-
.....
..
.. ~ ,, I ,Ij:, I I
eo/q" .11111101'0
.' ~ 60", 'I'I/es:of
-
SAVE$50 on the
M1 & 3000A+
30MHl 2G Hl (Cel lula, Bkxlncl ...., l"OO!>6 . ", ()S.fS6
0S1.~... P ..,
:2'03$-~? *'''' OS!'
-
CONTENTS
VoI.17, No.ll November1998 Making the Best ofApartment
Monitoring 10
By Dave CaWley
By Rimantas Pleikys
On November 29 , 1988. the Soviet Union cea sedjamming foreign
radio sta tions fo r the first time in 40years. Th is look hack at
the equipment and the stationsinvo lved in that effo rt is written
in dedication of the10th anniversary of its end .
A growing number of globe- trotting indi -viduals are joining
the rank s of ships, rov ingrepor ters, and intern ationa l
businessmen whoconduct their business on Inm arsat. It is we llwort
h the slightly extra effort req uired to pu llthese signals into yo
ur scanner to moni torthese global co mmunicat ions!
By Steve Doug lass
I had spent the last five years ge tting themon itoring post
just the way I wanted and now Ihad to tea r it all apart. But all's
we ll that endswell. No one would know that a miniature inter-cept
station is operating in the nondescri pt apart-ment next to them ,
and reception is almost as good as before the move.
New! Inmarsats and How to Hear Them 22
Jamming Wall 16
COl'er StolT
Inside Italy's RAIBy Jim Frimmel
On a recen t trip to Italy,MTs programming man agerhad the
opportunity to meet thefrie ndly staff at Radio Roma,RA l lnte
rnational. Come alongon a rare, qu ick tour behind thegates at RAJ.
The stationbroadcasts in 24 languages fromits transm itter site at
PratoSmcraldo . Story on page 8.
OUf cover pic ture is of avert ical curtai n anten na north-east
of Mosco w, similar tomany of the antenna arrays usedto jam
broadcasts from theWest. (Photo by BerndTrutenau)
Reviews:"Tank-to ugh " is how Magnc categorizes a
new DSP SW tab le-top from Germany. theKnc iser + Doer ing KWZ
30 (p. 90). Parn ass isequally impressed with the sturdiness of the
new
Alinco [)J -X l OT sca nner (p.n). Last mon thCatalano installed
the WR ISOllc software ra-dio ; this month he waxes poet ic over
its perfor-mance (p .94) and also plays with an Ir[)Amou se from
Selecte ch. Kiwa has producedits first "natural radio" detector ,
Ea r thSounds , put to the test by LF co lumnistKevin Carey (p .96)
.
-
EDITORIAL STAFF Correspondence tocolumni~ls maybe moiledc/o
f'/Ion ltoringTimes; any request for a replyshould Indude an
SASE.
[email protected]
Outer limits 77WBCO: Pirate Slolion Goes Legil
Below 500 kHz 78Tips From our Readers
KIS Radio 80Heathki/ GR-64 Res/oro/ion
Experimenters Workshop 82Automolic NiCd Cell Discharger
Antenna Topics , 84Why all the Noise abaul Noise?
