Thirty-seventh edition of the N&O column / Spooks newsletter

(Date: Sun, 03 Jun 2001 00:55:12 +0200)

Cuba update

Albert Hussein sent us a note about the current state of Cuban Military communications as observed by him. Thanks Albert, much appreciated!

CW nets

Recently noted daytime freqs are 5390, 7800, 7968, and 8075. Albert says that he hasn't heard any night freqs in months.

« Use of IDs is sporadic, though at least one net uses three letter calls. The whole lot changes frequencies occasionally, sometimes moving to previously used freqs. Transmitters are crap (buzz, drift, chirp). Most but not all traffic is cross band (or with out-stations too weak to hear). All traffic is hand-keyed with sloppy old Soviet style. Almost all traffic is 5-character mixed groups (5MGs) which include n-tilde (dah dah dit dah dah). I've only ever heard one or two Spanish plaintext radiogramas. The messages begin with a series of V's or long dashes to get the operator's attention, followed by NR xxx GR xx into the groups, then fills as requested by the recipient. I don't know which branch of the FAR (if any) operates these; at least some similar nets appeared to be associated with espionage operations in south Florida (the agents currently on trial in Miami); a good deal of CW traffic, most prominent being the net on 5257, suddenly disappeared when they were all arrested. On 3 May I heard a similar-sounding 2-station net on 20379 at 2230 UTC; this may have been Cuban diplo (though a bit late in the day for them), no IDs noted, and I haven't heard it since. »

Voice stations

« Currently active "babbler" air-defense stations are on 6529 and 6625 kHz. The former is noted with traffic almost every evening (2200ish UTC) lately, but the signals have been quite weak. The latter has been noted mostly with just an open carrier in the local mornings, sometimes very strong, sometimes not. I think this one has multiple transmitter sites in use. Keep an ear on 5688 and 5637 also; I haven't heard them there in a while but they've been known to disappear for months then suddenly return. The maximum number of these stations heard at any one time has been four, so there may still be a couple of untraced active freqs somewhere. Some out-station traffic has been occasionally noted on both the 6 MHz freqs. »

See also Newsletter 39 for more about V02 and Newsletter 52 for more about M08/M08a.