Monday 17 December 2012

"We have not lost The Park, The Park have lost us"

Farewell to Bletchley Park...
The Milton Keynes Amateur Radio Society (MKARS), the resident radio club at Bletchley Park for nearly twenty years, will be leaving the Park as of the 1st January 2013. To mark this occasion MKARS will be holding a 'QSO party' on the weekend of the 15th-16th December.

All MKARS members and ex-members are invited to come and operate GB2BP from Generator House 2, our current premises at Bletchley Park, for the last time.
GB2BP and MKARS will in the future only be operational from Bletchley Park by invitation during 'radio related' events.

This is possibly your last chance to operate this charismatic call sign. Be a part of MKARS continuing proud history. If you do not normally attend MKARS events, this one is a 'MUST'. So put the Christmas shopping on the back burner and be there.
In the future you will be able to say 'I WAS THERE, my name is in the log'. Will has threatened to cook burgers and Dave is trying to obtain a 'Big Linear'.

Tea and coffee will be provided. Hopefully some beer as well.
The event will start early on Saturday morning, as soon as we can get on to The Park and finish when we have to leave, and the same again on Sunday.
We, MKARS, can walk out of Bletchley Park with our heads held high knowing that all those years ago, when Bletchley Park was on its knees, MKARS was one of the many local groups that helped make the Park into the great museum it is today. MKARS is a great club with a great future. Be a part of it!

We have not lost The Park, The Park have lost us.

Source: http://www.mkars.org.uk/news/article/33/farewell_to_bletchley_park_-_gb2bp_qso_party

Yesterday, 16 December 2012, 1354z- 1523z, I recorded the final 1.5 hour of the farewell transmission on 7143 LSB using the University of Twente webSDR facility.

Here is the recording.

Sunday 7 October 2012

E25a on 9450 kHz logged using Univ. of Twente WebSDR

E25a was heard using the WebSDR of University of Twente. This is great because listeners across the globe, can listen to E25 on 9450 kHz!

A carrier was in progress at 1315z, 07/10/2012 on 9450 kHz. Then a 1000 Hz tone appeared and after a while the YL started calling "785 8". She ended with "Message" x3 at ~1319z.

Here is the sound sample.

Sunday 16 September 2012

UNID 12371 USB signal: Mystery solved.

The peculiar signal seems to be the result of audio feedback:

http://signals.taunus.de/PUB/Feedback.HTML

The above article resolves most of the similar "mystery" signals like "the whales". However, I can't forget that...
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from noise.

Saturday 15 September 2012

UNID (encrypted voice?) on 12371 kHz using University of Twente web SDR

I had the chance to use the free web SDR service provided by the University of Twente in Netherlands. It covers the entire HF and is an excellent way to monitor the bands from office :-)

As I was scanning the bands, I found a peculiar transmission on 12371 USB at approx. 1237z (14/09). I am not sure if the tuning and mode selected is correct, but here is what I heard (recorded from the soundcard output), and this is a spectrogram image:

 12371USB 14/09/2012 1237z (click for larger)

Any ideas?

73
Manolis

Friday 10 August 2012

Links to files issue

I think now all the links to audio files works as expected! Sorry for the inconvenience!

Saturday 7 January 2012

Update regarding the UNID station found on 11000 kHz

The message which the UNID station found on 11MHz sent, was:

GR35
NO125
MESSAGE
KLPAS BDMGC SPADM SPILB KADCC SBAPP OCMZO PADZZ SPAIK CISBK
QUVAD APCNS SBAAA NOZII KKQUS CAPAA NBOKF EPFFZ PACCM SBADN
KLPAS NNCOM SIKSF PCPIF MKQZF SQUFB SIMCD SPPGC MSNQU ZOIKF
CEPQU VIIOA FFEKS NZPAC LOPSS

It is a short message for giving trustworthy analysis results. But it doesn't seem too "random". And there are only 19 out of the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet.

The same station reappeared on 10400 kHz, between roughly 1400z - 1600z with the same message, and occasionally classical music . Also, I heard some OM talking (not sure for the language). Unfortunately I don't have any sound samples.

To be honest, I think this is a hoax. But I'll give it a try whenever I have free time, just for the fun of it!

Sunday 1 January 2012

UNID station on 11000 kHz

A UNID transmission began at 1429z on 11000 kHz, USB mode. Moderate signal strength with some QSB. Note the noisy background and the funny sounds near the beginning and the distinct pronunciation of the letter v. It faded out at 1503z.

Sound sample

Saturday 17 December 2011

Test transmission on 9450kHz, along with an E25a message

A long test session occurred on 15 December, at 9450 kHz. It started at 1303z and lasted for a bit more than a half an hour.

The session began with PC sounds, then a prayer, then again, sounds from the Windows game "Spider Solitaire". At 1317z and after a brief 1000 Hz tone, the YL counted 0-9, each number spoken in both variants. The second variant is used when the number is in the end of a numbers group. After a while, at 1323z a tone and the YL counting 0-6 this time was heard. The carrier stayed up with again some Windows sounds. At 1327z, an E25a message (785 2) was sent, and the session ended at 1335z, with some more sounds from "Spider Solitaire".

And here is the sound file of the whole transmission. Enjoy!

Abdel Halim Hafez - Ahwak ("I love you"), transmitted on 6140 kHz

On 15 December, 0837z, 6140 kHz, E25 transmitted this song from Abdel Halim Hafez. The song is called "Ahwak" which means "I love you". Here is a YouTube video featuring the same song,
and some more info regarding the singer can be found in the corresponding Wikipedia article.

