ENIGMA 2000 Newsletter - Issue 14

January 2003
Articles, newsreports and Items of interest : e2k_news@hotmail.com

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Selected voice stations

To start this section a continuation from DoKent concerning the activities of S10D and M10:

S10D and M10 continued:

I would like to continue where I finished in NL13, but firstly my thanks for helpful comments and information received, particularly from GD and PoSW. Regrettably some of the details will have to be held over for NL15.

Finally to Greg Hajek - thanks Greg, for the Ingenta address, perhaps when I receive this info from them it will help me to understand the workings of the Maxim Max 436 transconductance IC.

But now back to business, below is a chart of frequencies, times and days for M10/S10D. This chart was valid from July to November inclusive and should be viewed for record purposes. These are times, days and frequencies when transmissions took place. There may be others but unless they are reported, the lists will not be complete. The second chart is current, from December 1^st . It will be seen that some frequencies have carried over and are still being used. Two frequencies are in day to day use, namely 4007//3522kHz and 4958//7605kHz. The others seem at times to be drawn out of a hat, like raffle tickets, mostly S10D transmissions.

It would appear at first glance that this is a very active group, however, the majority of transmissions are repeats. Today 11-12-02 I have copied six transmissions, two AM and four CW. Only one of these transmissions was original, the others were all repeats, some, many times over. Recently there have been some strange occurrences. On the 26-11-02 , whilst I was copying S10D on 5027kHz, GD was copying M10 on 4958kHz ( not the same message) unless of course the encryption was different, including ID s etc. This week we have this happening again.

Tuesday10-12-02, at 2100z , M10 was on 4007//3522 kHz and S10D on 7380//4835 kHz

Wednesday 11-12-02 we have this happening again, although this time both transmissions were repeats of the previous day.

There are a couple of other things that are under investigation at present but more information required before reporting on them, NL15 I hope.

As stated in NL13 I have been asked to give some background on my travels etc, particularly those in central and Eastern Europe. I hope readers will find it interesting.

My first trip abroad found me arriving in Iraq in 1955 and this was the time I first became interested in the field of amateur communications. I had been constructing equipment from a young age and this seemed a natural progression. Many happy hours were spent in front of a microphone and pounding away on a Morse key contacting people all over the world: any YI2AM operators reading this I wonder? Returning to the UK towards the end of 1956, a fairly routine life followed.

In 1975 I made my first visit to what was then Czechoslovakia, part of the old Communist eastern-bloc.

I flew into Prague airport and the plane landed in the late afternoon. There followed an unexplained long wait for an internal flight to the rural town that was my final destination. The airport in those days was not very busy and it turned out that the plane I was waiting for was parked in its appropriate position all the time. It was a twin-engine prop plane, very noisy and vibrating, quite small and there were only about eighteen passengers. When I arrived at my final destination, it was after dark and only later did I realise why.

On leaving the plane, I was surprised to see we were surrounded by a detail of armed guards who escorted us into the reception.

It was here that I almost made my first mistake. The Officer in charge of the guard detail had his radio strapped across his chest and the case was held together with elastic bands, I just about managed to hide my amusement. As it turned out, this was a military base, hence the guards.

During my ten day stay I met a number of people, many of whom I am still in contact with today. One of the most vivid memories of that visit was being taken up into the hills by a gentleman who was in the Partisans during the war. He showed me a derelict cottage where five of his friends were lined up against the wall and shot, the bullet marks were still clearly visible.

Setting out to return home, I was informed that the internal flight to Prague was cancelled and I had been allocated a sleeping compartment on the train leaving at midnight and would arrive early morning in Prague. Being shown into said compartment by this attendant, I was then told the train water system had broken down and was presented with a jug of cold water and a bowl to freshen up when we arrived. I settled down hoping to sleep through the journey. Some hope! I think the train went all over the country stopping and shunting, picking up extra carriages. Eventually arriving in Prague at 7am I found myself at the end of a very long train, heavy luggage, no porter and no trolley. By the time I arrived outside I was dead!

Fortunately there was a taxi on hand to go to the airport with a driver who only wanted foreign currency. I was not going to fall into that trap.

Eventually arriving back at Heathrow I breathed a sigh of relief and decided that future journeys would be by car, and so it continues.

I started out full of enthusiasm for this project but time and painful memories have drawn it to a premature end. I leave it to the Editor to decide if it was worthwhile.

A final word in closing Jochen, sorry I did not keep my recording of X06.

I have been asked why I did not show repeats in my write-up on M10/S10D.

Messages when written out are as I recorded. Repeating groups etc. is an operational requirement to enable the recipient to be sure that he receives it 100% thus overcoming the effects of QSB and ORM.

