A new station called The French Woman (V23) has been very active lately. The station was first noted a few weeks ago and has been quite active at the time of this writing. It consists of a French female voice reading five-figure groups in AM. V23 is a variant of the ex-KGB stations as it uses the same callup format and signs down with 00000. The use of the French language has stirred some speculation as to where the message recipient is located. Signals have been very poor in North America. Some monitors in Europe report poor signals while others report good signals. It has been suggested that a possible transmitter location may be the Middle East.

The French Woman operates six days a week with skeds at 0900 and 1900 UTC. The 0900 skeds use 15840 kHz Mon/Wed/Fri and 10635 kHz Tue/Thu/Sat. The 1900 skeds use 11060 kHz Monday through Friday. Messages begin with a typical three-digit callup and messages range from around 80 to 95 groups in length. The station always signs down with 00000. It's worth listening for if you can catch it.

In other news, a House of Representatives committee will be taking a look into the NSA's Project Echelon. This is a spying network set up by our friends at the National Security Agency to listen in on all international telephone communications. It has also been speculated that all telephone calls worldwide as well as email is being monitored. According to the House's website, Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN) will hold hearings this fall on government surveillance programs including Echelon. Concerns have been raised that such surveillance programs violate the privacy rights of American citizens. The concerns were prompted by the recent news reports on Project Echelon. The whole story can be read at http://www.house.gov/barr/p_081699.html.

Now let's take look at last month's loggings:
4028 - Cuban YL/SS 5F msg in AM at 0512. (TS)
4479 - Cuban YL/SS 5F msg in AM at 0323. Bad hum on carrier & YL was overmodulated. (TS)
4506 - Cuban 5F cut # stn (1-0=ANDUWRIGMT) in CW at 0328. (TS)
6270 - E10 0100 USB //7760 ULX (JM)
6840 - E10 0100 USB John Maky EZI (JM) Good to see this once-busy numbers freq is still in use - Tom
7760 - E10 0100 USB ULX (JM)
8097 - Cuban YL/SS 5F number msg in AM at 0619. (TS)
10356- M22 0100 CW //14649//18482 4XZ in tfc (JM)
10446 - V2a 0300 AM 54932 65303 55191 (JM)
11545 - E3 1500 USB //14487//16084 rptg 35428 (JM)
12180 - V2a 0200 AM rptg 55533 65301 82301 (JM)
13452 - V5 0100 AM //15651 rptg 940 Grupo 101 (JM)
13750 - V13 1430 AM (JM)
13906 - 1235-1245 UTC AM synthezised female voice giving long list of 5F groups (RB)
14487 - E3 1430 USB //15682//16084 in progress (JM)
15651 - V5 0100 AM //13452 rptg 940 Grupo 101 (JM)
18481 - 4XZ in CW at 1514 w/ 5L msg. (TS)
21866 - E4 0100 USB rptg 32455 (JM)
Contributors: JM - John Maky, AR; RB - Radio Bob, North America; TS - Tom Sevart, KS

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