New video up, Chinese oddity station VC01

[Token]

I have put up a new video on my YouTube channel, this one is the Chinese oddity station VC01.

For those not familiar, VC01 is also called the "Chinese Robot". It is a female voice, machine generated but possibly human recorded, reciting strings of numbers. It is at a very fast rate, too fast for reliable human interpretation. Absolutely the numbers are understandable, but for a human to reliably transcribe the numbers for extended periods is probably not realistic.

The station has been observed for at least a couple of decades, and is presumed to be related to air defense tracking. It has a sister station, assumed to be the same tasking, in Morse code, called MC03.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaBzALk5vsc

T!

[MDK2]

Thanks. Good video. If you're getting it that strong there in CA, there's a possibility I can get it at all here in CO. I've wanted to hear that at my QTH since I first heard of it about five years ago.

[Token]

For me it seems to peak out right about local sunrise.  I can normally hear it well before sunup, it peaks right about sunrise, and from there starts to fade.  I suspect that it will peak a tad earlier for you, since you need the source in nighttime and you either in dark or just coming out of it.  Since your local sunrise is right about 0600 local I would expect a time of about 1100 to 1200 UTC to be best for you.  Just guessing.

T!

[MDK2]

That time frame has been just about right. It's faint but definitely there. I can hear it before 1100 so it's possibly transmitting from a coastal location - greyline maps show me that only the easternmost part of China is in darkness then and ithe period of mutual darkness is only going to shrink in the upcoming months. So wherever it goes for May is going to be trickier to catch here. As of 01 May I still hear it on 5285 USB.

[Token]

So wherever it goes for May is going to be trickier to catch here. As of 01 May I still hear it on 5285 USB.

Most of the time it seems to change freqs about the 5th to 7th of each month.  So 5285 kHz is probably good for a few more days.

T!