(Date: Thu, 03 Oct 2002 23:06:36 +0200)
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Our French friends "8BY" are daily active on these frequencies: 7668, 10248, 14930, 18415 and 20945 kHz with the well known messages such as "VVV 8BY 629/401/146/014/967/476/784".
A number of transmissions have been analysed by pro's (thanks OM!) and they come up with the following suggestions:
| See also Newsletter 54. |
Heard on 4503 kHz by Takashi. M18's signal sometimes makes it to Europe and I expect to hear it more often during the winter.
| See also Newsletter 54. |
Israeli Navy in Haifa (callsign 4XZ) was active on the following frequencies: 4241, 4331, 5159, 6379, 8193, 10046, 12984, 13892, 14495, 15878, 18329 kHz.
| See also Newsletter 56. |
I tried to compile a M23 schedule but I probably missed a number of schedules. Corrections and amendments are most welcome.
| Sun | 0100 | 11170 | 14329 | 310 | |
| Sun | 0130 | 10870 | 13400 | 555 | |
| Sun | 0200 | 7960 | 310 | ||
| Sun | 1500 | 14750 | 310 | ||
| Sun | 1530 | 14750 | 000 | ||
| Sun | 1700 | 14320 | 310 | ||
| Sun | 1730 | 13400 | 555 | ||
| Mon | 0600 | 7500 | 555 | ||
| Tue | 2030 | 9160 | 555 | ||
| Wed | 2000 | 9230 | 160 | ||
| Wed | 2030 | 9160 | 555 | ||
| Thu | 0100 | 11170 | 14320 | 310 | |
| Thu | 0130 | 10870 | 13400 | 555 | |
| Thu | 0200 | 7960 | 310 | ||
| Thu | 2030 | 9160 | 555 | ||
| Fri | 0100 | 11170 | 14320 | 310 | |
| Fri | 0130 | 10870 | 13400 | 555 | |
| Fri | 0200 | 7960 | 310 | ||
| Sat | 0100 | 11170 | 14320 | 310 | |
| Sat | 0200 | 7960 | 310 | ||
| Sat | 0330 | 14920 | 000 | ||
| Sat | 0530 | 9160 | 555 | (tentative M23) | |
| Sat | 1530 | 14750 | 000 | ||
| Sat | 1700 | 11170 | 14320 | 310 | |
| Sat | 2030 | 9160 | 555 |
| See also Newsletter 54. |
Although not as active as in the past, there is still some activity.
"S" seems to be the most active cluster beacon in the western part of Russia and "F" in the eastern part. Channel markers "L" and "R" are daily guests.
| See also Newsletter 54. |
| L9CC | 9266.5, 9436.9 kHz |
| L4FC | 9343.5 kHz |
| NH8T | 7300, 7310 kHz |
| See also Newsletter 54. |
| CH8N | 4766, 5011 kHz | Heard from 0415-1930 UTC |
| S8BD | 3337 kHz | |
| U4NP | 4902 kHz | Heard from 0415-1830 UTC |
Flash messages sent by the Russian forces:
| See also Newsletter 54. |
Sources:
Federation of American Scientists, RIA Novosti, various WUN members and other friends who want to remain anonymous.
Colonel Alexander Drobyshevsky told RIA Novosti that the Russian Air Defense has tracked 102,288 airborne targets in 2001, amongst them were 58,240 foreign aircraft, including 861 fighters and 297 reconnaissance aircraft. Russia's air space has been violated 325 times last year.
Shortly after World War II, Protivo Vozdushnoy Oborony (PVO) became a separate branch of the Soviet armed forces. PVO can be translated as Anti-Aircraft Defense.
After various minor changes, a major reorganization of the Soviet Air Force and Air Defence Forces took place between 1978 and 1980. PVO was reorganized in 1981 and its name was changed to Voyska PVO (Air Defense Troops). The Voyska PVO lost its separate command and control system in the reorganization and about half of the fighters and the majority of the flying training system was transferred to the Air Force.
As a part of a drastic reorganization in 1998, the Air Defense Force was merged with the Air Force. There are now PVO units with Head Quarters in St.Petersburg (St. Petersburg Military District), Rostov-on-Don (Caucasus Military District), Chita (Siberian/Trans Baikal Military District), and Khabarovsk (Far East Military District). The Moscow Military District has a mixed Air Force/PVO corps.
In the mid 1990's, Voyska PVO operated 20 Il-76 aircraft configured for airborne early warning and command and control, 380 MiG-23 and L-39 aircraft. It's troops manned ca 12,000 missile launchers at 1,400 sites in the USSR. The estimated numbers now are ca 2,400 launchers in some 250 sites in Russia.
Radio technical troops operate thousands of air surveillance, early warning, height finding, and fire control radars. They also man 6 large phased-array radars for ballistic missile detection.
Note:
In the past the air defense systems of the other Warsaw Pact countries were integrated in the Soviet network.
One of our correspondents in Japan reports lots of activity of the Russian Air Defense Networks.
Frequencies are: 4144, 4800.5, 5190, 5293, 5680, 5696, 5899, 6195, 6268, 6593, 6864, 7211 kHz.
Frequencies change often and a large number of them have been used during the past few years. Here is a compilation of the past two years.
