Last month I commented on some E6 & E17 test transmissions I heard on 8157. On the 13th of August I found an open carrier on 6866 kHz, and within a few minutes I heard the YL/EE E17 voice come on repeating 989. Sure enough, it was yet another test transmission. The strange thing about this broadcast was that in between starting & stopping, there was an audio tone on the carrier. It's somewhat unusual for these Russian stations to use tones. They certainly don't use tones in their regular broadcasts, but this was obviously a test broadcast.

The message number used in this broadcast was 583, and there were 30 groups in the message. This has varied in the different test transmissions I've heard. It makes one wonder if they just pick a message number at random & use dummy message groups, or if they're actually using old message groups for the tests. Of course it's not really a smart idea to use actual message groups for a test broadcast.

It seems that recently I've heard more test transmissions from these Russian stations than actual message broadcasts.

Hugh Stegman of California (and editor of Monitoring Times' "Utility World" column) recently reported hearing an odd FSK station on 7984.6 sending random CW. It sounded as if someone had an old "bug" keyer and was practicing sending Morse code. The signal was also found later on 5345.42, 9084.6, and 9439.6 kHz, all simulkeyed. The signals seem to be active 24 hours a day. In fact, as I write this, 7984.6 and 9084.6, & 9439.6 are active with fairly good signals here in SE Kansas.

The signals appear to be some sort of random CW, but the dits & dahs don't form any coherent CW pattern. It seems more likely to be some sort of low speed data signal at around 18 baud. The 850 Hz shift used by the station is a popular frequency shift for RTTY signals. Also, it appears that the mark/space occasionally alternates. Most likely it is some sort of encrypted RTTY.

The other main question we have about this signal is, where are the transmitters located? Since the signals are strong in North America around the clock, it's a sure bet that the transmitter sites are located here. Speculation has the transmitters as being located on the west coast of the US, possibly at the NCS at Stockton, CA. Some crude DF bearings have been taken, but so far nothing has been conclusive. If only a few more DXer's could take some DF bearings we may be able to pinpoint the transmitter location. Unfortunately, I can't do that with my vertical or random wire antennas.

Heard any unusual signals? Drop me a line here and let me know about it.

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws

1