Introduction to Monitoring Russian Military HF Frequencies

I have heard more Russian activity on the naval aviation (11354) and Air Force (11360) frequencies this afternoon. I've actually been using my Tecsun PL660 and homemade passive loop in the kitchen while baking a cake! I am starting to get my head around the numbers and, once you learn the pattern, it's not too hard to grasp. The best site I have found for learning is here. You will definitely need a tape recorder. I have a few in the shack, but for portable ops like this afternoon I use a small Sony one with a 30min tape. It was only 50p at a tabletop sale and has given me hours of deciphered messages!

But even if you think learning Russian numbers is out of the question, you can easily learn to identify the Air Force Base callsigns. I will try and post a comprehensive list later if I remember, but for starters listen for these words, spoken at the beginning of transmissions:

"Ya Karsar, priyom"

This means:

"This is KORSAR, go ahead"

KORSAR is the callsign for Pskov AFB in NW Russia and about 99% of all the calls I've heard are to here.
DAVLENIE is the callsign for Taganrog AFB near Ukraine in SW Russia

At some point you will hear:

"Davlenie ya karsar priyom"

This means:

"DAVLENIE this is KORSAR, go ahead"

The aircraft serial numbers are given as either individual numbers. Eg

"syem vosyem syem pyat syem" (7 8 7 5 7)

or as compound numbers and individual numbers. Eg serial #78000:

syem-deesyat-vosyem (78)
nul nul nul (000)

At the end of the transmission I am hearing "das viagem" which I presume is something like  "Have a safe flight"......

SUCCESS!

I was looking at the Ilyushin IL76 production list just now and managed to find one of the serials I heard this afternoon. So the log details are:

16JUN15 11360.0KHZ USB Korsar wkg 78757 IL76MD Military Transport

Here she is:

New Russian Frequency Logged

I just changed my DX394 dial to 11193khz thanks to a call freq list Tony from the planesandstuff blog sent me, and lo and behold I heard some Russian voice activity followed by 4 selcalls. I was recording so played them back into MultiPSK and they decoded perfectly each time as FPCL a Transaero AL Boeing 777 EI-UNP recently arrived at Moscow on a flight from Anadyr, Siberia.

11193.0USB 15JUN15 1626UTC voice Ru and selcal FPCL tx 4 times (Transaero AL B777-300)

Monitoring the Russian Air Force

A friend of mine cuts out newspaper articles she thinks will interest me, and a few weeks ago she gave me one about a Russian Air Force Tupolev bomber that had penetrated UK airspace in Cornwall. Ever since, I have been fascinated by the idea of hearing the Russian military on HF and more recently I have some info on the planesandstuff blog and the UDXF yahoo group with freqs etc.

My first few catches have been on the 11mhz band:

11354.0USB voice 11jun15 1531utc caught the russian numbers 364 clg 362
11360.0USB voice 12jun15 0907utc "Davelenie (Taganrog air base), ya Korsar (Pskov air base), priyom (over) it actually sounded like "yakarsar" but a bit of playing around on google translator audio produced the Russian sounds "yakarsar" when I entered "I am Korsar" over in the English box.

As someone who studied linguistics and language at college I find this aspect of the radio especially enjoyable. Pity I chose Spanish and not Russian!

Now I have to start getting my head around Russian numbers.

I will try to keep my logs on the blog for a while in case it helps.

French Military Log:
8992.0USB voice 06jun15 0937UTC wkg Boeing C135 tanker #740 with selcal check on MSFL

more HF and MF Marine LOGS

22NOV14
1533 1650khz CROSS Gris Nez signal romping in on Tecsun 660 on the cliffs with my loop
2003 2182khz UNID ann. to QSY 1876 171x etc EE
2003 1713khz Vestmannaeyjar Radio, Iceland Icelandic. Excellent signal. PL660 and loop.

