Thirtieth edition of the N&O column / Spooks newsletter

(Date: Wed, 01 Nov 2000 22:16:15 +0100)

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Voice stations

Chinese stations

Igor reports Chinese activity on 13210 kHz at 2032 UTC on 24/9

Message read by a woman in Chinese:
370 370 370 this is 138 138 138 (rptd 5 minutes )
nr 107 gr 9
8642 3668 3820 0552 9400 9558 5774 3239 0229

V08

Joerg checks in with an interesting log. During the past few years, both E09 and V08 have been df'ed from various locations and were pin pointed near Alexandria in Egypt. Reading Joerg's log, I wonder if they are using the facilities of the voice of Africa in Abis???? Abis is a SW facility near Alexandria.

Here is Joerg's report:

« Here is what happened on 11/9 after 1800 UTC on V8 frequency 6648 kHz:

V8, 11/09/00, 1800-1809 UTC, E9 music, female voice, modulation ok. Carrier stayed on, after a short break a usual radio program started which lasted until 1819 UTC, carrier disappeared at 1828 UTC. I think the program was in Farsi. Iran and Khatami were mentioned. I checked IRIB on 15084 kHz but that wasn't a parallel frequency.

In March a V8 transmission was directly followed by a song but only for 20 sec I think. Then it was switched off. This time they needed 9 min to switch off the carrier after they had realized that a wrong program is broadcasted. »

Three note oddity [G04]

Hans Friedrich with a double edition -September & October-

Message :

36526 40551 80564 80284 45532 73635 41518 14307 14386 56082 46288 43103 68041 64562 82041 07811 40712 40671 83502 81811 35271 08641 43406 51201 87845 38818 23438
= 27 groups

Remarks :

No "9".

Quite confusing: First the other message on August 13th and 20th, and then the August message on September 03rd.

Message :

50201 70501 70058 84147 44350 75404 84657 16453 13377 23474 37705 41547 68082 15817 58751 27246 28642 64318 78335 73187 04708 60482 74836 80370 71847 57751 66720 24074
= 28 groups

Remarks :

No "9".

History :

Albanian station?

DC sent me an interesting note. On 6 September at 18.43 UTC, he heard a net where Shiptari (Albanian) was used. The frequency was 5190 kHz LSB and the messages consisted of groups of numbers.

I wonder what he may have heard, Albanian military, Kosovo militia, or what....??? Thanks for the report, DC.

Israeli intelligence [E10]

The not-so-usual E10 stations Hotel November Charlie was copied. The transmision was on 2 Sept at 00.17 UTC and started possibly at 00.15 UTC. It was switched off at 00. UTC.

A recording of the transmission can be downloaded from:

• http://www.cvni.net/audio/2000-09-02-0017-6575U-E10a.wav
• http://www.cvni.net/mp3/2000-09-02-0017-6575U-E10a.sw.mp3

A frequency for PCD that wasn't in the logs data base yet was also discovered : 8805 kHz at 1700 UTC on 8 Oct. This frequency is probably often not audible because Monaco Radio transmits on 8806 kHz

E11

E11 uses 183 at present on 9950 kHz 1300 UTC Tuesday. Regular transmissions at 1630 UTC daily and 0800 UTC Saturday are still running. 1630 UTC on 7256 kHz, ID 287 and 0800 UTC on 9272 kHz. ID 624.

The station can be heard from 0630 to 1400 most days, also possible transmissions at other times during the day. Still mainly null transmissions. 503 has changed sked to 0745 on Tuesday on 10720. Still always a null message. This sked time and frequency is sometimes used to send messages to other Ids, in this case 503 does not appear.

It has also been sending strange messages with GC 31 to 37. Each message starts 77777 77777 and ends the same.

Lincolnshire poacher [E03]

Axel Kruse posted new ID lists per 1 and 15 October

New IDs of "Lincolnshire Poacher" as of October 1

New IDs of "Lincolnshire Poacher" as of October 15

E07, G07, M12, S07, V07, XPH

Hans-Friedrich wrote an article about the Russian 1B family which can be of interest for the analysts amongst us. Thanks HF; the floor is yours..........

A month with family 1B
- by Hans-Friedrich Dumrese

During my vacation in August 1999 I had the opportunity to listen more often than usual to the broadcasts if the Russian Ib-family (according to ENIGMA). At present the following stations of this family are active:

• E07 ends 000 000
• G07 German Lady, ends "000 000 Ende" (ex "Nui Noichen")
• M12 5f < 000 000
• S07 Russian, ends 000 000
• V07 Spanish, ends 000 000
• XPH Polytone

For this article I've used the excellent logs posted to the WUN and Spooks mailing lists. Here is the basic data:

Here is the table of the days of August vs. the days of the week (DoW):

It is a clear indication that the activity decreases drastically on Saturdays and Sundays. This indicates an (European/Christian?) weekend mentality of the people involved.

It appears that most transmissions take place early in the morning or late afternoon into the evening. The reason for this could be that the recipients have to listen to the messages before or after their official working day.

- Following the table DoW vs. UTC:

Take a look at Monday, 20.00 UTC. You can see that the organization must have at least 4 transmitters (for E07-174, V07-074, G07-103, and S07-915)

- Specification of all frequencies used in August 1999:

All frequencies with the exception of 12521 kHz were in the Fixed Bands. A very ITU loyal broadcaster :-)

- An analysis of the SNs shows the following results:

1. For August 1999 13 different message pattern could be determined:

2. The transmission pattern is x, x+20min, x+40min for a real message or x, x+10min for a 0-message. (XPH transmits x, x+20 for a 0-message, too). If the message lasts more than 15min (20min slot ./. 5 min preamble) the following transmission begins at the next full 5 minutes (x+25, 30, 35min ...).
3. In the following it's specified, to which station each SN belongs, at which times and on which frequencies it was transmitted, which message scheme was used, whether it has rising or falling freqs, and whether there is a relationship between SN and the 100 kHz- digit of the frequency (SN-Frequency-Relationsship = SFR)

For the following analysis of the message pattern the SNs, which transmitted only 0-messages, were omitted. So far the message pattern of XPH's SN 645 and 692 couldn't be determined, so that also these SNs were not considered.

Once again the message patterns:

What can we detect?

• for the messages of M12 (with exception of pattern D), for G07 and S07 there is a relationship between pattern and day of the week:
  A - Monday
  B - Tuesday
  C - Wednesday
  E - Saturday
  ...
• Pattern D of M12, E07 und V07 (as well as XPH) repeat their messages on another day.
• For most pattern a correllation between pattern and SN exists:
  B - 749
  E - 658
  F - 446
  G - 555
  ...
  Only the patterns A, C and D have several SNs:

• From the higher frequencies you can conclude that 963 has a more distant target area than 135, 257, 658, and 749. The same applies to 555.
• 785 with D-message at 2100Z is puzzling as well as the long F-messages of 446 on 15-17 MHz.

Let's take a look on the GCs:

Note: M12 is less active than last year.

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