Forty-fifth edition of the N&O column / Spooks newsletter

(Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2002 11:46:09 +0100)

Voice stations | Morse stations | Other modes
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Voice stations

Lincolnshire Poacher [E03]

An Al Kruse special this time. Al compiled the id's and the current E03 schedules. Thanks for your help, Al. Much appreciated.

E03's id's in January. First half of the month.

Second half of the month.

Cherry ripe [E04 / E03a]

Cherry Ripe's transmissions are most likely beamed to China and/or other countries in the Far East. The station transmits from Guam and has a morning and evening schedule. The schedule for the Far Eastern evenings starts at 1000 UTC and continues at 1100, 1200 and 1300 TC.

The morning schedule starts at 2200 UTC and continues at 2300, 0000 and 0100 UTC. Here is their current schedule.

Thanks for the additions, Tomonori.

E07

Gert sent this update to ENIGMA :

"E07 can also be heard on Fridays at 0610, 0630, 0650 UTC. Frequencies in December were 6934, 8103, 9368 kHz; a new slot? So, now there is a Mon/Wed 2100/20/40 UTC slot and a Wed/Fri 0610/30/50 UTC slot. The frequencies change each month. Is the Mon 0600/20/40 UTC slot still in use??"

If anyone has more info about the E07 schedules, please write!

Israeli intelligence [E10]

It has been a very interesting month for E10 monitors. Lots of odd id's were heard during a couple of days. I wonder if this was an exercise or for real.....

Tomonori, Adachi, Takashi, thanks for being my ears in the Far East and thanks to all you WUNderful people for chasing the E10 oddities.

So, what have we heard since Christmas?

I discussed E10 with Tomonori who is a keen monitor in Japan. We talked about ABC and the fact that a number of calls switch from one frequency to the other. The latter was new to me, so thanks again for the tip, Tomonori san.

Who/what is "ABC"? It was suggested that this call is used for test transmissions. However, it seems to be quite often on the air, always on the same frequency, and always at the same time. There is one strange thing about ABC; no-one has ever heard a message or string. Just "ABC" is being transmitted. This fact could indicate that ABC is indeed a test call. The current frequency is 6428 kHz. Before December, also 7605 and 13555 kHz were used. The time slot is between 1400 and 1700 UTC.

ABC logs on 6428 kHz: 28 Nov, 4, 16, 24, 25, 31 Dec, 3, 8 and 9 Jan. ABC was also heard on 17 Oct on 7605//13555 kHz.

CIO, KPA, MIW, SYN and VLB regularly change frequencies. This only happens when there are no messages, in other words when suffix "2" is being sent (KPA2, SYN2, etc). The following changes were noted lately:

The increased E10 activity in January triggered the interest of a number of new monitors. One of the questions that I received was about the format. This is the full transcription of a E10 transmission to "ULX" to give you an idea what to look for. The station uses a female synthesized voice.

"ULX" repeated for 5 minutes
message message
group 32 group 32
text text
MHBGN ZNTNO BOOHB BGJTP HKPHZ SXYHQ VRHOW UOXCT QPDRE ZTVYX
JNUDI AXXIL WVPKV IJROB IHPPL USSUK CKQGS USDHS SMLLM JSHNF
TXWJW OYDHQ FOVEK PFQKI EKVTD YIAVP APRJU NEXQM UFLQA NNYGU
APPJN RMOEF
end of message
repeat repeat
message message
group 32 group 32
text text
MHBGN ZNTNO BOOHB BGJTP HKPHZ SXYHQ VRHOW UOXCT QPDRE ZTVYX
JNUDI AXXIL WVPKV IJROB IHPPL USSUK CKQGS USDHS SMLLM JSHNF
TXWJW OYDHQ FOVEK PFQKI EKVTD YIAVP APRJU NEXQM UFLQA NNYGU
APPJN RMOEF
end of message
end of transmission

E11

E11 has changed its schedules and is now on Thursdays at 0800 UTC on 10125 kHz, and on Fridays at 0800 UTC on 11116 kHz. <info CR, Paul>

E15

Except for several 14000 kHz logs, we haven't heard much from E15 during the past months. The station is however still active on more frequencies. The following logs came in from Leif, Mike, CR, and one of our friends in Central Europe.