Best wishes to everyone in 2003, listen long and be productive. (A Stastny Novy Rok), D of Kent

Chart 1 [July to end of November]

Chart 2 [1st December to present]

Due to pressure of time there have been one or two instances recently that I would liked to have included but they will have to carry over to NL15

©DoKent

[DoKent has been persuaded to include further details of his travels behind the Iron Curtain in subsequent newsletters].

Now onto the listings:

Frequencies preceded by 'c' have been taken from an analogue receiver.

E03/E03a

Apart from the regulations concerning the reception of wireless stations within Great Britain advice on reporting intelligence matters also exists in the form of DA notices.

Whoever the messages, from E03/E03a, are aimed at ENIGMA 2000 has no wish to 'advertise' the existence of these stations to those who may not support the best interests of Great Britain, or its representatives abroad. Although we are unable to stop discussion of E03/E03a, ENIGMA 2000 will remain aloof from any such discussion and will not be including reports or analysis on E03/E03a.

E05

In keeping with other's observations PoSW sent the following, enclosing logs from October to December. This adequately illustrates the decline in the volume of traffic from Cynthia. PoSW wrote:

"E05 American Accent station;- activity again at a very low level; the two daily plus two Monday to Friday transmission schedules which sent the same message were heard for the last time on Monday 28 - October, having been on since early September. In addition several long - standing E05 schedules seem to have gone, notably the Monday and Wednesday 2200z on 6,960 // 9,090 kHz and the Sunday and Wednesday 1200z on 13,906 // 15,732 kHz - not heard for several weeks; could all be down to propagation conditions; the Saturday 1400z schedule on 18,617 // 19,622 kHz popped up again on 7 - December for the first time since 2 - November and also appeared again on 14 - December. The previously reported great hoard of carriers noted on Saturday 19 - October on a dozen known E05 frequencies suggested that Cynthia was about to become more active, but this has not proved to be the case. By the way, a similar situation was observed on Saturday 7 - December but on a smaller scale; there were very strong, S9+ unmodulated carriers on 6,960, 9,090 and 8,110 kHz around 1450z, the last with its usual attendent "Jet" QRM. There was also a strong carrier modulated with a harsh, raucous buzz , so distorted it was difficult to tune in precisely but seemed to be centred on 6,971 kHz; it may have actually been on 6,970 which is a known E05 frequency and therefore connected with the other logged frequencies."

AnonUK also discovered that E05 activity has gone right down in November and shares these loggings with us:

AnonUK also heard a strange event whilst following E05 frequencies at 0800z 23/11. On 6960 6970 8110 and 9090kHz which were on for 15 minutes, he could at times hear voices in the background, but there was no E05 transmission.

Others:

On the last day of 2002 AnonUK sent his December log remarking, "Only a very few logs of E05 for December":

E06

Gert kindly sent the latter parts of his October Log

Gert heard the above oddity and reported "Heard E06 today, wed 11 dec 2002, 19.00 utc, on 4025 kHz, calling 123456789 for 9 minutes. Test ? At 19.20 went in a null msg 617 (lasted 5 minutes). At 19.28 there was a 0123456789, only twice. Seems someone is playing around..."

PoSW wrote that the E06 English Man has dropped to a very low level in December; and that he had only been able to find the Saturday 1230z + 1330z schedule.

'E' reports E06 as:

Gert sends his December log:

E07

Of the November E07 PoSW writes:

"The early evening E07 English Man schedule. noted last month;- I thought this had gone but it has advanced by one hour in November and moved a lot lower in frequency"

In December PoSW wrote :

"The Sunday and Wednesday 1800z E07 English Man;- so far I have only been able to find the second and third sendings this month; noted on Wednesday 4 - December 1820z, 5,737kHz and 1840z, 4,612kHz, E07 with "976 976 976 1", DK/GC "451 29" x 2. Both transmissions had good carrier strength but very poor depth of modulation which made copy difficult to say the least. I have been unable to find the first sending at 1800z which presumably should be on 6,9 something if the clue to the frequency is in the "976" call but there is no sign of it. It may be flattened by the BC station on 6,973 or under one of the many strange noises on that part of the spectrum. Subsequent loggings of this schedule have all been of the "000 000" no message format, so no third sending. In contrast, the Wednesday and Friday early morning UK time E07 have been noted with strong signals and very good modulation; noted on Wednesday 11-Dec-02, 0650z, 8,103kHz and again, 0704z, 9,368kHz, transmissions in progress, second and third sendings, as per Gert's prediction List! Both very strong signals with good modulation. On Friday 13- Dec-02, just had time to catch the second sending, 0635z - and 35 seconds - "913 913 913 1", DK/GC "107 219" x 2; a long message. Perhaps the same message was sent on Wednesday resulting in late running which was why things were still in progress after 0700z."