On the Hom Bonds 86Wish lisl for a Hom's Chrislrnas
And More! 87Radio Shock's Easy FRS Radios
Ask Bob ,..,...,................................. 88The "Power
Tip'" Scam
Mogne Tests 90Kneisner+ Doering KWZ 30
Scanning Equipment ............................ 92Alinco
DJ-XlOT
Computers& Radio............................. 94WinRadia WR
1500. ; AirDalo Mouse
Review "" , 96Kiwa Eorth Monitor
What's New"." "". ,." " """".." " 97Letters """
.......................... 101Stock Exchange "", 102Advertisers
Index 102Closing Comments 104
The Frequency Lisl and Ihe Groin 015011
Freq uency Ma nager Gayle Von HamFrequency Mon itors David Dctkc
, Ma rk J. FineProgram Man age r . Jim Frimmel frimmel@storte leg
rom.camAmerican Band scan Doug Smith. W9WI [email protected]
More' . Jock Ell iott KB2GOM Iigh tkeeper@sprin tmo il.comAntenna
Topics W. ClemSmall. KR6A demsmo]@bilferrool.netBeginn e r' s
Corner T.J. Arey. WB2GHA tjorey@home .comBelow 500 kHz Kevin Carey,
W B2QMY [email protected] a nd Ra dio John Catalano
[email protected] Digest . Bob Evans revans
@totol.netExper imente r' s wkshp Bill Cheek [email protected]
.comFedera l f ile . Jo hn Fulford , WA.dVPY JO
[email protected]. Radio . Richa rd Arlond . K7SZ k7s z@juno
.netMogne Tests . Lawrence MogneMilcom . Larry Von Horn N5FPW
larry@grove .ne tOn the Hom Bonds Ike Ker schner . N3 1KOuter
Limits ... George Zeller / George .Zelle r@ocdin k.compes Front
Line .. ... Don Veenema n do [email protected] Talk . Jea n Boker,
KIN9DDProgr a mming Spotlight John Fiqliozzi , KC2BPU jfjg liol
@nycap.rr .comPropaga tion Jacques d 'Avignon [email protected]
Corner .. Gayle Von Horn goy [email protected] tSatellite Redic Guide
Rober t Smothers rob erts@nmia .comScann ing Equipme nt .. . Bob
Pcmcss. AJ9SScann ing Rep ort . Richard Barnett '. . 5conMas
[email protected] mSW Broadca sting Glenn Hauser .. . ghouser@hotmail.
comSW Broad cas t Log s .. . Gayle Von Horn .. . gayle@grove
.nelThe Lounch ing Pod . Ken Reitz, K54ZR. . ks4z r@compuse
rve.comUtility World . . Hugh Stegma n, NV6H [email protected]
from Above Lawrence Ha rris . . lc wrencehw ndi rect.co .vkWa
shington Whi sper s Fred Moio, W5YI fmoia@cwixma il.cam
DEPARTMENTS
Washington Whispers 4What's Behind Hom Reslrocluring2
Communications ....................... 6Scanning Report 26
That New Band to ScanU~lityWorld ,................., , 30
NCS: Swords intoSHARESDigitalDigest ,.,..,.._.._ 33
Digital Equipment OverviewGlobol Forum ,., _ 34
WBCO -An Aliemotive SW StationQSL Report _ 38
Adventist WorldRadioEnglish Long SW Guide , 39Prcpcqcticn
Conditions 60
Where to Listen on the BandsProgramming Sporlight .._ _ , 61
Tracking Ihe Global EconomyNew! Satellite RadioGuide
.....,......... 62New! The launching Pod 66
Learning to Love SatellitesBeginner 's Comer 68
Undersranding Radio WavesNew! View from Above 70
Keeping on Eye on the WeatherMi!com , 72
New USCG Air Stolion OpensPlane Talk , 74
Coming to Terms with Radar-2American Bondscan 76
Beverage Questions
MONI TORING TIMES(ISSN: 0889-5341;( PC IPN Sa les Agree -ment #
1253..4921ispublished month y byGrove Enterprises. lnc.,Brasstown ,
NorthCc rolioo , USA.
Owne rsBob and Judy Grove
judy@grove_ net
Disclaimer:Wh ile Monitoring Times makes o n effort toens ure
the info rmat ion it pub lishe s is ac cu-rate , itcanno t be he ld
lia ble for the con tent s.The reader assu mes a ny risk for pe rfo
rmingmodi fica tion or construc tion p ro ject s pub -lished in Mo
nitoring Times. O pin ion orco nclusions ex pressed are not necessa
rilythe view o f Monitoring Times o r G roveEnter pr ise s.
Unsolicited ma nus cripts a reaccepted . SASE jf mat eri al is to
be returned .
Art Dire ctorBelindo McDona ld
Pu b lis h e rBob Grove, W8 JHDbg rove @grove .ne t
Subscription Rotes: $23 .95 in US; $36.50Canad a; and $55.45
foreign elsewhere , usfunds. l a be l indicat es lost issue of
subscrip-tion. Seepage 103for subscription informotion.
Address: p_o_Box 98, 7540H;ghway 64 West.Brasstown,
NC28902-0098
Telephone: {8281837-9200Fox: (8281837-221 6 (24 hours}Internet
Address: web : W'WW'.grove-ent.com
or e-mail: [email protected] e-mail:
[email protected]: [email protected]
Copyr ight 1998. Periodica ls postage paid0 1 Bra sstown, Ne, a
nd ad ditional ma ilingoffices. Short excerp ts may be
reprintedwith a ppropria te credit. Complete arti clesmay not be
reprod uced without permissio n.