Monday 12 December 2011

Some more peculiar E25 transmissions

A lot activity logged yesterday, 12 December. Almost all of the transmissions on 6140 kHz were troublesome. The machine/software which announces the messages from pre-recorded voice samples, had variable speed. Instead of trying to describe what I've heard, I'll provide the samples...

6140 kHz
0800z: 117 7
(This is a so-called E25a transmission.)

0831z: 701 5611 1430 0201 3579 7977 9425 1253 7669 3650 1430 140
Music started at 0838z.

0845z: 169 2140 1540 1056 1721 1721 7560 3997 6991 2217 3402 0474 1634

1000z: 570 4630 1038 9584 6441 0592 2270 2724 5306

1046z: 880 1810 7111 1099 6196 8979 1069 0704 0618 8111 7852 1810
(A usual E25 transmission this time.)

9450kHz
1245z: 555 2121 2021 0110 6422 7056 5601 3046 6436 7646 1768 2820 0110
(Another usual transmission.)

All signals were strong in my QTH. (As I could judge from the (auto)recordings quality.)

There is a chance that the 9450kHz transmission will repeat today, December 13th. Any logs are always welcome!

Thursday 8 December 2011

Two nearly incomprehensible E25a transmissions

I have no idea why E25 operators mess things all the time.

The first transmission occurred today at 0802z with the E25a message "364 91" and the second at 0815z with the message "126 48". Both were on 6140kHz and in AM mode.

Wednesday 7 December 2011

Strange repeat of yesterday's live E25 transmission

Yesterday, a live transmission with ID 360 took place on 6140 kHz at 0801z:

7590 1510 6060 3137 7735 4027 3558 1510 1007

Today, a "shorter version" of the above message was transmitted at 0800z. It wasn't a live transmission; the usual pre-recorded YL voice announced the the first five groups of the above message. Since the original message contains a repeat group (1510) it is obvious that today something went wrong (as usual).

A ringing sound (probably a Windows XP sound) can also be heard.

Monday 28 November 2011

Another strange E25a message

This is another peculiar E25a message recorded today at 0915z, 6140 kHz, USB mode. I am still wondering what is the purpose of the random WinXP sounds.

Thursday 13 October 2011

E25 transmission with severe problems

A transmission with a lot of problems happened today on 6140kHz at 1114UTC. Just listen for yourself. (Note: a constant buzz sound that appears occasionally is due to local QRN)

Friday 16 September 2011

UNID signal on 9344 kHz

A whistle-like signal is currently present on 9344 kHz, USB mode 1051z:

Spectrogram image

Signal strength is low but clear.

Sound sample.

Any ideas?

Sunday 31 July 2011

E25 test transmission this morning on 9450 kHz

This morning I was lucky enough to receive an E25 test transmission on its "noon" frequency, 9450 kHz. It began approximately at 0800UTC till 0827UTC. Most of the time it was only a carrier, but occasionally there was the 1000 Hz test tone, which surprisingly, at 0819UTC and 0824UTC varied in frequency. This recording is from 0817UTC onwards. At 2min 40s and at 6min 40s of the recording, the operator varies the tone frequency (no, I didn't change my receiver's frequency!)

Chile HF-Fax service log

And here is a HF-Fax log!

This is the schedule transmission logged from Chile CBV HF-Fax service, logged on 29 July 2155UTC, on 17144.59 USB:

171446.4 kHz 2155z

Many thanks to Nairam for providing the tip! He had better reception than mine as you can check his images here (schedule) and here (+36h prognosis). The transmission ended before the completion of the full schedule image.

73!

Wednesday 22 June 2011

E25 transmissions

There were two transmissions on 6140kHz today. The first one ended just before the final two numbers of the message, while the second one was an E25a transmission.

Here is the 0833z transmission, and here is the E25a transmission at 0848z.

Also, two test-like transmissions occurred on 9450 kHz, the first at 1209z and the second on 1239z. The former was just the usual 1000Hz test tone while the latter, except from the tone, had ~10 seconds of music, which was something new this time.

Here is the sample from the second transmission on 9450kHz.

Friday 22 April 2011

E25a transmission at a furious speed

Yesterday, a very strong carrier appeared at 1304 UTC on 9450 kHz and after ~10 minutes (1315z) the usual E25 lady announced an E25a-type of message:

785 56 788 49 52 53 55

Initially the YL said "788 9" instead of "788 49". That was her mistake. It still needs practice and patience to follow her. It is odd that sometimes, when the number which follows is the same, the pause in between is bigger.

The strange (and funny) thing is that after the end of the transmission, at 1321 UTC, the YL started again, in a frantic pace. Then, at 1323 UTC, she was repeating "78" and then "Message" x3, "Rebeat" x3, "End of message, end of transmission" and a couple of WinXP sounds (the kind you get when you are browsing with Explorer" were heard.

Anyway, here's yesterday's recording (trimmed for brevity).

Saturday 9 April 2011

Two E25 transmissions on 9450kHz, with lots of PC sounds

The recording starts at 1315z on 9450 kHz, AM mode. After the first transmission and during the second transmission, a lot of PC sounds are heard. Any ideas?

Another transmission occurred on 9450 kHz at 1244z (a message to 440, which is the same since 22/02). Also, earlier this morning, a transmission occurred on 6140 kHz, at 0800z:

6421 4880 3351 9836 8953 3361 4186 6507 3344 4586 4880 5390

The station was up at least since 0753z with OM music. WinXP sounds were heard again, the YL ended with “EOM 3...”. It was a strong signal.