Pedro's buzz: Or what's common between V02a/SK01 and Radio Habana Cuba

It is a nice, sunny morning (with 31 sunspots... yeah!) with Radio Habana Cuba on 6140 kHz, the same frequency as E25. It appears that the few sunspots helped a little bit and RHC is a bit stronger than usual. RHC is the BC QRM I sometimes mention when talking about E25 on 6140 kHz at ~0800z, and it is usually stronger earlier in the mornings. Today I could hear a buzz, something like the 50 Hz (or 60 Hz? What does Pedro use in Cuba? LOL!) and its harmonics.

I thought: "Let's try a V02a frequency" and decided to tune to 5898 kHz. Success! There was the V02a YL calling! A similar buzz like RHC was heard.

A few moments later, the YL stopped and a SK01 transmission occurred! Another surprise! Then the YL was back! This is the SK01 transmission. Near the end of the recording I switched to 6140 kHz for comparison. The following spectrogram image compares the two "buzzes":

The left half is from a silent part of the Radio Habana Cuba transmission while the right part is from V02a. There are more harmonics apparent in the RHC part since its signal was stronger. But they seem to match, don't they? Or I'm seeing "patterns" here, like most of my fellow daydreamers (i.e. Numbers Stations fans)?

Back to daydreaming...

S06 on 9135 kHz this morning; parallel transmission heard in the background

A very strong (+10db) and clean signal this morning on 9135 kHz at 0810z, allowed me to hear the audio of a second, weaker, S06 transmission occurring in the background. Initially I thought that since S06 transmits on 7440 kHz (ID 418) at the same time, maybe it was the audio from that transmission. But after listening more carefully, the second YL calls "471"! This is a sample of what I heard. You can hear the second call (471) easier near the beginning of the message.

Is this common for S06? Who knows...

XC "The Crackle" along with E10 ART

It is the first time I've heard of XC, the so-called "Crackle" on HF. The Crackle is more of a "noise" station than a "numbers" station since its content is unknown...

It is now (0746z) up on 6987 kHz. The E10 station ART on 6986 kHz is causing QRM :-) but this does not trouble me; actually it is a "double pleasure"!

This is a sound sample from 6986 kHz (the E10 ART frequency)

And this is a sample from 6987 kHz, from a bit later, after E10 QRT.

You may also try 5135 kHz, during night.

Frequency plot

Spectrogram

V13 "New Star Broadcasting station" barely audible!

The so-called "New Star Broadcasting station" (ENIGMA: V13) is barely audible right now (1300z) on 11430 kHz. The ICOM R75 is set to USB and the preamp is engaged. This is a sample from the beginning of the transmission, where you can hear the musical intro. The quality isn't so good but still the V13 theme and the YL characteristic rhythm is apparent.

Additional info can be found at:
http://www.cvni.net/radio/nsnl/nsnl038/nsnl38v13.html

A better sound sample can be found at:
http://www.enigma2000.org.uk/

And of course you can take a look at the past E2K Newsletters :-)

The station QRT at about 1330z. If you like, you may try again at 1400z on the same frequency, 11430 kHz. Good luck!

New edition of rfax.pdf HF-FAX guide ... Updated!

Here is the latest (10 September 2009) version of rfax.pdf guide, which is updated. There are less stations listed now, which means that some are no longer transmitting... This is a bit sad...

BTW right now the South Africa ZSJ station has a fair image quality on 18236.10 kHz, USB mode...

E10 on 14000 kHz

E10 is known to transmit on 14000 kHz (exactly at the beginning of the 20m ham band). Last night I got the repeat of a message while listening to the CW portion of the 20m band. Unfortunately I don't know the call (yet).

So this is what's happened yesterday, Thursday 11/06, 2209z, on 14000 kHz USB.
The message was:

m g28 t
ZIFNS OWWLO XJVAE WGPZG MSPTV PORHW QALCX RIHPY XQQMO SBKJI
RMTHL JOOBC NCZAK ZQJYV GJZNR PNQWQ ACJKL WNKMO BPEMR QPMNP
PZKUT ZAJQR OUVBE YNMOA XPCHP UJFLG RHJAT FSFLF
eom eot

UPDATE:
The message belongs to YHF who usually transmits on 2844//3840 kHz at 2200z.
Thanks E10-Agent!

Very odd "sinusoidal" sweep on 6990 kHz

Well, HF is a garden of endless sound varieties.

Now, what's this? Something out of order?

Recorded on 6990 USB, wide filter setinng, at approx. 2109 UTC, S5-S7 signal strength.

A peculiar message from E25 -- accompanied by a new song

It's been more than a week now where E25 plays a new song as an intro theme.

