MASSIVE QRM Tonight?

[CaptnKliegle]

Not just on one SDR RXR, but even on those 12 miles away. Guess there will be no listening tonight?

Anyone else seeing/hearing this?

[CaptnKliegle]

Close up view:

[darrink1]

Strong in Chicago. Looks to be ~30khz wide.
Glad I'm not the only one seeing this. I thought something happened to my radio.

Someone is burning up a lot of wattage

[Matt_B]

Not just on one SDR RXR, but even on those 12 miles away. Guess there will be no listening tonight?

Anyone else seeing/hearing this?

Damn....the hell? Gotta check this out after my music stream ends.  :-O

[ChrisSmolinski]

Looks like a digital signal of some sort, Token might have an idea?

[CaptnKliegle]

I also jumped on various sdr.hu servers, and it was the strongest here in the NE. Not heard in Iceland, weak in VA, but loud on most RXRs in MA, and NH.

Readings on that system are not too consistent though, for it depends upon the antenna connected. Many are not described too well, so you have no idea if you are on a 7 foot whip or a 160M dipole.

73 Kriss KA1GJU

[Pigmeat]

I wasn't listening to SW last night, but the MW band was much more watery than usual around 10 pm. EDT while listening to the Midwest powerhouses carrying MLB finishing up games after I got home. I put it down to the spring storms ripping across the country, but on reading this, I'm not so sure.

[MDK2]

Late to the party, but I did see it on my waterfall last night. Not for the first time, either, but it's been a few weeks since I last saw it. I think it was more around 6880 at the time but I don't generally log utes, OTHR, or other stuff like that, no matter how big it is, so I can't remember.

[KaySeeks]

I woke up in the middle of the night here in Italy (~0200-0300 UTC, I think) and heard it. Its not as strong as what the original poster shows but clearly there.

It looks like a multicarrier signal. I have seen/heard things like this on HF before but perhaps not quite this wide.

[CaptnKliegle]

Here's another one, still 30 kHz wide, but no discernible modulation. Just white noise

7665 kHz thru 7695 kHz  S9 on a 160M inverted vee at 98'
Not immediately local, same results on another 160m RXR 12 miles to the north of me.

[Pigmeat]

In the heyday of the Lincolnshire Poacher they would show up around 6957 kHz. with a strong carrier much like that, just before the recorder music and the message. A lot of times they would throw a whopper of a carrier in that region, then show up on another freq. The Poacher wasn't a constant source of noise. They'd do their thing and shut down.

I'm wondering if the current dust-up with Putin and Assad isn't partially to blame for this one? Post the WTC attack in '01 a powerful data station set up on 6950. It and a legal station in Chile on 6955 kHz. are what caused the "Great Pirate Migration of 2001" to 6925. The data station was normally 20 kHz wide at S meter pegging levels. I hated that thing.

[Josh]

It looks like a spread spectrum sig but must admit I haven't run the bat computer on it.

[Token]

I am pretty sure this is 4G ALE (WBALE), wideband data (up to 120 kbs, but 48 kb is common).  Harris, Rockwell, L3, and a few others have been playing with this for a few years now, and it has been showing up more and more all up and down the bands.  All of them have experimental licenses that allow this mode in the frequency ranges shown in these images.

T!

[Josh]

A recording would help to pick it apart. It looks a bit too Gaussian to me to be the typical ale wideband mode, they have a flat top to the sig.

Tony is doing a piece on the ale wideband;
http://i56578-swl.blogspot.com/2018/04/wbhf-comms-in-9-mhz-band-188-110cd.html

[Token]

A recording would help to pick it apart. It looks a bit too Gaussian to me to be the typical ale wideband mode, they have a flat top to the sig.

Tony is doing a piece on the ale wideband;
http://i56578-swl.blogspot.com/2018/04/wbhf-comms-in-9-mhz-band-188-110cd.html

That is one type, I have seen at least two different types, three if this is one, although admittedly it is not one I have seen before.

Yes, I noted the shape, and that being atypical for data.  And it is a better shape for a none rectangular pulse radar transmission, but without a bit more information, like a recording, I really have no idea.  I hesitate to suggest a radar, being a radar guy that is kind of my go-to answer, you know, when your favorite tool is a hammer everything looks like a nail, so I wanted to avoid jumping to "radar" as a suggestion.

T!