSTV.

(edit)  Here is the image, I had to go back to the recording and clean it up a bit before I could get a decode on it.


T!

733

General Radio Discussion / Re: Is there such a thing as line of sight HF propagation?

« on: January 07, 2017, 0154 UTC »

And I used the termed line of sight specifically, although I guess it's synonymous with ground wave.

No, line of sight and ground wave are not synonymous.  They are distinct modes of propagation.

Although a gross oversimplification ground wave can be seen as RF that creeps along the ground, and so can follow the curvature of the earth.  It goes out and follows the earths surface past the visual horizon.

Sky wave is, naturally, RF that departs the source antenna and reflects off a portion of the ionosphere or something high in the atmosphere before being received.  It goes up before it comes down someplace..

Line of sight means you have a direct path, essentially visual path (not limited to human visible wavelengths of light), from your antenna to the other antenna with no obstructions.  Trees, buildings, etc, don't count in this case as obstructions to the "visual" path until the frequency of operation is high enough that the RF cannot penetrate (see through) the "obstruction".

You can be in line of sight and also be in ground wave (you can also be in line of sight and in sky wave), but if you are in line of sight and no ground wave (or sky wave) is present you will still receive the signal, assuming the signal is leaving the source with enough ERP, in your specific direction (taking into account things like radiation pattern), to overcome free space loss and deliver a signal sufficiently above your MDS.

In actuality even with no sky wave and no ground wave you can (and often do) still get propagation beyond the visual horizon.  Scatter and refraction will bend a line of sight signal to some extent.  The Radio Horizon is most often something beyond the Visual Horizon, even at frequencies taken as truly line of sight limited.  I can't count the number of times I have seen an I or J band (J band is up to 20 GHz) radar track a target that was just behind a hill and not visible, or was well below the curvature of the earth for the geometry.

I'll leave the argument of "is aircraft scatter sky wave?  Or is it line of sight with scatter?" to someone else.  

T!

734

General Radio Discussion / Re: Is there such a thing as line of sight HF propagation?

« on: January 06, 2017, 1645 UTC »

Yes, all RF, regardless of frequency, is subject to line of sight propagation at all times, Sky Wave and Ground Wave propagation are frequency and condition dependent.

In application this means that anytime you have real line of sight to the source, and the source has high enough radiated power towards you to overcome the space loss between you and the source, you will receive the signal.

There are some situations where multipath can kill the signal (destructive addition of the energy from more than one path), however those should be the exception.

T!

735

HF Mystery Signals / Re: Mystery Data Burst?

« on: January 02, 2017, 2326 UTC »

Yeah, gonna need more data to come up with some kind of answer that might mean anything.

You might be hearing it at those times because that is when the band is more open, just a guess.

Could it be 4 or 8 burst instead of 6?

Some rough guesses to start with, and these are nothing more than WAGS until we have a recording, 4 burst might be the VIPIR sounder, 8 bursts might be HF-PANTHER.

T!