23NOV14
1111 16528khz Amateur Radio QSO onboard ship with another ship's captain
HJ    16540khz numerous conversations on this intership channel

26NOV14
1149 22720khz Olympia Radio Greece with press bulletin for mariners in Gk
1600  8728khz  Monaco Radio FF/EE schedule

29NOV14
1741 8183khz interesting conv between SS Fisherman mentioned 50 canisters of Pescadilla 
                       (Whiting), 5 canisters of "Tupo?" and Barcelona plus the weather forecast
1800 4405khz Istanbul Radio too weak to copy but scheduled WX broadcast in EE //8812 13128
                       (later in week heard 13128 at 1000UTC good EE signal but impossible to understand!)

HF Marine Logs and MF Marine Logs

20NOV14
0610 4369khz Mobile Radio (Alabama) High seas weather bulletin
0635 1680khz Floro Radio (Norway) end of bcst/Norwegian
0709 1677khz Machichaco Radio nav wng re the Muros and Noia Estuary Light (Galicia)

19NOV14
1649 2182khz Cruiser Sunseeker 115 (callsign MCBA) wkg Ostende Radio in a flap about his DSC radio test!

21NOV14
0652 HF channel 803 activity heard in unid language 8725khz/8201khz
1010 8764khz USCG Chesapeake (Virginia) weather bulletin
1141 8707khz simplex conversation (sounded like a ship to ship with engine noise.....

22NOV14
1333 12365khz Charleville, South Australia with marine weather

MF Marine Logs and HF Marine Logs

10NOV14
0633 2182khz Rogaland Radio announcement to QSY wkg channels
2133 1704khz Lyngby Radio (Skamlebaek tx)
         1734khz Lyngby Radio (Blavand tx)
         1758khz Lyngby Radio (Skagen tx)
         2586khz Lyngby Radio (Ronne tx) all good sigs nav wngs EE and Danish

14NOV14
1939 2720khz Witowo Radio WX EE and Polish
1943 2656khz Rome Radio (Ancona tx)
         2680khz Rome Radio (Cagliari tx)
         2719khz Rome Radio (Porto Torres tx)
         2624khz Ome Radio (Trieste tx) all with comp generated voice weather bcst

15NOV14
1440 13101khz Tallinn Radio sig booming in "this is Talinn Radio listening 8237, 12254 and 16477khz

17NOV14
1433 2182khz Tallinn Radio with ann.
1433 3310khz Tallinn Radio EE and Estonian gale warning

19NOV14
0633 1665khz Tjome Radio EE nav wng "we have no traffic on hand"
0635 1641khz Torshavn Radio (pro "Torshung") with nav wng for a new light Danish Lighthouse list #6584 established at entrance to SANDS harbour N61 49.84 E006 48.30 signal weak but mostly readable using DX394 and homemade 30cm passive loop pointing north)

Medium Wave MF Marine Logs

03nov14
0533 1704khz Lyngby Radio
0603 2182khz CROSS Corsen
0623 2761khz Ostend Radio ("listening 2709 and ch16")
0703 1698khz Finisterre Radio (weak)
0703 1707khz La Coruna Radio (weak)
0703 1677khz Machichaco radio (strong!)
1912 1743khz Stornoway CG
1935 2182khz Witowo Radio
1935 1755khz Palma Radio
1935 1767khz Cabo de la Nao Radio

05nov14
0633 2182khz Valentia CG
0710 2182khz Shetland CG
0730 2226khz Aberdeen CG
1910 1880khz Falmouth CG (barely perceptible copied only 15secs of bcst!)
1950 1925khz Rome Radio (computer generated voice bcst - weak)
2010 1883khz Belfast CG
2103 1888khz Civitavecchia Radio (computer generated voice bcst)

07nov14
1933 3673khz Netherlands CG (superb signal and ID)
1933 1650khz CROSS Gris-Nez

08nov14
2106 2656khz Ancona Radio (comp generated bcst good signal but QSB)


I have put these logs in particular on the blog from my logbook as there is so very little information on the net about maritime MF/HF broadcasts and as an Island nation I am guessing there are many of you out there who might be interested in side of the hobby. 73 Adam