Queen David Lewis (QDL) was heard on 22 Dec. at 0830 UTC on 14728 kHz.

QDL QTC QTC NR3 NR3 GR01 GR01
JDHAX ILJZM XRKGK LNIRI WJAKB DJKXH QPWQV LRPZW PNJDQ VIXLF
AR AR

Otto Susan Susan (OSS) was up on 20 Jan. at 1237 UTC on 11170 kHz.

OSS QTC QTC NR2 NR2 GR01 GR01

Frank Young Peter (FYP) came in with a good signal on 9 Dec. at 1400 UTC on 14000 kHz.

FYP QTC QTC NR1 NR1 GR01 GR01
AYWRL FPSGN GXJXD DUUYH QHBLU STNTV PGRKR YAEOC EUSHO JMKRQ
AR AR

Mike caught them on a bad day (23 Dec.) and says "I couldn't have made this saga up. They did not have a very good day to say the least, I've heard minor problems in the past but this has to be the best, on the tech side. On the operating side the use of RITA rather than ROBERT, after going "live", followed by frantic op-chat has to be a classic."

Sunday, 23 Dec. 2001, 1055-1130 UTC, 18000 kHz.

Calls:

• Nancy Adam Susan (NAS)
• Peter Adam Rita (PAR)
• Baker Edward Charlie (BEC)

Mike continues his comments: "This must be the longest transmission ever made by E15, one must applaud their valiant efforts and devotion to duty, tears of laughter were running down my face by the end of this little episode."

Sunday, 23 Dec 2001, 1628-1636 UTC, 6715 kHz. Call: Nancy Adam Susan

Sunday, 23 Dec. 2001, 1730 UTC, 5834 kHz.

E25

"Hello E25. How are you? Haven't heard from you in ages. Please let us know if you are still up and running. Thanks!"

Wish it was that easy to get a confirmation :-)

Egyptian based E25 hasn't been reported since May last year. If anyone has some info about the whereabouts of the station, please write!

Robert Ryan-Silva <rob@ryan-silva.com> mentioned the station in his e-mail to the Spooks list recently:

"For three years until August of this year, I lived in Egypt and was cruising the dials there. When reports of first E15a and then E25 surfaced, I did not pay much attention until I saw speculation from Simon Mason that the signals might be of Egyptian origin. So I tuned in, and recorded the broadcasts pretty regularly for a while.

The broadcasts came in very clearly from Cairo, to the point where I could hear the announcer shuffling papers and hitting the table. Early E25 broadcasts started with about ten minutes of an Um al-Kalthoum song. Um al-Kalthoum is an iconic Egyptian singer, and the intent here seems to have been to identify the broadcast as Egyptian. The song was different each time, and was played for shorter and shorter periods and ultimately dropped entirely. The accent of the announcer is clearly Arabic ("rebeet" for "repeat," etc.). It all seems to point to an Egyptian source for the broadcasts.

The broadcasts were pretty amateurish and done manually. There are at least two distinct voices on the recordings I made, and probably more. The series 1111 occurs at the beginning of more than one broadcast. I found the timing of the broadcasts odd. They occurred in the middle of the afternoon local time. The obvious target, Israel, is in the same time zone as Egypt. Mid-afternoon would seem to be an awkward time to be copying numbers stations. (It was for me -I had to set up an elaborate system of timers and voice-activated recorders.) At the time, I did not want to say anything on the list because the Egyptians are hypersensitive about spies, and the security services are pretty omnipresent. I did not want to cause any problems for myself or the organization I worked for. But I have now left Egypt and all my personal effects have arrived here, so now it can be told.