Ad ve rt is in g Svcs ,Beth Leinbach
18281 389-4007beth@grove_net
Ma na g in g EditorRachel Baughn, KE40PD
mted [email protected]
Postma ster :Send add re ss cha nges to Monitoring Times,P_O_Box
98. Brasstown, NC 28902-0098_
As sistant Edito rLorry Von Horn, N5FPW
2 MONITORI NG TIMES November' 998
-
Only Sony can turn your PC intoawatchdog of the airwaves with
the SonyRadio Frequency Scanner and CDROMfrequency database.Use Ilw
Sony ~ :I(li o Frequency Scanner wltl: PCInlerrace and he rOl'l'lIa
l'lwd about approaching\\mllier sys u-ms. traff:condit ions and
cmeracncysltuartous. YOII can ('H'II get inside infurmatinn
atSOlII(' or your ra\"l ll'lIe sporti ng events, TheSony
(:I)-~O.\ I gi\{'s ~"(H I {'(Isy tH.'n 'ss to listings of ~3
millionU.S. frequencies. lt makcs sGlll nillg fast- ::IIHI eas):A
unique bl-dlnxtlonal l'Cinlerrace lets you use yourPC 10 rn ntrol
all llw Sony ~adio Frequency Scanner'ssiandard lunr: ions. as well
as ns special rea III res.incllldil lg:. 20 pl'Ogl'armllahleSCil
llning ~allgcs. VIl'lnally' unllmiled ~lemory ami SKip Prercr('flce
Files. D' ita lmport and Expor]. lx-tween Scanner and PC ,I ,
earehahlc CD- ~Ol l databaseor 01('/,:1 million
U.s. rl'l'quencies.
IncludesICF-SC1PCScanner. CD-ROMandinterlace cable,
$349.95*
SONY
\\ \ \ w . ...ony.con vradioscunncr
1~ ..I " '1 101 1\ ,... 111.11 1. lr )~ l~~ ~ 1 :-;. " 1\ I'k ,
'II' 'lI il'~ IIi11\ II i ll o!' "'' i, a I r,lo!"III ;lIl"I \
liI'r, ,,,,,ft f,",p
To place ,III ol'deror 10 locale a IIt'alcl'IH', II ' you.
('
-
By Fred Maia, WSYIfmaia@cwixma il .com
What's Behind the Amateur Restructuring Proposal?It has been
nearly len years since the Ama-
teu r Service has been remodeled. In 1989. theFede ral Co
mmunicatio ns Comissio n (b'CC )completely rewrote the Amateur
Radio Serv iceRule s. A lot has happ ened in com municationstec hno
logy since then . Most everyone agree stha t it is time bring ham
radio up to dUIC.
The current campaign be ga n o n two fronts.f irst of a ll, sate
llite and au tomatic d igital tech-no logy has developed to the poi
nt where analogcom municat ions and manual tele graphy arcbei ng
replaced by more reli able modes. Forseve nty years, 500 kHz Morse
code was thecornersto ne of lon g distance d ist ress co mm uni-ca
tions. Now the CO
-
~J1 ~Let Grove silllplify your
holiday shopping!Do you kno w so meone who might be inte rested
in scanning, but
you do n't know what radio to selec t'! Let us help . We
recommend thepopular and potent Un iden Sportf.at hand-held. Fea
turing all themost popular frequency ranges (29-5 4, 108-174, 406-5
12, and 806-956 MH z, less ce llular), 100 memory
channels. rugged and co mpact. this scanner is afavorite among
spo rts fan s and publicSCANNERS safety moni tors alike.
We will inclu de a six-month trialsubscription to Monitoring
Times, thescanner ent husiast ' s favo rite magazine. and
the latest edition of Po/ice Call to provide thelaw enforceme
nt, fire, medical. and othe r exci tingmonit orin g frequencies
(speci fy state)!
All th is for only $ 199.95 (plus shipping), abarga in price and
a sure-ti re hit dur ing the gift-
giving season ' Order SCN 23.
For an inexpensive introductio n to wo rldw ideshortwave
listening , we recommend the newSangean ATS404 portable, featur ing
digitalselection of med ium wave and shortwavebroad casting
frequencies between 0.52-26 . 1MH z, and brilliant FM too !
