ENIGMA 2000 Newsletter - Issue 22

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

Morse stations | Voice stations | Oddities | Polytones
Numbers predictions | Non numbers | Propagation Indicator
How random is random ? | The Czechoslovakian government in exile - WWII
News Items | Web sites | Requests | Stop press | Contribution deadlines
Index | E2K NL Home

Selected voice stations

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

Nothing heard from the E05 network since the test tone activity on known E05 frequencies ceased in the first week of January writes PoSW; see E05, page 6 Issue 21 for the previous findings concerning the enigmatic and yet to be heard, Cynthia.

E06

Concerning activity of this station PoSW correctly observes that, “The E06 English Man also has dropped dramatically in activity since the end of last year; this used to be one of the most widely heard of the voice stations but so far in April I have only logged one transmission, on the 18/04” That is not say the transmissions were not there, however only Gert managed to send logs for 14&1500z sendings on 07/04 whilst H-FD managed two logs for 04/04.

The first E06 log entry was sent in by LW:

PoSW’s log reflects the lack of apparent activity from E06:

H-FD informs us of the 690 sched as:

both heard on 04/04

E07

The Thursday 08/04 freqs were found by Gert of Holland as

Gert noted that all carry this message: 674 - 121/60 = 76611

E07 appeared busy, PoSW sent his logs [duplication some of those above with detail]:

Still several schedules running, low audio sometimes a problem.

[TnxPoSW]

E10

Jmm writes

"On Friday 05/03 while away, after an EZI1 on 9130 (1830z), I had the chance of intercepting an E10 KPA transmission with string message at 1915z on 4780. The signal was very bad quality because of a RTTY station on the same frequency smashing it. Hence, I did not make any recording of it. It was a 10 group message I think I copied correctly after several repeats.

OABXN ZHUJK GSMKJ NGANN UJLXN
NMVCI NTHKA OIGIP GSXER QCADG

Signal went off at 2020z."

[Tnx Jmm]

E10 Desk For Mar 04

• Bold Lettering denotes repeated message

• denotes No changes to schedule heard.

• Frequency in ( ) denotes slight variation in transmitted frequency used on some occasions.

E10 Comments

* From Ian Wraith Many thanks

You will also note at above the extended activity of various callsigns with the 1hour transmissions a prelude to the rarely heard CIO/SYN/VLB/KPA/MIW group messages maybe??

Others have noted that some callsigns deviate by a few hertz from the expected frequency. I have made a note of these plus a few I had logged from the start of this year (Jan) which I place below. All my freq settings are in USB though I'm aware that the transmissions can be AM

E10 Desk April 04

• Bold lettering in black denotes repeated message

• Denotes No changes to schedule heard.

• Frequency in ( ) Denotes slight variation in transmitted frequency used on some occasions.

All timings are GMT

E10 Comments

The month started off with a swopping of freq's namely on 6912 with KPA2, CIO2, MIW2 and on 5230 with CIO2 & VLB2, also 5170 with VLB2 & SYN2 and 4165 with CIO2 & MIW2. Then on the 18th at 0115hrs KPA2 & MIW2 shared the same time slot and freq (6912) See log.

Last month (Mar) it was the extended one hour transmissions from the same callsigns.They do not seem to say anything but are most active.

On the 18th KPA24 was heard on 6912 & 6370 by me and confirmed by Ary, who also on the 19th reported KPA4Z5 at 1920hrs on the same freq's. I have added these to the log (Thx Ary)

21st April Special Header KPA34Z31Z8Z1400 which I logged at 2110hrs, was also noted by Ary at 2033hrs and Manolis Patrakis at 2044hrs during the evening and would indicate that the Header had most probally been transmitting for over an hour commencing at 2015hrs?. It ended at 2122hrs

25 April turned out to be a bonaza with CIO11Z19Z64, SYN10Z99 & VLB7Z28Z82 All transmitting from 2145hrs to 2252hrs (All timings are GMT) See log above for freq's, and reported by Ary via Enigma 2000 KPAZ9Z7 on 6370 at 2050hrs Thanks again Ary & Manolis

27th April, on Freq's 6210 & 4418 one of the more rarer calls FDU1, I managed to catch the last 4mins of the transmission from 2255 to 2259hrs. ( No previous record ).