Thanks to our friend Mr. DXer, the song is "Ahbabena ya eeni mahom maana" ("Our lovers are away") from Farid Al-Atrash. But there's more. A short 3-group message was sent to Agent "000" (!) but the operators don't actually want to reveal this peculiar call. Most of the transmissions lack the call part; like having the volume turned down until the moment the machine is ready to say "Message" three times. Then someone turns the volume on.

The procedure goes like this:

• Music ("Our lovers are away") one or more times.
  
• Audio off or very low ("mechanical" YL calling "0 0 0").
• Audio back to normal calling "Message" x 3 as usual,
• 0669 6676 6682,
• "Rebeat" x 3,
• ...
• "End of message, end of transmission"

In most cases it was difficult or impossible to identify the call, but on 21/05/09, they "revealed" it to us. Here's a sound sample recorded on 23/05/09, 0927z, on 6140 kHz. Note that the recording was made in USB and in the beginning of the transmission the carrier was a bit off-frequency. Some other days the song was repeated 2 or 3 times.

Here's a later sound sample where we're not "allowed" to hear the call. As usual the frequency was 6140 kHz. It began earlier, at 0918z then after 3 minutes of blank carrier (which BTW was off-frequency again), the new song was repeated four (!) times. The sound sample is from the last part of the transmission (final repeat of the song plus msg).

Many thanks to Mr. DXer for identifying the song and alerted the E2K Group for this kind of oddity.

Honolulu FAX audible on 16 MHz

Unfortunately I haven't got a decent map from Honolulu HF-FAX service on 16133.10 kHz USB, but I can hear it right now (1830z). My ears can detect the presence of fax signal but the software decoder just gives a very noisy printout.

I managed to log Honolulu on 16133.10 kHz USB this morning at 0715z, and also on 11088.10 kHz but still no clear image reception... While the HF conditions gizmo in my blog says Poor, I wonder if these... 11(!) sunspots makes the difference!

Latest version of rfax.pdf

A new HF-Fax frequency/schedule list is available, dated 24 February 2009. Download it from here.

E10 ABC on 5339 kHz, jammed

ABC was discovered in a FTJ frequency. It is on air right now, on 5339 USB with a nice S8 signal. The strange thing is the existence of the Jammer, at the same frequency but with a weaker signal. How odd! Why to jam a station calling "ABC" and nothing else? Maybe the Jammer knows more about the purpose of ABC, with no messages so far... Here's a short sound sample!

E11a this morning

Right now (07:15 UTC), E11a is on 11486 kHz, USB, with a solid S9 signal. A 46-group message (without the initial and ending 77777's, which is E11b) for Agent "389", starting with "07946..." is in progress.

This is the full transmission.

E10 now sends "TMS" instead of "ABC" on 6428 kHz

E10 was calling "ABC" on 6428 kHz the last few days. But right now (1545 UTC), E10 calls "TMS" in AM mode on 6428 kHz. E10 transmissions are carrier+USB but this one is AM. This recording was made with the Icom set to LSB to avoid some digital "rattle" QRM. The signal is ~S7 on LSB with S9 peaks, while it is a more or less steady S9 in AM with +10dB peaks and digi QRM.

E10 EZI2 & E06 mix on 6840 kHz

Thanks to E10-Agent, ENIGMA 2000 members were informed about an exciting E10/E06 mix!

Specifically, on 6840 kHz E06 started calling "190" and moments later the E10 lady was calling "EZI2". E10 ended at 2003z (after the usual 3 minutes) while E06 sent a 71-group message:

190
865 71
72890 71657 88008 19559 03948
...
(Ended at 2016z with fast zeros)

E06 started with with an S6 to S8 signal but after a while he got stronger, S9...+10dB. Propagation effect or just a necessary power-up to "win" E10?

You can listen the entire transmission here. Enjoy!

The elusive S21 Russian lady (or girl?)

S21 Russian Lady (or more likely a Russian girl) is always buried in noise and QRMed by several other transmissions. This time, despite the noise from the nearby thunderstorm, I had a decent signal.

S21 appeared on 3823 USB, approximately at 1845z, calling "323", and then "374" x2, "33" x2, and then 5-figure groups x2. I'm not sure about the first groups...

Ended at 1853z with ??? then 323 374 33 0 0 0.

Here's the whole transmission (not processed).

The BC and Jammmer on 7540 kHz

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

The Arabic language Broadcast Station which is on 7540 kHz (E10 frequency) is also being Jammed. But this Jammer is different from E10's Jammer. Here is a very short clip. Please compare with my older posts regarding E10 Jamming.

Check also http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBOAOKCM6oM for a video recording from a Numbers friend from Germany, showing the reception of the BC station with a Sangean 909 (note the nice "extra" on the radio hihi!)

Update:
The BC station is "Denge Mezopotamia" and broadcasts in Kurdish: http://www.denge-mezopotamya.com/. Thanks Mr. DXer!!!