Simple to operate, highly sensitive towea k signals, and
providin g exce llentaudio , this powerhouse will pull tho
sedistant stations into the clear ' And wewi ll throw in a
six-month trialsubscription to Monitoring Times, thelistener' s
choice magazine.
All for only $99. 95 (plus shipp ing) during the gift-g iving
season!Order RCV 6.
.. \.\ . ,MONITORING
TIMES
Whenyou order,
remember totell us the name
and address of therecipient of your
gift.
G~"""~rl!>lVE,In\,~;ru~"'-'-'GROVE ENTERPRISES,
INC.1-800-438-8155 US and Canada
828-837-92 00 FAX 828-837 -22167540 Highway 64 ' Vest Brasstow
n, NC 28902~1)()98
e-m ail: [email protected]. corn
November' 998 MONITORING TIMES 5
-
COMMUNICATIONS
The test certainly proved that DPRK ca nloft a signifi can t
payload, whe ther it' s anupper stage with a peace ful satellite or
aweapon with a range of 1.646 km.
There' s also little doubt that the test hasincreased tensions
in a region already close toarmed confl ict. South Korea is now
talk ingopenly about accele rating its own domesticrocket tech
nology development. and Japan istalking abo ut fundin g its ow n
spy satellites.
In a country \vhere a significant port ion ofthe population is
starving. it has caused theworld to wonder about North Korean
priori-ties.
Even if yo u believe all of North Korea 'sclaims. it did launch
a rocket over Japaneseterri tory without prior notifi cat ion and
didnot properly apply for a license for its trans-min ing frequ
ency - hardl y indica tions of apeaceful scientific satellite.
For a "nostalgic" taste of Cold War rheto-ric. see the Korean
Central News Agencywebsite at http://www.kcna .eo.jp/
- by Philip Chien, Earth News
Nov 16 -18: Boston, MASurveill ance Expo '98 will take place at
theHynes Convention Center in conjunctionwith Northeastern
University' s CriminalJustice Co nference, Seminars. exhibits.panel
discussions. Contact Securi ty andInvestigations Group, POB 20254.
Wash-ington . DC 20041 or Jim Ross at 800-US-DEBUG.
[email protected]
[email protected]. For hamfest det ailssee WTARC webpage:
hltp:llnonprolit.apex2000.net/ha mfestl
Nov 7: Odessa, TXWest Texas ARC hamfest; Contact Robe rtJordan
N5 RKN, 9 15-335 -7980 or
November 2: DX TestKLER-1300. Orofino.Idaho, will conductDX
tests betw een 0200 and 02 I5 EST,comprised of tones and Morse Code
IDs,using 5 kW non -directional. Reception re-portsmay be sentto:
Mr. Jeff Jones. Owner,KLER-AM. P.O. Box 32. Orofino. ID83544-0032.
(Arranged by Bill Hale forthe NRC CPC.)
TASS cla imed that Russian mili-tary officials had tracked the
sat-ellit e. it ga ve the identical figuresas in the KCNA announ
cement .leaving out the same missing pa-rameters. Identical
parameters al-most guarantee that the numberstrace back to the same
source.
More importantly. nobody elsehas any indication that a
satelliteex isted. It was invisible to all ofthe radar and visual
tracking sta-tions around the wor ld. and nobroadcasts were hea rd
by any lis-tcner s. The USS PAC ECOM offi- .clt 's a bird, it's a
plan e, it 's pure propaganda !cial press release (del ayed due
tothc Labor Day holiday). stated." US Space Command has not been
able tocon fir m North Korean assertions that itlaunched a small
satellite onAugust Sf. 1998."
Some weste rn offici als said they were toldthat the satellite d
id reach orbit but it wasn' tfunct ion ing. Thi s seems high ly
doubtful co n-s ide r ing th e capabili t ie s of th eUSSPA CECOM
track ing network . It' s hard10 bel ieve that a sa tellite - and
its muchlarger third stage - could be missed forseveral we eks . On
the other hand . KCNAclaimed on Septemb er 141h that the
satellitehad fini shed its IOOth orbit around the Earth .and eve n
claimed that the satellite was largeenough to be visible 10 the
naked eye !
