Wednesday 17 January 2007

E25 long message

E25 is back, sending a long (19 groups!) message on 9450 kHz AM at 1244z:

g19
3909 5091 5941 5814 0798 7670 5335 7429 9312 9030
2737 7587 2909 0407 4494 6094 5598 9856 5941

The third and last groups are the same. It seems to be typical for most E25 messages. Usually their messages are about 10 groups, but today 19! Maybe a lot of news to tell after a long time away. Listen my recording. It is the whole transmission. I have to add that around 1230z was a weaker carrier on the same frequency, 3/7 of my Sangean signal scal.e You can hear the power-up in the beginning, reaching 7/7, which is usual for my QTH.

ATS-909 S-meter


I don't remember where I found this graph, relating the signal meter indication of my 909 with S-Units. My radio has a meter of 7 bars indicating full signal strength. If anyone has more info about the source of this graph, please leave a comment.

So 3/7 is S3-S5 and 7/7 is... S9+10+...

Tuesday 16 January 2007

S06 Numbers Station

S06 Russian young lady was on 7740 kHz at 0809z, exactly as the painstaking fans of Slavic numbers stations predicted in the latest Enigma 2000 Newsletter, with the ID "352" repeated for some 4 minutes. I had a very clear signal, except from a RTTY pest about 4kHz higher, but after some DSP filtering it sounds great. Listen my recording: Can you hear the echo? It was a short 7-group message, ending "0 0 0 0 0". If you are bored with the ID, fast forward to the 4th minute of the recording!

Cape Navel today and... yesterday

The ionosphere is disturbed again, but reception on 18238 kHz today at around (!) 1530z was the best I ever had! The transmission started early at 1523z, and was a "blurred" Surface Analysis chart.

18238 kHz, 1523z 12:00 Surface Analysis


But yesterday... a series of false starts:
  • 1538z: Transmission of a "blurred" Surface Analysis starts.
  • 1549z: Stops! Starts again!
  • 1552z: Starts again! Ends!
  • 1553z: New trial: Header only!
  • 1555z: New attempt, this one finishes normally at 1616z!

Wednesday 10 January 2007

NMG New Orleans on higher frequency

I managed to log New Orleans on its highest frequency, 17146 kHz this afternoon. Here are three pictures:

17146 kHz, 1335z HIGH WIND/WAVES

17146 kHz 1350z 72 HR WAVE PERIOD/SWELL DIRECTION

17146 kHz, 1400z GOES IR TROPICAL SATELLITE IMAGE

ZSJ Cape Naval again

18 MHz was quieter this morning, but instead of a typical weather chart, I got this one:

18238 kHz, 1033z

Yes, It's only that. I have rotated the image. Also, some image editing magic to correct my decoder's fault of missing sync and adding the final part of the transmission. If you compare the header with my previous images, it's obvious that conditions were better. Cape Naval notoriously continues to transmit early or late, even only the header for a couple of times before transmitting a chart. At least some moments later got some charts:

18238 kHz, 1102z

18238 kHz, 1124z

Conditions stayed good in the afternoon; a "blurred" chart this time:

18238 kHz, 1532z


I like this station because it's so unpredictable. I can't wait sunspot number rise and have even better signals on 18 MHz! I like higher frequencies; they give cleaner and steadier HF-Fax images!

Monday 8 January 2007

E25 different voice

A different announcer appeared today with the "control" message "830 11 12" at 1215z. His first (probably) performance was back on 10/11/2006. Check Ary's webpage for that sample. Listen here today's recording.

Saturday 6 January 2007

First E25 message for 2007

A short message in Arabic was the first one for 2007. Maybe this is their way to wish us happy new year. The translation was easy, since only 2 unique groups existed:

  • E25 9450 AM 1213z: Carrier, music intro, then OM calling "835 830 10" meaning "message for 835 only". Very good to excellent signal; low modulation. The message was:
7050/7050
5555/5555
5555/5555
5555/5555
5555/5555

Easy to translate. But of course maybe I did a mistake. Here is the whole transmission recording. Nice piece for learning Arabic numbers. So far I have learned sifr (0), khamsa (5), itnien (2), wahid (1) (I confuse itnien as 1 sometimes).