ENIGMA 2000 Newsletter - Issue 7

November 2001
Articles, newsreports and Items of interest : e2k_news@hotmail.com

Morse stations | Voice stations | Oddities
Farzad Bazoft, Mossad spy ? | Book review : Churchill's secret war | News Items
Web sites | Requests | Stop press | Contribution deadlines
Index | E2K NL Home

Oddities

We were grateful to receive some Oddities News from Eddy of Australia. Eddy kindly wrote in with some revelations on the 'Foghorn' as well as the event on the SLHFB freq of 10872kHz.

Eddy stated that the foghorn appears to be moving about a bit. He heard it on 9064, 9073 and 9370kHz.

[This is the first report concerning the Foghorn for sometime. We would be grateful to receive others about this peculiar oddity].

Eddy further wrote of an 81bd data signal that has appeared on the well known SLHFB frequency 10872kHz. 20/09. If audible elsewhere perhaps one of you data guys would like to take a look.

[Thanks for your comment and news Eddy].

Keith of Kent comments :

"There is a lot of stuff about, somewhat surprisingly there seems to be quite a big increase in CW work. I'm sure a lot of countries appreciate the simplicity of morse and its capability of getting through heavy QRM.

There seems to be a large increase in some very noisy transmissions between 5000 and 5500kHz, which cover several kHz. This type of transmission almost drowned the E05 transmission 5200kHz on 22/09."

Keith's remark could have been included in either the Morse or Voice section, however e2k has received various mentions about these 'noise' transmissions and we thought it best to include Keith's valid comment here. A quick [and recent] tune about between 5000 and 5700kHz 2010z 16/10 produced four 'jet' XJT signals as well as a few other mysterious noises.

Backwards music station (XM)

Monitored by 'C' as:

Buzzsaw (XBS)

This is still very active and seems to be 24h per day. Transmissions continue between 5.1 and 5.8 MHz. In the last issue I wrote how it was crashing about and I am sure that many users will be less than happy with its care free attitude. On Wed July 18th it was directly on top of RAF Volmet on 5450 kHz causing severe interference. At that time it was working between 5440 and 5475 kHz. On Fri July 27th at 21.00 it was centred around 5860 (very high) and was crashing Vatican Radio (in Arabic) on 5885, the upper spread of the Buzzsaw was amazingly 5898 kHz. Vatican Radio was also under a very heavy teleprinter bang on 5885, which will teach it to go in the Fixed Service band ! Recently it was heard hovering around 5598kHz. Strangely no mention was made of this by Shanwick Aeradio.

Faders (XF)

Although E2k believes this oddity to be possibly defunct this little snippet was seen on 'Spooks':

"So much for the disappearing fader, it's on now on 9251 USB, unless It's the backwards music station, monitoring from UK, 1939GMT."

Thanks MW1DUJ

FSK bursts

Previously discussed in Issue 2, this particular station operates on 5435 kHz (approx) and can be heard along with E10's transmission.

Again we repeat JMM's piece: There is another one of the same type you can hear on 11610kHz at 2130Z. This frequency is not (yet) listed in the E2K NL. It sounds very weak compared to its 5435 counterpart, covered by mighty BC transmitters (China Radio International FF programme at this time)

If you know anything about this station, its purpose and transmitter location(s) or can decode its messages, please contact ENIGMA 2000.

Jet (XJT)

The jet still pops up on various frequencies, a sound file is now offered on Ary's N&O site. A reasonable chance of sampling the delights of this peculiar signal can be had on: 2170, 4205, 4265, 5160, 6230, 6340, 8410 and 10265kHz. Other freqs have been published in previous NL's. The S17C transmission on 6495kHz was obliterated by a very strong XJT transmission that could be heard from 6489 to 6510kHz, a massive bandwidth of 21kHz at 1250z to 1257z on 18/10.

Link 11

I was most interested to read that LINK 11 was associated with the EP3 Spy Plane (now returned to the US in bits) which made an emergency landing on Chinese soil. In Europe LINK 11 is easy to find and I wonder what it is used for in this part of the world?