I've put up a couple of E25 recordings at Muzak for Anoraks:
http://www.ryan-silva.com/muzak*

The files are large. Let me know if you have any trouble with them; I confess I did not listen to the MP3s all the way through. I have many, many more; if people are really interested I can see if I can find somewhere online to post them. With files this size finding a place to host them is nontrivial. -Rob"

Don't know what to looks for? Here is the format description from Simon's page and be sure to check Rob's website for sound samples.

Format

The transmission starts with an Arabic musical interlude lasting about 6 minutes. Next the male announcer repeats a series of forty 3 figure groups for 3 mins 45 secs. This is followed by "Message, Message, Message" and the announcer sends a series of 4FGs. "Repeat, Repeat, Repeat" is then sent and the message is repeated. Finally, the announcer sends a 3F identifier and the group count before signing off with "End of Transmission".

Sample

Musical Interlude (6 mins)
372 244 372 244 244 244 244 244 244 244 244 244 244 244 244 244
244 244 244 244 244 244 244 244 244 244 244 244 244 244 244 244
244 244 244 244 838 838 838 838 838
Message, Message, Message
1111 5191 3310 4397 7443 8970 3073 2874 3316 9804 1953 4668 7456
4017 1038 2841 3432 2059 2310
Repeat, Repeat, Repeat
1111 5191 3310 4397 7443 8970 3073 2874 3316 9804 1953 4668 7456
4017 1038 2841 3432 2059 2310
End of Message
247 20 247 20 247 20 247 20 247 20 247 20 247 20 247 20 247 20 247 20
End of Transmission

E18

E18 was on 9 Jan. up at 2245 UTC on 5130 kHz.
<info: Gert/ENIGMA>

G22

Gert reports that he has heard G22 on Thursday, 20 Dec. at 2300 UTC on 4014 kHz. He also copied the station on Thursday 17 Jan. on 4031 kHz at 2300 UTC with 186 - nr222 gc20 = 22256. <info: Gert/ENIGMA>

S04

S04 was Monday, 7 Jan. and Tuesday, 8 Jan. at 2245 UTC on 3373 kHz.
<info: Gert/ENIGMA>

S11a

Tentative schedules for S11a:

S11a reports for January:

I don't know if the one that I copied also belongs to a fixed sked. I stumbled over it when I was looking for an ALE signal on 9130 kHz on 24 Jan. At 0925 UTC this came up: VVV VVV VVV (ca 2 mins) /000. This was a M03 test transmission and when I revisited the frequency at 0948 UTC I just heard the final part of a S11a transmission.

Note:
"976" was an id used by M03. It is strange now the sked has changed over to voice, that it is sending messages. When it was morse it was always a null message.

<thanks for your help, CR>

S17c

What happened to S17c? Hardly any logs this month. A number of you have been looking for the station on a lot of frequencies but so far reports are scarce. S17c was heard on 3 and 5 Jan. at 1250 UTC on 9165 kHz.

The Buzzer [S28]

Jan Michalski reports voice traffic on 3-11-2001, between 1040 and 1120 UTC: long pauses (no modulation), "buzzer" with strong background noise, multiple insertions of 1000 Hz tone, and conversation: [male voice, in Russian] "Ya - 143. Nepoluchayu generatora"; [female voice] "Idyot takaya rabota ot apparatnoy". ("I'm 143rd. I don't receive the oscillator"; "That's what the 'Apparatnaya' is sending")

<info: http://www.geocities.com/uvb76/ >

V24

V24 schedules compiled by Takushi Ochiai

*) "5535" or "6635" are both used on this schedule

Unid

7070 kHz, date and time unknown, Russian male calling "731"

Voice stations | Morse stations | Other modes
Clandestine activity survey | Arabic aero | Moro islamic front
Intelligence news | Al Qaeda training manual | Logs
Index | NS NL Home