Fourteenth edition of the N&O column / Spooks newsletter

(Date: Sat, 29 May 1999 14:53:11 GMT)

Morse stations

M23

Guy Denman reports that the unid morse station mentioned in N&O #13 on 10155 at 2137 is M23, the actual ID is 532. It is also on at 0730 on 9155 kHz.

M12

M12 is interesting on Wednesdays, it sends the same message throughout the day to 5 different IDs.

See also the Family 1B analysis and morse stations sections in Newsletter 30.

Israeli Navy Haifa / 4XZ [M22]

Although 4XZ is not a numbers station, ENIGMA still lists it as being one. So I thought that the following article would be of interest.

The Israeli Navy in Haifa, callsign 4XZ, currently runs the following two separate CW broadcasts:

Broadcast 1	Broadcast 2
2800	2680
4241	4331
8437	6379
10046	9263
12984	11170
17050	13546
14686
16317
18549

4241 kHz is subject to heavy QRM in Europe from Rogaland Radio, callsign LGW, and 12984 kHz by a psk transmission.

a	There is regular traffic on both broadcasts consisting of three distinctive types:
b	Traffic in offline encrypt (5 letter groups),
c	Traffic in what is assumed to be Hebrew morse. If copied as International morse it looks like: `"brq am ikriz soea mjdio qealiwio jm ohrdim jl pni qeabiwio jm mrw esinei, dbrie sl drji j erre cjro bjelm ohrdi. orb , mso bn ueb, mtemki iodet otero aemr btgebo ki la itkn 3. sepu bit omspu ojlien bdimec, hiim kon, aemr ki cireb oknct lodih mseretio at ario drji mjid jl liqwei bjrki omdino. pesj mesht ainne wrik loctebb bbit omheqqim apile iem ahd esjo aht, amr osepu kon, eoseeo at ocgido"` AnyWUN with knowledge of Hebrew care to comment?!

Surface analysis/prognosis in WMO FM46-IV coding. (This is NOT 5 figure offline encryption). Since this is one of the few stations left transmitting this code a brief summary of how it works follows.

The broadcast speed is normally 23 wpm for items a. and b. rising to 28wpm for c.

WMO FM46-IV

WMO FM46-IV International Analysis Code aka IAC Fleet, being the abbreviated form of FM45-IV for marine use.

`65556`	`11188`	`01000`	`00036`
`99900`
`83010`	`33040`
`83014`	`32803`
`83014`	`34822`
`85022`	`33915`
`99922`
`44012`	`33850`	`33845`	`33840`	`33340`	`33135`	`32530`	`32029`
`44016`	`34050`	`34345`	`34140`	`34135`	`34030`	`33826`	`33528`	`33228`
	`33125`	`32522`	`32021`
`44016`	`32005`	`32505`	`33004`	`33300`
`44016`	`34500`	`34705`	`34810`	`34815`	`34620`	`34725`	`34730`	`34835`
	`34740`	`34645`	`34850`
`44020`	`33520`	`33315`	`33510`	`34011`	`34318`	`34021`	`33520`
`19191`

`65556`	Prognosis follows (if 10001 is a Surface Analysis)
`11188`	Position groups in form QLaLaLoLo LaLa = latitude LoLo = longitude Q = quadrant. In this case = 3 means North latitude, 0-90 East. 111xx usually seen as 333xx.
`0 10 00`	DTG UTC for observed data used as basis - 10th/0000z
`000 36`	Nr of hours to be added to previous DTG to obtain valid prognosis time. - 36 hrs.
`99900`	Pressure systems follow
`8 3 0 10`	Trough 1010mb at	`33040`	30N 40E
`8 3 0 14`	Trough 1014mb at	`32803`	28N 03E
`8 3 0 14`	Trough 1014mb at	`34822`	48N 22E
`8 5 0 22`	High 1022mb at	`33915`	39N 15E
If the second digit in the 8xxxx string is 1 a Low is indicated. Third digit in the string is 0 – pressure character - no specification.
`99911`	Frontal systems - not used this msg)
`99922`	Isobars follow
`44xxx`	These groups indicate pressure (xxx) of isobar followed by a number of positions through which that isobar passes.
`19191`	Signifies end of message.

Thanks to John for compiling the two frequency lists and Day for the rest of the article.