ENIGMA 2000 Newsletter - Issue 28

May 2005
Articles, newsreports and Items of interest :enigma2000-owner@yahoogroups.com

Oddities

A variety of strange ones this issue reported from the mysterious E:

Rasping	14428kHz	0709z	12/03	bandwidth extended to 14449kHz	[20kHz]
Tapping	5740kHz	0805z	13/03	bandwidth extended to 5762kHz	[22kHz]
Tapping, electronic	19080kHz	1325z	14/03	bandwidth extended to 19115kHz	[35kHz]

Thanks E

Backwards Music Station [XM]

From RNGB: 23rd April, 2032z 5405kHz

Carriers [Blank]

Nil Reports

Crackle [XC]

A surprise find by Brian bought a flurry of activity to hear this station:

6787kHz

2047z

10/04

from BRogers, CD, mikendbs and others.

The characteristic sound of tins being dragged about was present. A spectrographic display of the signal from last night looks like this:

	Top red trace illustrates the bandwidth of this particular sample: 619 to 2947Hz, peak at 1377Hz. Bottom trace shows 1s duration sample to produce the above results. The trace on the right is taken from 'Spectrogram' and shows the same sample. The two blue lines are upper and lower freq markers set at 615 and 2950Hz and visually proves measurements as shewn above.
©PLondon10/04/05

Foghorn

Nil Reports

Frogs[XFR]

14/03/05	12.25z+	11173kHz	XFR for a few bursts before it moved HF.
14/03/05	13.15z	13973kHz	a dozen bursts or so followed by 3 at a much lower pitch and longer duration.

[Tnx RNGB]

10852kHz

0610z

26/04

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]

12158kHz

0738z

31/03

ended 0810z 'a long one'

11^th	April	0805	10665		RNGB
19^th		0804	9300	tones 807/837/807/837/807/837 (ended 1 minute after)	RNGB

PoSW's Mazeilka logs gives an interesting view of this stations apparent activity [compare with other logs above]:

"I only managed to find one X06 in January 2005 and none at all in February until the 26th;-

26-Feb-05	Saturday	a little burst of "Mazeilka" activity this evening, the most for several weeks;-
		1830 UTC	9,080 kHz	strong signal, went off a bit before 1842z, listened for several minutes, nothing further heard.
		1846 UTC	8,055 kHz	tones stopped shortly after being tuned in, followed by the "twittering noise" data sometimes heard after an X06 stops.
		1903 UTC	7,835 kHz	approx:- an X06 was on but vanished before I could tune it in correctly.
		1927 UTC	7,527 kHz	X06 inside broadcast band, strong enough to over-ride BC station on close frequency. Went off 1947z, nothing further heard.
3-Mar-05	Thursday	0710 UTC	14,947 kHz	an early morning X06, signal strength S7. I had plenty of time to spare this morning which was just as well because this continued for another 37 minutes, remaining on until suddenly vanishing at 0747z. Listened for three or four minutes afterwards, nothing further heard.
11-Mar-05	Friday	2136 UTC	8,055 kHz	strength S6, vanished suddenly 2140z. Several strange, weak noises heard afterwards but I don't think they were anything to do with X06.
		2147 UTC	9,080 kHz	S6 to S7, stopped after 2150z, a weak FSK signal heard afterwards, much weaker than the X06 and probably not connected.
		2147 UTC	9,080 kHz	It looks as though there may be a regular set of frequencies used by X06; both 8,055 and 9,080 were also heard on 26-Feb - see above.
31-Mar-05	Thursday	1857 UTC	8,055 kHz	that's 8,055 again, then - strong signal, a good S9, tones stopped just before 1900z, carrier went off shortly after. Listened until 1903z, nothing further heard.
1-Apr-05	Friday	1853 UTC	6,850 kHz	strength S7, vanished just after 1857z, nothing further heard.
	Friday	1853 UTC	6,850 kHz	6,850 was logged active with X06 on 12-January-05, the only Mazeilka I managed to find in that month.
9-Apr-05	Saturday	1754 UTC	11,411 kHz	a quick tune around before settling down to watch Doctor Who on TV found this with a slight background buzz, a massive S9++ signal, the strongest Mazeilka I have heard for many a long day. Went on and on until just after 1841z when the tones stopped and the carrier went off shortly after. Listened for a few minutes afterwards but nothing further heard.

Buzzer [formely XB] S28

It buzzes away on 4625kHz. www.geocities.com/uvb76 refers.

