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

(Date: Sat, 02 Oct 2004 16:39:51 +0000)

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Morse stations

MX

"P" experienced some problems on 5982 kHz on 16 Sept. It transmitted "PW" for a while. The marker was regularly interrupted by messages from RDL.

The "L", "R" and "V" markers were audible throughout the month on their usual frequencies.

All cluster beacons have been heard in September, some daily, others only a couple of days.

M21

Active on 4811 and 6978 kHz. Station id "8".

=992000??8?????
=992001??8?????

M22 update

A 4XZ update was received from Fritz. Before we kick off, I have two remarks with regard to the update:

• It is believed that like many other countries, Israel is using the CW station as training and backup facility.
• Re the Central European remark in Ad.1: There are rumours that 4XZ is using the Russian relay center in Khiva, but this has never been confirmed, not officially and not by df's.

Ary

The update.......

4XZ is - officially - operated by the Israeli Navy in Haifa. Whether this really is the case may be questioned however. Its workload is evenly distributed and there are no fixed schedule transmissions for weather like those of CIS Navy. It is hard to believe the Israeli Navy uses an outdated and slow protocol like the WMO FM46-IV.

ENIGMA named 4XZ M22 and E2K published the last profile in January 2003. WUN's profile appeared in N&O Nr.14 in 1999 with an update in December 2002. 4XZ did not change its habits for years. Some additional and updated observations follow here. I used my own loggings and those in N&O. Ary Boender kindly delivered his valuable old 4XZ logs.

1. Transmitters and frequencies

It is not clear, whether all transmissions originate from Israel. Some simple comparisons of propagation would support this assumption for Central Europe. 4XZ operates 2 broadcasts in CW. Traffic seems to be completely software controlled. Speed is adapted if time is running short, frequencies sometimes vary up to 2 kHz.

Actually the following schedule is 24/7 in use:

• Broadcast 1:
  2800//4241//5159//8103//10046//12984
• Broadcast 2:
  2680//4331//6379

This is a set of standard frequencies. Additional frequencies sometimes show up for days/weeks and replace or complete the set. They may be used again after many years or may be „new“. Only once however I have seen a time coincidence - the same frequency was used for 3 days again the following year. 4XZ uses Radio Amateur bands as well, but reluctantly disappeared upon complaints.

This rough graphic shows the development of 4XZ's frequencies. Only regularly used frequencies are mentioned. 4XZ kept the low frequencies over many years, but abandoned all regular frequencies above 12984 kHz in Jan. 2001. A compilation of nearly all frequencies logged so far is available on request.

2. Transmission formats

Both broadcasts use the same formats. Around 9 out of 10 messages are encrypted 5LGs, weather 5FGs and service messages are very rare catches.

2.1. Idling format

2.2. Traffic formats

2.2.1. Traffic in offline encrypted 5LG

= = nr 2701 xi v dn8i 009092 ed4k gr 73 = = 5LGx37
= = nr 2701 xi v dn8i 009092 ed4k gr 73 = = 5LGx37 (repetition)
= = nr 2701 xi v dn8i 009092 ed4k gr 73 = = + +

Every 40 groups: = = aa gr 04 = =, = = aa gr08 = =, etc

2.2.2. Traffic in Hebrew(?) Morse

= = nr 7701 qc a colc 439092 fw8i wnc = = FLG with punctuations
= = nr 7701 qc a colc 439092 fw8i wnc = = FLG with punctuations (repetition)
= = nr 7701 qc a colc 439092 fw8i wnc = = + +

2.2.3. Surface analysis/prognosis in WMO FM46-IV coding

= = nr 6701 qc z wt6d 038092 ks5x wnc = = 5FG
= = nr 6701 qc z wt6d 038092 ks5x wnc = = 5FG (repetition)
= = nr 6701 qc z wt6d 038092 ks5x wnc = = + +

Weather messages are sent about 5 Wpm faster than the other formats.

2.2.4. Service messages

re4p re4p re4p QSL nr 261 = = + +
ow7e ow7e ow7e nr 5011 to 8011 , 4111 to 7111 QQL = = + +

2.2.5. Interruption of traffic in process

sri sri sri vvv de 4XZ 4XZ vvv de 4XZ 4XZ = = + + nw QTC 1 nr 896 (new msg)

These messages interrupt traffic at any time; even right in the middle of a 5LG. The concerned message is repeated later on. As service messages are very rare I could not discover, why the transmissions have been stopped. Wrong sequence? Faulty transmission? Urgent message to follow?

3. Traffic load

The monthly amount of traffic is evenly spread and quite stable.

4. Message preambles

For further investigation it doesn't matter whether the whole preamble is sent in reversed order or only parts of it (which is unlikely).

The service messages do refer to the two LLFL groups. One may assume they contain encrypted information about sender and addressee, which is changed daily. Otherwise there would be many Thousands of addresses and this is unlikely. Both groups are split into LL and FL elements. Very often one of these elements can be found the same day in the second LLFL group. My database of 4XZ preambles is not big enough to tell more about the repetition rate of these two groups.

Only 4XZ broadcasts encrypted addressees. All Navy stations I know about use „normal“ QRAs, even though we cannot assign them to a certain ship. I would be surprised, if 4XZ indeed belongs to the Israeli Navy.

In this connection it would be interesting to learn more about the contents of those Hebrew Morse messages. All my amateurish attempts to translate character by character with several Hebrew alphabets failed pitiful...

Fritz

M89

Chinese naval stations with their typical call-up observed by Attu and Deka:

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