2278 2317 2718 3213 3228.5 3271 3281 3314.5 3361 3363 3386 3430 3651 3802 3838 4013 4014 4015 4032 4071.5 4091.5 4096 4505 4552.5 4558 4559 4560 4574 4631.5 4802 4868 4885 4951.5 5015.5 5053 5141.5 5154 5181 5195 5201 5205 5221.5 5304 5313 5315 5367.5 5371 5372 5690 5730 5731.5 5752 5784 5788 5820 5872.9 5873 5877 5880 5920 5921.5 6218.5 6293 6321.5 6330 6864.5 6906.5 6979.5 6987 7071 7088 7095 7311.5 7373 7633 7857 7890 7910 7913.5 7950 7987 8104 8156 8701 8703 9164 9951.5 11096 kHz
Most of the tracking is satellite based now. Most but not all.... The morse stations that we can hear on HF proof that there is still some terrestrial activity. The HF morse systems are partly used as a backup for the satellite systems and, according to one source, they are also used for training purposes. Indeed, if you want to keep radar people on the ground up to scratch, this kind of reporting gets in a LOT of training for a lot of people (including morse).
During the cold war NATO used to fly aircraft parallel to the then Soviet Union borders to deliberately prod the radar tracking stations into activity. This was a good means of quickly recovering grid number changes in the plot messages that the tracking stations transmitted. This gave the NATO monitors a chance to figure out where to start. "How?", you say? Well actually it is not so difficult as it looks like.
Say you find a lot of tracks starting and finishing in the same place, then obviously there is an airfield there. From there it is just a matter of identifying which airfield. Once you have that, you have a fair idea where to start building your grid. Always a good place to start in the old days was Sheremetyevo Airfield in Moscow; callsign RFNV, on 11312 kHz. It is still there, and still active, though mostly on voice now. However, they famously give a weather at Hour+10 and Hour+40. It was a good station to keep an eye on because of all the aircraft were using it.....and as lucky aside, the Russian Long Range Bomber Force flew exercises on Tuesdays and Thursdays and some of them could be counted on to talk to RFNV.
Later on, the Soviets modernized their equipment which implied that the number of morse and voice transmissions decreased substantially. The new equipment had NATO designation G3C, or SWAMP. This system worked on the principle that the radar operator simply put a light pen on the
trace on his radar screen, and this was automatically transformed into a signal that gave the same information as a manual plot, but much faster. It was read automatically by the controlling station and again, plotted automatically on a master screen. Thus the controlling station had a very quick overall view of the sector it was responsible for. The signal was roughly built up as shown below.
Note: zero is transmitted as 'T'.
In the Soviet days the messages were longer than they are now, namely 22 characters vs 15 characters now. This automatically means that the layout of the message is now different than back in the yesteryears.
In the past you sometimes had to wait quite a while before you could copy a complete plot. This was caused by the fact that the info in the messages was shortened after it had been sent a couple of times. The first plot messages consisted of a number of codes representing:
Each track report starts with =00.
First an oldie:
= 00 1234 7214328 71 10 2315
= 1234 14329 16
= 1235 14329 16
= 34 14324 17
= 35 14324 17
The initial track report is signified by the "00". The track is designated by the particular tracking station (12) and by track (34 and 35). The track is identified initially as unknown (71), it is flying at a height of 10,000 hectometres (10), and plot is timed at 2315 local time.
In the next two lines, the full track idents are given, but to speed things up, the major and minor square numbers are dropped, as is height info.
In the next two lines, the tracks are abbreviated to just the track numbers, the minimum grid information, and the minutes part of the time.
Lots of variations have been used over the years. For instance, plots on busy stations being given as just the last two digits. Hostile, friendly, passenger. They used a number of digraphs, enough to cover just about every flying object.
Obviously it's an inefficient method of tracking, but it worked well enough to see Gary Powers shot down. It is said that the system is accurate down to about 1 kilometre. For security, once or twice a week the numbers of all the major, minor, and sub-minor squares are changed.
Now the modern 15-character messages. The samples were all logged during the past year. The main difference is that they don't start with =00 anymore. Also missing is the code for "friend or foe". The codes for the tracking station (2 digits), track code (3 digits), grid (7 digits), and the time (2 digits, minutes only) are still there. The altitude also does not appear anymore in the morse version, but can still be heard on the voice channels.
= 13 209 8131342 24
= 13 209 8134366 25
= 13 641 1765134 20
= 23 643 9010700 30
= 43 209 02245?? 29
= 10 117 1156181 52
= 41 351 13514?? ??
= 10 478 5410481 46
= 20 207 5011009 08
In between the track reports the PVO stations send time stamp messages. I am not sure what their purpose exactly is. Possibly nothing more than a station id plus the current Moscow time (UTC+3 or UTC+4). Because the number of digits needed for these messages are far less than the standard 15 characters, a number of question marks are filling the space.
There is apparently no standard layout for the time stamp message as several variations appear. They always start with =99. Despite the differences, the sequence of the items is the same: =99, time, id.
The variations:
=99?1312???????
=992156??0?????
=990030??6?????
=99?1310???8???
=99?0056?9?????
Although it is not confirmed yet, I think that the codes (0, 6, 8, 9) represent the four regional PVO head quarters; St.Petersburg, Chita, Khabarovsk, and Rostov-on-Don. The one without a code might be Moscow.
| See also Newsletter 54. |
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