S30 [The Pip]

Continues to dominate 3757kHz in the 80M band also 5403.9kHz.

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

8588kHz

1300z

10/03

{Slot machine still going strong! USB S5]

ZackUS

XSW [Squeaky Wheel]

3829kHz continues to be the home of XSW but on 08/04 Ary Boender left a message on Group:

"I just received a note that XSW now also transmits on 6992 USB. I have it on weak but audible here in Holland."

On 09/03 Manolis, Crete writes,

"I can hear right now (1533UTC) XSW with a good signal at 5474kHz.

XSW on 5474kHz stopped and it is now on 3828kHz (1535-1538UTC)."

mikendbs reports:

3828kHz

1841z

21/03

[3F/YL/RR: For 544: 384 388 290, For 544: 384 388 290]

mikendbs

Freqs where XSW has been heard are, 3829, 5474 and 6992kHz.

Developments with XSW [Squeaky Wheel]

by E2k member mikesndbs

As far as we knew XSW could reliably be heard squeaking away on 3829kHz USB if propagation allowed. It had already been suggested that it was a Russian channel marker that could be heard squeaking away to itself at night [presumably daytime too]?

Imagine my surprise when at 1841z on Monday 21/03/05 I heard the squeaking stop and a Russian lady start talking!

Sound clips can be found on our web site:
http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/thesecretsiteofmike/xsw/xsw.htm

The message, in Russian, spoken by a female voice was [3f/YL/RR] "For 544: 384 388 290, For 544: 384 388 290" It was translated by a Japan UTE monitor (from the WUN list)

The next night, Tuesday 22/03 at 1912z exactly the same thing happened.

On Wednesday 2025z (23/3/2005) produced a very poor quality again due to QRN

On Thursday 24/03/2005 at 1830z on 3828kHz I managed to catch nearly the whole of the voice transmission and it was probably the clearest so far!

The translation, again by Japan UTE monitor (from WUN), reads:

For 534: 524 385 390, For 534: 524 385 390, For 534: 524 385 390.

Now all we need to know is who might be 534? what traffic is for him/her?

From these observations I derived a possible schedule.

1841 UTC	on	21-3	3828 kHz	Monday
1912 UTC	on	22-3	3828 kHz	Tuesday
2025 UTC	on	23-3	3828 kHz	Wednesday
1830 UTC	on	24-3	3828 kHz	Thursday
2019 UTC	on	26-3	3828 kHz	Saturday

We did not find a voice TX on the Friday during the times I could listen and on Sunday I was away from the radio.

However, listening the next week proved that this was not a schedule at all but it does possibly give a idea of the times to try, after all the times/freqs above may appear in any combination of days or weeks.

Unfortunately the Ukrainian Military have a powerful CW transmitter on 3829 kHz and this does interfere with XSW.

A new XSW frequency of 6992 kHz was brought to our attention by Ary via Group and sounded similar to XSW. It was painfully weak here in the UK.

We will be keeping a close ear on these stations!

[Tnx mikesndbs]

Following on from mikendbs's observation:

With two frequemcies active PLondon made some measurements to explore the possibility of the two transmissions being related. He wrote,

"The signals on 3829 and 6992 are in phase, I have checked them both:

"XSW is comprised of three tones, the leading tone, at the highest freq anf followed by two tones of a lower frequency

On 3829kHz the top tone was set at 1155Hz and measured. The two lower tones were found to be 717Hz. The separation of tones is 438Hz.

	In this sample tones are: 1155Hz –top, 717Hz x2 lower. This makes the particular 'squeaky' sound
©ENIGMA2000 060505

The same measurement was achieved on 6992kHz also. The standardising with 1155Hz [allowed me to hear all 3 tones with a reasonably long duration] obviates the difference of sideband insertion. [mikendbs's jibe via Grp of 3828 or 3829 was ignored for that reason]!

The following was measured independently on both freqs [I had to stay up until 0200z to get a decent enough signal to do it]!:

The top traces measured a duration of 230ms, the two lower traces lasted for 120ms each with a 45ms gap between them. The distance between the trailing edge of the last lower trace to the leading edge of the next top trace is 880ms.

Using two receivers I displayed simultaneous 'pips' to my oscilloscope. They were in phase.

The very next day the inphase characteristic was confirmed by Richard Ness who had also proved it independently, and unknown, to myself. He put his results to Group."

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.