Recent frequencies include - 4702 5732 6245 6880 7831 8030 8160 8303 9280 (often heard) and 13420.

Takashi kindly sends this LINK 11 log:

and 'C' remarks: "Plenty of this still around - recent noted include 3190 3524 4440 4622 4702 5726 5775 7938 8030 8314 and 8905kHz."

S28 [formerly XB]

The observations shown below confirm the buzzing continues unabated:

S30 [The Pip]

Heard in Nagasaki by Takashi:

Teleprinter 4710 kHz - Barford St John -

It also operates on 6702 and 9000kHz, on the evening of SEPT 11th the Teleprinter was very busy and seemed to have changed format. I am now of the opinion that the signal which we normally hear is possibly an 'idler' as the traffic sent SEPT 11th onward was at a much slower rate and with far fewer breaks. Is it possible that this could be some kind of link from the US Embassy London ?

Any info or study of transmissions appreciated. ©'C'

X06

Jmm reported that X06 had been heard:

and offers the following URL where he has posted a sound file:
http://www.cvni.net/mp3/2001-08-22-2112z-8081U-X06.mp3 Thanks Jmm.

According to a log sent in by 'E', X06 was to be had on:
8081kHz 2017z 13/06 and had also been noted by 'E' as follows:

Further logs were received from 'C' who found:

Peter of Saffron Walden wrote in with this most interesting account:

"The six tone repeating station continues to turn up following no schedule whatsoever as far as I can see with the usual routine. I was surprised by what happened on Tuesday 11^th September at 1749z. There was a very strong 6-Tone station on 11411kHz and it proceeded as usual with the six tones running for several minutes and then some FSK data. I had a RTTY decoder hooked up to the receiver and I switched it on, not expecting any results, but the printer sprang into life and started printing groups of 5 letters. I have often tried this before but this is the first time I have ever managed to obtain anything which looked as if it had some meaning."

The printout [253 groups] was enclosed by Peter:

11144 40034 85784 11003 02549


HARRU YZLPT OOPCS CVIAA XYZKG RFDWH ABMEA VMAEY PGPBO KGTXN
CVACJ QEOEF IQGKC PUTWX EIBKH NGTJJ RJORV TLUVC LJPKW JMHLI
HXRMV XYICQ ERAUM KPCQU GHYZX MUDII UUCRY UMHNA JLDSL HPQJP


Ending?????..

LFMMU WTLAH XFGCL DACOO DIGDN OZGUX WLMHM UMFSN CNNGI ZFVFP
TMJPR DOYPJ IIURI


11177 40034 69708 11001 13870

©PoSW

[Thanks for this hard work Peter, and for sharing with us].

Secret Squirrel [???] sends in via spooks this interesting find:

making the valid comment that X06 was sharing the frequency with E03. Would be nice to know if it totally occluded the sigs from E03. Please contact e2k via email/spooks to let us know. [Tnx for this SS].

Slot machine (XSL)

XSL is heard on 4233, 4292, 6419, 6466,8555, 8589 and 8703.5kHz. USB mode

Still being heard in US, Oceania and like areas. E2k would like to receive details of any observations made in Great Britain, Eire and Europe please.

XSL general transmission times [freqs of 8588.0//8703.5]

More Info on 'oddities' can be found on Brian of Sussex excellent web pages:
http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/brogers/page2.html

Thanks to AK, Anon UK, Anon Scandinavia, Ary, C, 'D', D of Kent, 'E', Eddy of Australia, Gert of Holland, HFD, IB, J of Aylesbury, JM, Ben Mesander, JMM, K of Kent, LP, Mike of Kent, Mark Slaten, MW1DUJ, Peter of Saffron Walden, R anon, Rob of Essex, Spy Numbers Robot, Takashi of Nagasaki and all others for their contributions to the Morse, Voice and Oddities columns. As ever we acknowledge information from the spooks site.

Morse stations | Voice stations | Oddities
Farzad Bazoft, Mossad spy ? | Book review : Churchill's secret war | News Items
Web sites | Requests | Stop press | Contribution deadlines
Index | E2K NL Home