Thanks to everyone for your E10 contributions.

©BMDartford, April 04

E11

Change of freq: 0800z Thurs: 7663kHz 0800z Fri: 8091kHz [Info from JoA es AnonUK respectively-Tnx]

Ell schedule. Note all times zulu, freqs in kHz.

[Tnx to AnonUK for info rx’d].

*On Tuesday 6^th April the 0830z E11 sending [8544kHz] was not heard [rpts AnonUK, JoA, PLondon, KW]. AnonUK discovered the sending replaced by the Morse station M03 giving the ident 189/67 for the full message [same freq as usually used by E11]. Note that M03 is the Morse equivalent to E11. [Tnx AnonUK]

Two samples have been supplied of E11 and placed in the ID files on Group. One, from JoA illustrates the full message whilst the other, from RNGB gives fine example of the pronunciation and accent of the announcer. Being in mp3 format there is some evidence of compression.

On Thursday 26th and Friday 27th February at 0800z messages were sent via E11. JoA, Gert of Holland and PLondon all noticed that ID had changes from 232/00 to 235/67. Gert offered a valid theory that perhaps the 232 was a test call.

Following on into March JoA rang E2k on 02/03 to inform us that a message was again being sent and later emailed the results as:

JoA noticed that part way through to 5f gps: "Attention" "82242 14813 85814" then followed 5f gps. ending as shown above.

Subsequent sendings produced:

Diligently JoA checked all known freqs but they remained silent ‘Nil Required Heard’.

Then again on Thursday 04/03:

Later in the Month of March RNGB was able to offer some more interesting news from this producer of null messages.

On hearing this message RNGB noted, 'This morning [16/01] at 0830 message on E11 freq 8544 commenced 189 Oblique 67 then 'Attention' 92242 92242 14913 14913 etc. The whole message was then read out again with no repeats. The young lady has an East European accent and she pronounces the figure 5 FIVER (the correct phonetic is FIFE, as FIVER is easily confused with NINER for 9)

RNGB went to report a missing transmission as well as what may be a change to freq, 'After this mornings catch I looked for the 1030z sending - not found. The 1230z sending was on 8544 kHz with 312/00 The 1300 sending was found on 8800 (not 8088 as usual) with 183/00.

JoA and RNGB posted the news that 10125kHz as used on a Thursday at 0800z had changed to 7663kHz on 25/03

A message was sent on 20/04 and reported by Gert:

314 oblique 61 for 5 minutes
attention
13554 88194 81586 77212 41737 07853
87527 28102 03873 22787 09368 08067
48470 85376 18951 89882 94164 54800
92703 05129 48255 71483 11405 85560
37961 70491 01692 42979 56970 83504
90785 99301 28847 98883 79518 91011
26375 93820 64283 93122 87212 79147
17542 24316 51609 70250 64904 55279
90562 22450 66752 28684 69642 57875
29038 18112 14947 47943 41644 79776
01907

[Tnx Gert]

E15

On 22/04 Ary reported to us via Group, "I just received an E15 log. Heard today [21/04] at 1700 and 1800 UTC on 14000 kHz with Frank Young Peter (FYP) call." The log came from a listener in Central Germany and who reported the signal as “good, readable.” [Tnx Ary and listener].

We print the known schedule [as issue 22]:

This find does raise so quandary with us. This is the first log of 14000kHz actually being used at 1800z. ML noted that he tunes through the E15 freqs everyday and has noted A1A QRM on 14000kHz and A3E QRM just below it. He says the sources are either BC or ‘fishing’. ML also noted that the same call has never been made twice. Obviously we need to keep a listening watch on this beauty to see if its habits have changed.

After an inkling that E15 had been busy Mike of Kent kindly offered:

E23

Best frequency is usually 8188kHz. 4 weekly cycle starting on the first Monday of the Month.

Transmits Monday Wednesday and Thursday:

Week 4 in AM only.

E25

Following a hint that E25 was up, Manolis Petrakis sent the following log of this most elusive station in:

Tnx Manolis!

Manolis also heard E25 again on 20/04 and posted details to group as:

Today [20/04] E25 came up with a very strong signal:

Possibly made mistakes in the beginning and after knocking the mic?[Tnx Manolis].

