Hundred eleventh edition of the N&O column / Spooks newsletter

(Date: Sun Dec 3, 2006 12:55 pm (PST))

Utility round-up

Central water commission

I received a log of a station that I haven't seen before. More detailed reports are most welcome.

7038 kHz USB: Central Water Commission in India . Various regional stations were reported on this frequency.

I found the following info on their website http://cwc.gov.in/

CWC's head office is located in New Delhi and it has 13 regional offices at Bangalore, Bhopal, Bhubneshwar, Chandigarh, Coimbatore, Delhi, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Nagpur, Pantna, Shillong, Siliguri and Vadodara.

"CWC is a premier Technical Organization in the country in the field of water resources since 1945 and is presently functioning as an attached office of the Ministry of Water Resources. The CWC is charged with the general responsibilities of initiating, coordinating and furthering in consultation of the State Governments concerned, schemes for control, conservation and utilization of water resources throughout the country, for purpose of Flood Control, Irrigation, Navigation, Drinking Water Supply and Water Power Development."

A note in an old JARL bulletin states:

"The Central Water Commission of India, is using 7038 kHz (USB and LSB modes) with more than fifty reporting stations,giving the levels of various rivers in the Gangetic basin."

SAQ

Martin Storli posted an SAQ announcement.

The next transmission with the old Alexanderson Alternator will take place on Sunday 24th December 2006 at 08:00 UTC on 17.2 kHz CW.

QSL reports can be given via:

E-mail to: info@alexander.n.se
or fax to: +46-340-674195
or via SM bureau
or direct by mail to: Alexander - Grimeton Veteranradios Vaenner,
Radiostationen, Grimeton 72, S-430 16 ROLFSTORP, SWEDEN

Note: SAQ is now a member of the Swedish Amateur Association (SSA) and "QSL via bureau" is OK. http://www.alexander.n.se/

Pirate beacons

4079.57 kHz Pirate temperature beacon 45F. Heard in Colorado, USA
4102.30 kHz Pirate beacon "W". Heard in Colorado, USA

EFR

Although it was announced some time ago, I never actually heard the new EFR transmitter in Hungary . Today (1 Dec) I copied EFR on all frequencies.

Company	:	Europäische Funk-Rundsteuerung GmbH, Berlin, Germany
Transmitters	:	Mainflingen (D)	129.1 kHz	c/s DCF49
		Burg (D)	139.0 kHz	c/s DCF39
		Lakihegy (HNG)	135.6 kHz	c/s HGA22
Mode	:	Inverted 200bd ASCII, shift 350Hz, 8 bits, even parity

Both German c/s are mentioned all the time on all freqs and every 30 mins the channel id is mentioned at the end of the message.

- Samples

Lakihegy:
DCF39/49 telegram #8: Fri, 01/12/2006, 11:29:32 Winter time, diff = +00:00:00 hPÿÿHGA22‚>h
Burg:
DCF39/49 telegram #3: Fri, 01/12/2006, 11:59:31 Winter time, diff = +00:00:00 h—ÿÿDCF39h—ÿÿDCF39Îh
Mainflingen:
DCF39/49 telegram #14: Fri, 01/12/2006, 12:29:21 Winter time, diff = +00:00:00 h·ÿÿDCF49ïh

Jim writes that a description and two pictures of the Hungarian transmitter site can be found on http://wissen.pirosearch.de/cgi-bin/search.pl?Query=Lakihegy

Thanks for the tip, Jim.