So what was it? Portions of the NorthKorean statements may be
correct; it co n-ce ivably could have been an attempted satel-lite
launch. However, there's litt le do ubt thatther e is no satellite
in orbit. lfit was a launchattempt then there was a failure during
thethird stage bum and North Korea' s still trying10 delu de itself
into believing that it has asatellite in orb it - functional or
not.
North Korea's Phantom SatelliteFor years North Korea (DPRK) has
sold
Scud-class missiles to Iran and Pak istan . sowestern ana lysts
were e xpecting the launch ofa more sophisticated Nodong 3
two-stagemed ium range ve rsion. On Augu st 3 1st at3:07 UTe a
missile was tracked . What wasstrange was the flight pa th - du e
cast, taki ngit d irectly over Japan.
T he fir st stage fell in Ihe Sea of Ja panbetween Korea and
Japan. and the secondstage lan ded in the Pacific Ocea n to the
cast o fJapan. Japan was understandably upset thatthe missile new
over its territory without an yprior notifi cation or perm ission.
Human itar-ian aid to North Korea was quickly cui off.
On Septembe r 2nd the Korean Centra lNew s Agency (KCN A) sa id.
"H igh-ran kingofficials and other politicians of Japan aremakin g
pro voca tive rem ar ks aga inst theDPRK over a missile launchin g
test that theysay was carried out by the DPRK . The y de-scribe the
test as something ' regrettable' and'dangerous' and claim that the
test made itdifficult to improve relations with the DPR K.,..
Japan' s behavior is ridiculous, indeed, invie w of the fact that
Japan is zealously deve l-oping long-distance vehicles and other
up-Io-date weapon s and paving the way for over-seas aggressio n.
having worked out 'guide-lines for Japan -U.S.defence cooperation:
..,\Vc warn Japan to face up to rea lity. act withd iscretion and
renounce its anachronistic hos-tile policy toward the DPRK at
once:'
... NOI exactly polite things to say to aneighbo r. especially
the one which can helpyou the most.
On September -lth KCNA claimed that itwasn't a military missile.
it was a launchvehicle for a satellite, saying. " I t will co
ntrib-ute to promot ing scie ntific research for peace-I'll I usc
of outer space, " T hey saidKwangmyongson g No. I "s orbit had a
peri-gee of 2 1S.X2km. and apogee of 697R.2 kill."The satellite is
now transm itt ing the melodyof the immortal revolutionary hymn s
Song 1?J'Grnerul Kim II Sung and Song of GeneralKim l ong II and
the Morse signals 'JuchcKorea ' in 27 MHz,"
Yes. 27 Ml-lz - Ci tizens Band!As a member of the International
Tele-
commu nications Unio n (ITU) the DPRK isrequired to file an
application before a trans-miller is put on the ai r which can
interfe rewith other transmissions. especially space-craft. The ITU
has no filing from the DPRKfor any satellite allocutions. and 27
MHz iscertainly not a hand allocated for satellitecomm unica
tions.
Although the Russia n news agency ITAR-
6 MONITORINGTIMES November 1998
-
November Nightmares in theClarke Belt
Sarcllitc opcnuors wil lbreathe much easierwhe n mid -November
has co me and gone -at least, until nex t yea r. Aro und Novembe
r17th of 1998 and 1999 the Earth makes itsclo sest pass in a 33
year cycle thro ugh debrisfrom the tail o f co rnet Tempel-Tuttle.
Themeteor shower. know n as the Leonids. waslast experie nced at
its height in 1966 at anes timated rate of 150.000 meteors per hour
!But in 1966. sa te lli tes were sca rcely of con-cern.
However . "we might expect five to 10func tiona l satellites to
behit by Leonid mete-oroids durin g a storm," say the four
co-au-thors of a repon [ 0 be found on the Internet
athltp:llicroy.cc.urcgina.ca/%7EastroILeo nids/Lco_2.htm l.
Although some outage s may be experi-enced while engineers take
precautions byrepositi onin g sate llites in the end it' s a
crap-shoot GE Am eric an hopes to incre ase itsodds of an impac t
to one in 100.000 byreposition ing. bUI at 150.000 meteors perhour,
that Illay not be too reassuring,
COMMUNICATIONS
C h uck J\..l c C ull uughabo ut the: contraptionwh ich sudde
nlyappea redon the groundsof'thc Pen-tagon .