Then on 21/04 from AnonUK :

This sending was also reported by Manolis in Crete who mentioned that the microphone was knocked.

[Tnx Manolis]

Manolis emailed at 1210z 22/04 because he was hearing E25 with music intro – PLondon tried for the sending but like his lunchtime XPs the noise levels were far too high. His experience was reflected by the same comments as JoA.

G06

[TnxPoSW]

Other observations of G06 were reported:

G22

[Gert noted LSB suppressed - USB reception gave the best result]

followed by:

OliverE2kde sent details:

• ID = 186

• Nummer 248 Gruppen 21

• Message
  47?81 00098 12009 24123 14426 01327 ??9?3 30623 32368 324?8 ?7709
  08999 ????? 1??48 37176 ?2787 278?4 40968 09092 42613 63498 000

He can't give guarantee the accuracy of the msg, because this G22 was very weak at his QTH in Darmstadt. He couldn't understand many numbers right. 1 and 8 sounded very similar during this weak transmission.

Slavic Stations

S17c is now on 6758kHz

Once again DoK offers his definitive chart with updates:

Chart 11
M10, S10d and S17c Listings from 1^st March 2004. All times GMT/UTC
Compiled by E10 Slavic Desk.

DoK writes: I must start this report by apologising for not listening as much as I might. [The ed wants to put me on a 252! Certainly do – stand to attention when you address the duty the officer!].

The soldering iron insisted that I pay it more attention; two more audio processors and a graphic equaliser are to blame, whilst a problematical 32inch widescreen tv with an intermittent fault is an additional reason. The local service centres have given up on it but I do love a challenge! [Hope that’s not a 100w ‘Solon’ iron you’re using in there – gotcha!!! You’ll regret saying that to me all those years ago aboard ship].

At the end of the last period we were plagued with corrupt keying and this continued from time to time, fortunately only one of the parallel frequencies has been faulty.

The Thursday 1720z schedule has been changing between 9166 and 9986kHz but now appears to have settled on 9986kHz.

This period started well but with some noticeable absences. The 0840 and 1840z schedules were only resolved in the past three weeks. A phone conversation with AnonUK solicited the information that he had heard the 0840z on Thursday; further checking allowed me to hear both Wednesday and Thursday schedules.

Knowing that this schedule was active I concentrated on finding the 1840z. The known frequency llist had been checked over the previous six weeks without success but eventually a very weak signal was heard on 14377kHz. This has now allowed the repeat message chain of 0840 – 1840 – 1940z to be completed.

Another message repeat chain 0340-1200-1700 has just been completed; a difficult one as it depends on my not sleeping. It is here that help from more friendly time zones would be appreciated.

Excellent logs have been received from PoSW, of particular interest was the S17c activity on 8th March. Gert of Holland also posted the 1900z 6962kHz transmission on the same evening enabling me to monitor the frequency, but no further activity has been heard. [PoSW’s excellent S17c log can be seen later].

It will be seen that the details have not been charted as it appears to be a one off. Unfortunately the very detailed account from PoSW arrived toolate for me to make a more detailed follow up. However all the frequencies should be added to the list. There are still long periods when the parallel frequency for S17c has not been found.

All chart entries are correct to the end of the month but changes may occur from the first of the following month, as in 2003, an amended chart may be posted if time permits. Finally, my thanks to AnonUK, RNGB, PoSW and Gert for their contributions. "We few, we happy few, we band of Brothers." Nazdar DoK [Thanks Derek]©ENIGMA2000 Apr2004

Now onto the logs and additional information where presented:

S04

S06

A bumper bundle of S06 info this Issue. Thanks to Gert we have an enjoyable informative and very interesting article concerning this very active Slavic station. This is followed by actual logs that show the full activity of S06 led in with AnonUK’s own analytical chart compiled from his own observations.

Russian man ending 00000, S06

By Gert of Holland

Over the years there have been many random logs of the Russian man S06.

Last year there was a weekly regular sked found on wednesdays 7.00z with a later found repeat at 7.10 UTC.

In july 2003 I decided to collect logs from previous newsletters and my own logs and tried to find more weekly skeds. I searched the bands and found some 11 weekly skeds and published them in NL 18.

