V07 13382kHz/11582kHz 0520/0540 UTC

[Rizla]

First catch of V07 for me. First transmission at 0500z on 14482kHz was not heard at all, but second at 0520z on 13382kHz  was quite strong and totally copyable. Third, on 11582kHz at 0540z, was totally blasting through my headphones.

"435 1  179 65  12622 76679 70980......000 000"

Long message, received in way better quality than I've heard from the Cubans lately (no offense but 'tis true).  While standing in my backyard with Tecsun pl880 in hand with crescent moon in sky, I felt the awe and wonder of the miracle that is shortwave radio, and was suddenly a teenager again, making me realize why I got into this hobby in the first place. Sheer magic. Seriously, I love the online SDR's to death, they are unbelievable tech achievements, a pleasure to use,   and hugely fun, but this catch was, as we say in this country, "the tits."

Thanks always to priyom.org for the killer skeds, and to HFU for directing me to priyom.

Definitely worth a listen for those of you in the right place at the right time with nothing better to do on a Saturday night.

[Token]

Here is a recording on my YouTube channel of this signal as received at my location in the Mojave Desert of California.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipQfE_wjC44

T!

[Rizla]

"Yup, that's her!"

Thanks Token for excellent recording, and your vid also discusses the 3kHz tone a few seconds before which I forgot to mention. Is that a recent feature of this station? I've read priyom's pages but until recently knew nothing about this station.

[Rizla]

p/s looking at the comments, maybe I heard something diffferent, almost like a single high beep tone a minute or two before transmission. I heard this twice, I'm pretty sure...? I forgot about it and didn't make good enough notes, could have been less time or more.

[Token]

The 3 kHz tone is something that became very noticeable, very strong, in December of 2017.  However, it is actually sometimes detectable in earlier recordings.  The earliest I really noticed it was January of 2017, but it may have been present even before then.  So I don't  know how long it has been present, but it became prominent in Dec of 2017.

As for beeps before the transmission starts, yes, there typically are some.  There is no set, hard, pattern to what they do, but they do have certain habits that they more or less stick to.  Starting up to an hour before the first scheduled time they bring the transmitter online and tune or check it.  Typically this is in the 20 to 40 minute before time window.  These test often contain short (a few seconds total) AM transmissions that sometimes include music or audio from some radio program.  After the AM transmissions there may be a series of beeps.  These beeps may be heard multiple times between initial transmitter checks and the scheduled time slot.  Sometimes there are many, sometimes only a few.

T!