sabato 20 settembre 2014

HackRFone

Just arrived the new baby!! Soon some tests and opinions..


venerdì 9 maggio 2014

sabato 3 maggio 2014

Stefanazz new upload on Recording Archive





M32a - Russian Navy - Black Sea Fleet, Sevastopol, Ukraine.

domenica 20 aprile 2014

Russian milcom on ukrainian border

An image taken from a video of a tv reporter:
You can easily see (despite of the resolution of the video taken from the inside of a car) a log periodic wire military antenna raised from / near a truck.


mercoledì 12 febbraio 2014

Egyptian MFA antenna systems. Yes, i love LP !

Our Egyptian friends are still using HF for MFA communications and is a plasure to know that this kind of service is still alive.. so.. let's have a look on the antenna systems!

Washington DC


Moscow (not the perfect setup on a tall building )

Ottawa

Paris

Prague

Rome (a wonderful villa!!!)

lunedì 20 gennaio 2014

EFR 129,1 khz

I was curious to decode the EFR signal from Mainflingen. An old idea about a well-know signal, but never decoded, maybe for laziness or time spent looking for something else. 
First of all, here you can find official info: http://www.efr.de/en/efr-system/

Here the three different EFR signals:


From the left:
Mainflingen
129,1 kHz
Burg
139,0 kHz
Lakihegy
135,6 kHz

Nice to see the (obiuvsly) identical sincro signal on all the transmissions.

Here the decoded signal:



sabato 18 gennaio 2014

9985 khz Siren Jamming

Catched on 9985 Khz Chinese broadcast with siren jamming. I'm looking for info about the AM broadcasting station.

Siren jamming waterfall

Audio here

sabato 11 gennaio 2014

Naked masts - part 2 - good news

Good news in the hunt for HF communication antennas on MFA's London roofs!

Bulgary:
a beautiful LP (ok, not perfect.. maybe a little bit aged.. but still in position ) and a cage dipole !

venerdì 10 gennaio 2014

Naked masts

According to the idea that embassies around the world are using Internet or Satcom Secure Communications for normal operations, i've decided to give a try to the old HF communications systems, looking around roofs of the most important and big embassies in London.
For sure today HF comms are in the rang of  "backup of the backup communication gear".. but .. in any case.. sad news for HF beloved big log periodics or dipoles..
A lot of embassy roofs are showing naked masts or nothing at all..
A recent example is che Chinese embassy. In the vertical picture of Gmaps you can see a big Log periodic, but.. in a streetview image or 2012, the naked mast!
Russian Federation roof was hided by trees... i was hoping in a little cage dipole system..
Here some pictures of diplomatic offices i was sure were communicating with HF systems until some years ago.

China - Vertical view

China - Streetview -Naked mast

France and Kuwait

Italy - Naked mast on the right

Japan - Naked mast

Korea - Naked big mast

Latvia

Swiss - Partially hided mast so no idea..






lunedì 6 gennaio 2014

domenica 5 gennaio 2014

Interesting Navtex

Sometimes I remember to give a look to my navtex receiver.. and sometimes you can find something interesting..

NNNN
ZCZC WL51
031547 UTC JAN 14
AVURNAV TOULON 016/14
PROVENCE
ON 11 JAN 14 FROM 0700Z TO 0859Z, GUNNERY EXERCICES IN AREA BOUNDED
BY:
42 40.0N - 006 04.5E
42 25.0N - 006 04.5E
42 25.0N - 005 54.0E
42 10.0N - 005 54.0E
42 10.0N - 006 40.0E
42 25.0N - 006 40.0E
42 40.0N - 007 09.1E. (ZONEX 53-55-56-61-62)
AND
ON 12 JAN 14 FROM 0800Z TO 0929Z IN AREA BOUNDED BY:
42 40.0N - 005 54.0E
42 10.0N - 005 54.0E
42 10.0N - 006 40.0E
42 25.0N - 006 40.0E
42 40.0N - 007 09.1E. (ZONEX 52-53-55-56-61-62)
CAUTION ADVISED.
CANCEL THIS MSG 120930Z JAN 14.



sabato 4 gennaio 2014

DSC Night and VirtualBox experiments


Hi folks!!
Following the idea to compare different DSC decoders, i've spent my insomnia time monitoring 2.187,5 khz.
(More and useful infos about this system: (http://www.gmdss.com.au/dsc.html)
Here my personal results.

DSC decoders used:
Krypto 500
Code 300-32
YAdD
Wavecom WCode (to be added)

Receiver:
Perseus with the same audio (coming from Vac) to all the decoders.
Each decoder set to the 1700 rtty note pitch of Perseus.

Troubles:
Code 300-32 ( my version) not really working with W7_64bit. Decided to try VirtualBox engine to run WinXp with Code 300-32. Surprising, it worked in a flawless mode catching the Virtual audio from my Perseus with its virual soundcard.

Example of decoded outputs for the same message:

Krypto500 output:
[DSC 04/01/2014 03:09] [Local time]
Format: Individual
Category: Safety
Destination: MMSI 636092531
Originator: MMSI 373005000
First Telecommand: Test Request
Second Telecommand: No Information
EOS: RQ
[CRC GOOD]

Code 300-32 output: [Local time]
FORMAT SPECIFIER: SELCALL individual
CALLED PARTY ADDRESS: 636092531 Liberia
CATEGORY: SAFETY
SELF IDENTIFICATION: 373005000 Liberia
TELECOMMAND: TEST
RECEIVE FREQUENCY/CHANNEL INFORMATION NOT INCLUDED
TRANSMIT FREQUENCY/CHANNEL INFORMATION NOT INCLUDED
RQ
CHECK SUM ERROR
DECODED AT: 3.09.51 04/01/2014

YaDD output (from its log section):
2014-01-04 02:09:50 [UTC correct time]  2187.5 373005000 , , -- Km [not set my position]
RX:2187.5
FMT:SEL CAT:SAF TO:SHIP,636092531 FR:SHIP,373005000
TC1:TEST TC2:NOINF FREQ:-- POS: -- EOS: REQ ECC: 73 ERR


Results:
Here (Decoding differencies) you can download a face to face little race between Code 300-32 and Krypto 500. There are some entries missing on both sides due to the noise disturbing reception. I'm planning soon a new test with all the outputs presented together adding W-Code to the decoding software.

Here (DSC_Log) the Code 300-32 complete log of the night.