Gert's log:

E10

From our E10 desk for Nov 02 by frequency

E10 Comments

During this month there has been 5 occasions where during a transmission of the "repeat" group message the transmission has suddenly ended about halfway through the longest message. Each time it involved a station sending two group messages in the same broadcast. (With the exception of EZI on the 2nd Nov.)

• 22:50 02 Nov EZI G116 on 9.130

• 23:18 08 Nov ULX G117 + G26 on 4.880

• 23:01 12 Nov ART2/ART G115+G19 on 6.986 & 5.435

• 23:03 13 Nov ART G115+G19 on 6.986

• 23:04 22 Nov ART G115+G19 on 6.986

As regards ART the opening call on the 12 Nov was by ART2 on 5.435 at 22:59 hrs. It used its C/S twice, and at 23:01 the c/s changed to ART with the G115 + G19 messages. At approximately 23:25 halfway through the repeat of the G115 message it just went dead. This also occurs on the 13th & 22nd with the identical group messages and frequency. Could this be a faulty recording that they are not aware of, or a deliberate ploy? As you can see ART has been very active this month sending large group messages, sometimes two in the same transmission on 5.435 and 6.986

It would appear at the moment, that CIO2 & MIW2 have reverted back to the standard freq's and stopped using the .5 add on (See NL 13), and for some reason VLB2, SYN2, CIO2 have all swopped freq's (17th of Nov.)

Just when I was beginning to think that the exotic was not going to appear up popped CIO4C9QPO on the 18Nov at 20:52 hrs it transmitted the header only until 21:52 hrs when it ended.

Longest/Shortest Group Message

• YHF G123

• ART G9

Frequency Changers

Sp.Headers & C/s Variations

CIO4C9QPO

Top Five

• ART

• VLB2

• SYN2

• CIO2

• MIW2

©BMDartford [28 November 2002]

E10 Dec 02

From our E10 desk for December 02 by frequency

E10 comments

09 Dec. KPA2 initiated 3 calls on 7.605 commencing at 23:11hrs and was then replaced by MIW2 at 2316hrs on the same freq. (This freq is normally used by MIW2)

VLB Special

5 Dec 02: I was pleased to receive an email at the E10 desk this afternoon concerning the activity of VLB during the 4th Dec which preceded the period I was listening to on the 5th Dec. The combination of both pieces of information indicated this was something special and I will try to outline the sequence of events from the info received.

The Repeated Group 37 Message was as follows

NXUVR SJNGA VFWYN NWGZZ AATHA BUIQS MPKZQ KITWR LOHAC TNWJS ALDQS IYNDK NXFFP ZPPLJ ZVXMP TQEHZ YHVZD HOSUJ AJYIG XYREP PJHUN OOJYF EOGOV VDGQP PKIIR TOYST AIPIW WELIC QVEBF RSGWI EGIHL GUERN QIMIQ VITEI WONJE NVTEL CJGKG

• 11/14th Dec 02.
  VLB2 has remained busy these last few days using its c/s only and as expected no group messages, the normal transmission time being 5 mins, until this evening at 21:03 hrs when it lasted for 45 mins. Perhaps a warning / prelude to more intense activity to come. Well for the rest of the evening nothing did! But the 12th of Dec at 22:42hrs VLB came to life for 7 mins only, but no expected group message. At 23:42hrs VLB2 again appeared, ending at 23:50hrs so back to normal. On the13 Dec VLB2 extended its call time to 47mins (21:03 to 21:50hrs) and this has carried on into the 14th of Dec at the 2100 and 2300hrs transmission times. At this precise moment VLB2 has been on air now for 71 mins 23:03 to 00:14 and is still calling. The current freq's being 5.230 & 4.105, 5.230 with good clear reception.

• 18/25th Dec.
  Transmission times seem to have normalised all current calls are of 5mins duration.

Longest/Shortest Group Message

• ART G143

• ART G11

Frequency Changers

Sp.Headers & C/S Variations

• VLB 25

• VLB 30

• VLB 50

• VLB 55

*I cannot claim to have heard VLB25, VLB50, or VLB55 on the 4 Dec though I have logged it. This information was kindly passed to me which coincided with what I heard on the 5th Dec (VLB30) and the other activity from the VLB network.

Top 5 Heard

• VLB2

• CIO2

• ART

• SYN2

• MIW2

©BMDartford [27 December 2002]

Many monitors have noticed the increase in E10 activity. BM has produced a very useful chart which outlines the activity of certain stations.

E10 Monitored Networks & Callsigns Commencing Dec 01 to Dec 02

As at 26 Dec 02