Monday 28 August 2023

Russian Navy Tactical Callsign 2 Logs

 

14552.0 : RUNY CW XXX XXX DU78 DU78 85509 KRUGLÄ K 331 331 UPSOPSIH ... 77K (23AUG23 1010) (AJT)

12461.0 : RUNY CW FBMC FBMC DE Y87S Y87S (28AUG23 0600) (AJT)

Using Tecsun PL660 and Telescopic whip 

50.5823° N, 3.4644° W

Friday 18 August 2023

More Russian Navy CW Monitoring with decode of SYNOP message

 As you may know I have been listening to the Russian Navy morse code messages on HF in my latest shortwave adventures. Last night I received a message from Yakov Grebelsky UCBC5 which was something like this:


UCBC5 .......SML FOR RCD88 RMB97.....17181 99568 10118 41598 71304 10170 40240 54000......

This is a routine weather observation which can be decoded by hand (eg 99568 means latitude 56.8 degrees north etc). In fact even just those two first sets will give you its lat 56.8N and long 11.8E in Kattegat.

But inputting these codes into metaf2xml will give you all the data including temperature, wind direction, pressure etc in a visually appealing and easily understood format.



This is quite an intricate area of shortwave that many may be unfamiliar with but keen to have a bash at, so hope this gives you inspiration! It's great fun. And CW, unlike SSB, propagates much better.


GL 73 Adam


Thursday 10 August 2023

Russian Navy Morse Code Monitoring on HF

 

Russian Navy Replenishment Ship "ELJNIA"


08784.0 : RUNY CW RCLH RPT (06AUG23 1815) (AJT)

08784.0 : RUNY CW RMP DE RBDF QSA? QTC K (07AUG23 1606) (AJT)

08784.0 : RUNY CW RBDF OK QR SK (07AUG23 1810) (AJT)

12464.0 : RUNY CW RBCS OK QYT4 QCMK (08AUG23 1448) (AJT)

08784.0 : RUNY CW RMP DE RBDF QSA? QTC K B48 J4 8 1800 SML (08AUG23 1608) (AJT)

08784.0 : RUNY CW RMP DE RCLH QSA? QTC K (08AUG23 1815) (AJT)

12464.0 : RUNY CW QYT4 QSX678 QWH1237 ..... (09AUG23 0954) (AJT)

14555.0 : RUNY CW UCTA5 DE RIW Moscow clg Ru Navy Replenishment Tnkr Eljnia (10AUG23 0845)

11000.0 : RUNY CW UCTA5 DE RIW QSL 592 K (10AUG23 1525) (AJT)

08821.0 : RUNY CW Naval Air Ground Station “S” Mkr (10AUG23 1730) (AJT)  

These are some of my recent logs from listening to shortwave stations for Russian Navy activity in morse code. I record the transmissions on a digital voice recorder and playback slowly. If I still can't get the code, I record that into my phone, and run it through an MP3 speed reducer app. It's easy then!

RMP is Kaliningrad and RIW Moscow. 

Lots of information can be found here at UDXF Utility Files Info

All this on just my Tecsun PL660 and it's own built-in whip


Monday 23 January 2023

Washing Up Bowl Micro Pond Oxygenating Plant - Watercress

 


The above are two photographs of my washing up bowl pond! It has been an enjoyable project and makes a nice feature in the garden. For year one I bought some Starwort online, and it did a super job of keeping the water clear and fresh. But by year 2 it was looking a bit sorry for itself. After reading you could use watercress from the supermarket, and as it was under £2, I decided to give it a try. You just buy the bag of salad watercress (the big-leaved stuff and not the "mustard & cress tiny stuff) and put it in the water, floating freely. There is no soil in my pond, but some pebbles, and I hinestly didn't think it would work. But it did, and it does, and within a few days the cress was forming healthy-looking roots and settling in nicely. Within weeks it was huge! And soon tall white flowers were towering over the frogs and pixies! I thinned it out to enable me to see the water. And now, 9 months later and the following January, it is still alive and the water crystal clear, despite one or two nights where the pond froze completely. I am confident, as the temperatures rise again in spring, that the cress will grow nicely again, but if it doesn't, a quick trip to Sainsbury's and I can get some more.



Thursday 21 July 2022

Crystal Scanner Oscillation Fault


This is a short video demonstrating the fault I have with my Swinburne Electronics CR600
airband receiver.

Initially it only displayed this behaviour on one or two channels and it was intermittent. But now it behaves like this permanently, which makes me think that perhaps a component in the crystal oscillator part of the circuit has failed. 

When I tune to the fundamental frequency of the crystal on a handheld scanner, there is an oscillation from both sets. But the working set continues to oscillate strongly as I move the scanner several feet or so away from the crystal circuit. The faulty radio oscillates only weakly and stops doing so only a few inches away.

Wednesday 8 June 2022

France ATC Sectors UAC and frequencies











For those of you living in the south of England and listening to VHF airband traffic over France I hope the above will be of some help. They are taken from the AIP for France on the 30th of December 2021 from section GEN 3.4. The AIP package is available to download for free from the SIA website but you need to create an account first and check out, even though the AIP package PDF file (approximately 1 GB) is free. 

As well as Brest UAC LFRR, there are frequencies listed for Paris, Bordeaux, and Reims. 

French ATC sector map is available here:

https://www.cypouz.com/article/150203/cartes-des-secteurs-controle-espace-aerien-civil-francais