Then the list became longer and longer thanks to help from Anon UK, RNGB and AF.

Now, there are some 44 weekly frequencies found.

If you look to the list some notice can be made

• starting time is almost always H+00 or H+30, sometimes H+20 or H+50

• repeat 10 minutes later or 1 hour later

• some skeds change frequency each month, others change freq each 3 months

• most ID’s remain the same, only a few change ID each month

• not all repeat frequencies are found yet, any help appreciated.

What also happens is that the frequency is not always the same each week but can change 5, 10 or 20 kHz.

Another odd thing is that some march S06 skeds changed in april to E06 skeds with the same ID use.

What also surprizes is that some skeds are coming in rally strong, some even S9+40 dB, but others are so weak you hear them just above noise level. That did not depend on the conditions. This could mean the operators use directional antenna’s.

In the list you can find some which I found strong and the ones that are received weak.

Following is a list of skeds found along with their repeat.

Skeds from which no repeat has been found yet

S06 sked that changed into E06 sked

Following is the complete list of S06 skeds found so far (probably many more…)

©Gert of Holland 19/04/04 [Tnx Gert]

AnonUK leads us in to logs with an S06 chart that illustrates S06 freqs from Dec 2003 to March 2004:

©AnonUK

and then provides us with even more logging detail:

This is an interesting log *RNGB noted that there were no less than three S06 transmitters up at the same time [0830] with different IDs.

as is this log:

1630z & 1730z nothing heard on 14561/12194 – searched and found nothing. The high freqs were dreadful, low freqs good propagation today.

Noting that the transmitter on 5680 was giving sidebands 51 kHz away on 5731 and 5629 RNGB asks if anyone "heard messages on the IDs where the repeat is 10 minutes later?" He explains it only gives time for very short message. The transmitter drops down as soon as the 1st tx has ended and then retunes on repeat freq within a couple of minutes, so it would not be possible to transmit simultaneously." Answers via ENIGMA 2000 please

Interestingly Gert of Holland compared his frequencies and IDs to those sent by RNGB. He discovered that S06 was transmitting different id's on different freqs at the same time, as his chart below illustrates

We received so many S06 logs that Gert made our job that little easier by compiling this:

S06 logs:

Gert comments: “Quite an impressive list, I did not realize S06 was this active! Great help from Richard, Guy and AF” whilst PoSW adds, “The S06 Russian Man has become one of the most widely heard of the voice stations in recent months and the regular Tuesday schedule with the call "254" has been logged every week so far this year.”

Please note that this listing replaced an earlier compilation, if you sent a log in and you find it is missing you will appreciate the amount of work necessary to produce the list and hope you will continue to send your results to E2k.

Last knockings on logs used comes from RNGB:

Thanks to Gert, AnonUK, RNGB, HFD, PoSW and all others who contributed to the S06 column this time around, it is a splendid account of all your work.

S06C

S10D

There were many reports made on this station that were sent to DoK for analysis. Thanks for your assistance. PoSW summed the situation concerning the Czech Lady up when he wrote, “The S10d Czech YL remains very busy; most schedules changed to higher frequencies in the first week of March, one exception being the Saturday 1520 UTC which remains on 8,175 // 9,985 kHz.. The Tuesday and Sunday 2050 UTC transmission occasionally transmits much longer messages than is usual for the Czech YL with group counts of 56 and 66 having been logged this year and on Tuesday 9-March what must be a new candidate for the longest S10d message ever, a group count of 73.” [Tnx DoK, PoSW and all others]

S11A Cherta

S17C

S17c is now on 6758kHz

Gert reported hearing an 'out of usual hours' possible S17c as: 6962kHz 1910z 08/03 [ending Pozor pozor 42 42 05 05 konec konec], DoK was immediately informed but did not manage to catch any transmission. PoSW confirms Gert’s observation and offers in-depth detail. [Reported verbatim as received by ENIGMA 2000]:

“ An unusual airing of the Czech YL was heard on the evening of Monday 8-March; whilst tuning around just after 1830 UTC a very strong signal was found on 6,962 kHz with what appeared to be S10d in "555" call-up mode on a new frequency; however, it soon became apparent that this was the S17c variant, that is the format usually heard daily at 1250UTC, always with the same call-up routine and with just one 5-figure group repeated ten times;-

"555 555 555 313 313 313 05", then "313 313 313 42 42 05 05 pozor pozor", then a single 5F group repeated, "71026", ending at 1837z with "42 42 05 05 konets konets".

