ENIGMA 2000 Newsletter - Issue 21

March 2004
Articles, newsreports and Items of interest :enigma2000-owner@yahoogroups.com

A non-number station and a chilling observation

Before we move onto the Selected Voice Stations proper [!] here is a very interesting, if not cold non-number station observation;-

The 5 MHz amateur "Notice of variation" special licence band provides interest to the short wave listener from time to time; this on-going exercise is rumoured to be a long-standing experiment to test the suitability of this part of the spectrum for inter-UK emergency communications if (when?) the much predicted Islamic terrorist offensive kicks off in this country and the more usual telecommunications systems are knocked out. The clue that there is something more going on here other than the government being kind to the radio amateur fraternity may be deduced from the terms of operation, i.e channelised operation on specified spot frequencies and the use of upper sideband rather than lower which would be the usual convention for an amateur allocation in this part of the RF spectrum. These two requirements ensure communication compatibility with the military stations with the strange callsigns which join in with the QSOs quite frequently. Although the band is often devoid of any activity things are usually lively from 1230z onwards for an hour or two on Sundays when the Radio Society of Great Britain weekly news bulletin is broadcast by one or other of the amateur stations on 5403.5kHz under the callsign GB2RS and is, by the way, the most QRM free reception of this which also goes out on 80 metres, a much more crowded band. When the RSGB news has ended the reader reverts to his own callsign and invites reports from other stations, and the ensuing QSOs from all over the UK - including Scotland , the Isle of Man, Northern Ireland and the far north of Scotland demonstrate that this band is indeed useful for reliable communication within the UK.

The anonymous provider of this information also asks a very pertinent and worrying question:

On the subject of the forthcoming big event, is it true that local authorities in the cities have been told to look at open land outside the built -up areas and do an assessment as to its suitability - with regard to soil type, depth of water table and so on - for mass burials in case a terrorist onslaught leaves thousands of dead? - I heard the story on a radio phone-in some time ago. A bit worrying, that; reminds me of the news stories which used to appear from time to time when construction workers digging foundations for new buildings close to London would dig up large numbers of human skeletons which would be identified as the victims of the Great Plague of 1665 taken by the cartload well outside the city limits and put into mass graves. [There were many skeletons found, some headless, in the confines of the Tower of London on occasion of building work there - as recounted to PLondon when he was an invited visitor to the Wardens' Mess at the Tower a few years ago].

As an adjunct to this rather chilling piece to see the Rite of Spring in; yours truly once sat through a tasteless David Cronenburg [the beers better] film in which an outbreak of a rabies like plague was spreading, via the human vector, through the population of a Canadian town and feasibly beyond. The storyline was one designed as a vehicle for the leading lady to get her kit off at the first opportunity but in the rest of the storyline there were lots of corpses left about in the street, lying where they had dropped.

For collection of these smelly items the Military [and presumably local Council Workers on enhanced rates of pay] commandeered dustcarts and were seen lobbing stiffs into the back for transport to the mass burial site. [No doubt already tested as a suitable mass burial spot, as our anonymous correspondent outlines above, but also coated with slaked lime to enhance nature’s own reduction mechanisms].