ENIGMA 2000 Newsletter - Issue 24

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

Oddities

UNID? On 06/07 Brian Rogers offered, "Strange signal on 8625 kHz monitored from 1600 UTC today, Tuesday 6 July. Strength about S3 here into Sussex. Sounds like carrier modulated with pulses, giving a laser type sound effect, interrupted by what sounds like tapping on a mike? Don't think this is CODAR, unless their modulation patterns vary. " HJH also monitored and writes, " I have the same at my Bristol Channel QTH. Switched in USB and it sounds like sonar almost, and on LSB almost like a siren. My Xcorder is BLX and I'm not hard wired yet, so no sound sample."

Not wishing to be left out of the loop PLondon also entered the forum and described the signal as very interesting. He discovered that far from just being almost regular pulses there was some content that varied. The tapping sounds were caused by the intentional separation of waveforms that showed a very slight ‘sterile’ gap between the trailing and leading edges of the waveforms. A file of findings was sent to Brian Rogers for his use should he wish to do so.

The purpose of this transmission is not yet discovered.

E wrote in with:

5177kHz	2346z	15/07	[Noise like a skateboard on concrete]E
12218kHz	2016z	14/07	[Rumbling electronic noise. Like RTTY]E

Backwards music station (XM)

11363kHz	2110z	10/07	E
	1902z	24/07	E

Carriers [Blank ]

7555.6kHz	1547z	08/08	[No sigs followed]	E
9069.7kHz	2113z	10/07	E
12196.8kHz	2025z	13/07	E
13237kHz	2115z	10/07	[With tone]	E
13883kHz	1705z	08/08	[No sigs followed]	E

Crackle (XC)

Nil Reports

Frogs (XFR)

9263kHz

0546z

20/08

PLondon

Jammers

These can be heard with some regularity on: 5320, 5600, 6420, 6880, 7040, 7050, 7070, 8320, 8340, 8515, 9360, 10280, 10470 and 13410, 16176kHz.

Mazeilka (X06)

6850kHz	2039z	04/08		E
7822kHz	1713z	06/08	[ended 1717z]	Kopf
7680kHz	2032z	04/08	[Off 2037z]	E
14863kHz	1842z	01/07	[ended 1845z]	RNGB

PoSW also sent a log of X06;

10-July-04	Saturday	1401 UTC	13,506 kHz	strong signal with a slight background buzz, vanished suddenly, carrier and all, at 1415z. Listened for several minutes, nothing further heard.
10-July-04		1421 UTC	16,188 kHz	another X06 and much to my surprise when the tones stopped at 1427z followed by the carrier going off after a short pause, there followed a few seconds of CW Morse . This used to be the usual format for an X06 but all those heard for many months now have just gone QRT without any CW following on. It was so unexpected it was over before I had a chance to read it! This was followed by FSK/RTTY type data, also a feature of X06 in the past. Signal strength S7 at best with deep troughs of QSB; was a long transmission, still going at 1443z when I gave up on it.
3-Aug-04	Tuesday	1742 UTC	13,506 kHz	exactly the same frequency as the X06 logged on 10-July, above - how unusual! - signal strength S8 to S9, went off a few minutes after being tuned in, nothing further heard.
3-Aug-04		1946 UTC	8,180 kHz	strength S9, lots of static crashes from a nearby thunderstorm, vanished just after 1955z, nothing further heard.

S28 [formerly XB]

It buzzes away on 4625kHz.

www.geocities.com/uvb76

In Group message 3454 B Rogers wrote, "Listening to "The Buzzer" in the early hours Sun 18 July at 0300 & 0400 UTC. The variable tone usally put out on the hour was absent, the normal tone continuing without interruption. [Tnx Brian]

S30 [The Pip]

Continues to dominate 3757kHz in the 80M band also 5403.9kHz. PLondon noted the pip on his ‘still undergoing a refurb’ Eddystone EC10MkII in the early hours of 25/07. The pip was pipping away like a good’un whilst the radio performed adequately.

Slot machine (XSL)

XSL is heard on 4152.5, 4231, 4290.5, 6249.5, 6416.5, 6444.5, 8312.5, 8587.5 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]

Sun	1500z	1600z	1900z
Mon	0900z	1700z	2215z
Tue	1510z	1530z	1600z
Wed	1400z	1500z	1545z
Thu	1600z
Fri	1450z	1600z	2140z
Sat	1400z	1600z	1700z

The text via <http://www.geocities.com/hfasia/files/Japanese-PSK.html> describes the Slot Machine as Japanese PSK with a Vertical bandwidth of 3kHz. It states frequencies in use as:
4152.5, 4231, 4290.5, 6249.5, 6416.5, 6444.5, 8312.5, 8587.5, 8703.5kHz

Zack kindly copied his ‘Spooks’ posting to E2k as:
8588kHz 1200z 10/08 [Moderate here today (S5) after weeks of no signal] Tnx Zach

XSW [Squeaky wheel]

3829kHz continues to be the home of XSW.

John writes, “On 3829kHz on Tuesday 6th July at 2349UTC I heard Squeaky Wheel as usual - squeaking, but this was interrupted by a data transmission for about 20seconds, then normal operation resumed.” J attached a sample of what he heard. On analysis XJT was found to be the brief interfering signal. J was sent a copy of the spectrogram used in the analysis – tnx J.

XWP [Wop Wop]

This particular sound can be heard doing its stuff around the 6 and 8MHz bands. Note that the signal changes frequency every 20 mins and takes the odd break too. Believed to be Coastal Radar, samples exist in our sound samples file in group.

Another offering, similar in sound to XWP was found by PLondon on 4543kHz 0045z 25/07.

9251kHz

2230z

06/08

[battling with E03]

PLondon

Teleprinter 4710

Can be heard on the usual frequencies of 4710, 6702, 9000kHz, 11122kHz [daytimes] and 15020kHz [evenings].

More Info on 'oddities' can be found on Brian of Sussex excellent web pages:

http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/brogers/page2.html
Frequency information and trends can be downloaded from:
http://www.cvni.net/radio/

Thanks to AB, AF, Anon UK, AnonNI, Anon Scandinavia, AR, BMDartford, CD, D of Kent, 'E', GallusGallus, Gert of Holland, HFD, IB, IW, J of Aylesbury , JM, JMM, K of Kent, LP, LW Ben Mesander, Mike of Kent, Mark Slaten, PLondon, Peter of Saffron Walden, RNGB, and all others for their contributions to the Morse, Voice and Oddities columns.

BEFORE we move onto the article here is a very interesting short penned by one who was there and one who appreciates the power of rumour.

Early in July the inhabitants of South Yorkshire , UK noticed a number of plain clothes Police and bomb sniffing dogs at various locations around the county.

As a result a number of rumours did the rounds but no one took much notice.

However then in a effort to quash these rumours some local government workers were told the reason for the security was that President Bush was visiting.

This had just the opposite effect and soon half the county was speculating what was going to happen !

In actual fact the security turned out to be for a governmental anti terror conference. Some reports said the conference involved all the ministers in the EU involved with terrorism while others said it just involved the UK , France and Germany.

Little was reported of the conference in the press except that the British delegation had called for the setting up of a EU wide database of terrorist's DNA.

Since none of the counties many specialist radio listeners heard any mention of the conference on their scanning receivers it is thought the counties new TETRA digitally encrypted emergency service radio network was used for the first time.

[Thanks SYorks Anon]