This was not the end; at 1840 UTC the same call-up was noted on another frequency, 8,057 kHz but the five figure group was not the same as heard earlier; then just after 1900 UTC the same call-up was heard on a third frequency, 7,826 kHz, again with a different 5F. This routine went on at ten-minute intervals with activity being shared between 6,962 and 7,826 - I did not hear 8,057 kHz used again - always with a different 5F group. The last transmission appeared to be at 2040 UTC, I couldn't find any activity after this time. I have never heard anything like this before or, indeed, this format at any time other than 1250 UTC.

In case the Slavic Desk missed out on all this, the full log is shown below; all transmissions started with the "313 313 313 42 42 05 05" routine and all signals were S9 or better;-

[Thanks to Gert and PoSW]

Logs of S17c 5f 5301//8190kHz exclusively h-fd:

[tnx H-FD]

S21

JoA writes

“4854kHz 1842-1854:41 (E) YL-Russian. Call believed to be "424 424 424" + dk/gp followed by 5F gps., ending "NOLy NOLy NOLy" (000) @ 1854:41”

For the S21 transmission expected on Thursday 29/04, on the parallel freqs 4454 & 4854kHz. 1835-1853z: JoA writes,

"Similar carrier waves with distinctive buzz (S5/S6 QRN) found on both frequencies. The YL-Russian tx did not materialise at the usual time 1842z.. I re-checked at 1916z when both carriers were found to have stopped."

He queries if a change might be afoot. [Distinctive buzz heard by PLondon too].

TnxJoA

V02

V02A

We lead into the Spanish Lady [from Cuba] with PoSW’s offering from his East England QTH and some analysis:

The various transmissions from the V02 Spanish - speaking YL from the land of fine cigars and Fidel Castro have become much stronger signals in the last few weeks as we head rapidly through spring towards the summer. However, all the V02 sendings heard in the UK are long-standing schedules on frequencies such as 8,010, 8,097, 9,153 and 9,331 kHz; there does not appear to be anything new and there is still a distinct lack of activity on Sundays.

We follow that by offerings from Great Britain and Europe:

Continuing with intercepts from the US:

*Concerning this transmission Chris Acuff, Gulport Mississippi, sent to Group, “ On right now is the cleanest, clearest V2a I've ever heard in my life! Frequency is 12165 and time is 0200z. Looks like Castro's Clowns did something right for a change!”

In answer to that TomH, also in US wrote, “The audio is pretty clear, indeed. I still hear the hum from the device that produces the numbers.. can you hear that too? Sometimes its more audible than other times. And you can hear the telephone click at the end.” In a later message Chris noted that signal strength had severely fallen, TomH was able to state that it still remained 20dBs with him, making a suggestion that perhaps Cuba beamed the sigs deliberately into Washington. [Thanks Chaps!]

V07

V08

Via Group the following question was placed

"Would anyone care to guess why there are so few Arabic language numbers stations ? It seems odd to me when you think of the effort just about every intelligence service must be putting in to get good HUMINT from the middle east at the moment."

PLondon, a member of the Aden Veteran's Association, was able to answer this with

"I have only heard one actual Arabic speaking numbers station [V08] and I was surprised to be able to copy the Arabic numerals as easily as I did given that the necessity for me to speak Arabic had long passed. There are others in this group who understand other languages in addition to their own first language, but who make do with the numerals of additional languages with little problem.

The use of any particular language only means that the recipient can use that language for the purpose of the sent message. That is no indicator of the nationality of neither the recipient nor the sender and certainly no indicator of the target area."

[Don't forget that two E2k members actually greeted each other in Aden Arabic at Cardiff Bus Station a few weeks ago, retained skills for both, one of whom has German as his second language].

Morse stations | Voice stations | Oddities | Polytones
Numbers predictions | Non numbers | Propagation Indicator
How random is random ? | The Czechoslovakian government in exile - WWII
News Items | Web sites | Requests | Stop press | Contribution deadlines
Index | E2K NL Home