Stan Sulak poi nted usto an arti cle in the Julyemail
editionofDOEThisMomll . Th e bizarre look -ing struc ture is an ar
rayof mirrors wh ich concentra tes the sun' s en-ergy ont o a
receiver/e ngine to generate elec-tric power. Sulak say s. "The
unit insta lled atthe Pentagon is design ed to pro vide 25 ki lo-wa
tts o f po wer - eno ugh to supply electric-ity to an ent ire
village in a remote area witho utgenerat ing ;'lIl Y a ir po
llution:"
Aftcr spend ing six mont hs on di sp luy out-side the Pentagon .
the structure wi llbeshippedto its "real joh'' pro ducing elect
rici ty in Ari -zona.
Bosnian Station Needs SupportBosnia and Herzcgovnia' s largest
inde-
pendent radio network is FERN (Free inter -
Ethnic Radi n Ne twork). funded by the Orga-nizat ion for
Security and Cooperation in Eu-rop c (OSCE) and the Swi ss
Government. Intwo years it bus gn)\vn from a temporary, twomonth
"election s rad io" to a complete 24-hou r national news. public
information. andentertainment operation .
However. funding commitmentscease at-rer the Septernber 1998
elections . It is see kingcommercial inve stments. partnership ag
ree-ments with ot her medi a. advert ising. programspo nsors hip.
and vol untary co ntributions. Formore informat ion . see
www.oscebih.org
"Communica tions" is compiled byRachel Ba ughn from clippings
submitted byour readers. T hanks to those who sen t incl ipp ings
this month: Anonymous, NY; BrandonArtman,PA;David Borger, NY;Philip
Chien, F~Mike EI" ilin,CA; Brion Calhcart, f~ IhcmcsFalkl, PA; Wm.
Hearty, OH;Ala nHenney,email;JeffreyHeyman, email;
DavidHaword,PA;Chorlel Johnl,ME;Maryanne Kehoe,GA;Kevin Klein,WI;Ed
Lenlz, emoil;MikeModlen. I~AlonMOIygo.MN; Ira
Paul,MI;GlennRichler,email;DougRobemun,CA;MichoelSuxlon,CA;
AriSchwartz,emoil;LorryondGoyleVon Horn. NC;BrionWebb, email.
ALicense to JamTh is month' s fea ture story on jamming
ce lebra tes the cessation o f sovict jamming ona major sca le ,
but a new phe nome non hasemerg ed in Japan tha t could be ca
lled"m icrojamming." On ly. the target of this jam-mer is not fore
ign broadcast ing. but the omni-prese nt ring of thc ce llular phon
e.
Restaurants. concert hal ls, mo vie theaters.and hospit al s arc
all venu es with very goodrea son s for banning cel lphon cs
altogeth er.Plaste ring warn ing posters un every wall orsubjec
ting the clientele to sea rch and seizuredocs nothing for good
customer re lations.however. Thus the attraction of new jammerssuch
as Medic' s "\Vave \Vall: '
Wave W:.IIJ sends out strung s ignals o n thesame frequencies as
the ce llphoncs them-sel ves and effective ly jams both incomingand
outgo ing cal ls. $~SO wo uldn' t have pa idthe ele ctric bil l for
a even mo nth u f Cold \Varjamming. but it doe sn' t see m
unreasonabl efor creating a 20 -foot rad ius of qu iet
Japa n is just beginning to add ress con -cerns ever poten tial
misuse. blocki ng emer-gency calls to doc tors and others. or
interfe r-cnce to other de vices such as pacemak ers.
AlienPods at the Pentagon?" Is thi s so me sor t of high powered
visible
light communications antenna?" won de red
HF-VHF-UHF Receiver Multicouplers & PreamplifiersArc
yOlillsing several HF radios or VHF/llH Fscanners at your
monitoring site??
....consider including a multicoupler or a preamplifier to your
sys tem.
SWUScanning - Radio Surveillance - News Room sBoth our Passive
and Ac tive Multlcouplers are commercial grade specially designed
for dema nd,ing mon itor ing applications with multiple radios, OUf
2 and 4 port co up lers are 50 ohms units withbetter than 24 dB of
po rt-to-port Isolation. Active couplers features wide-band
Lew-Noise distribu-tion amplifiers with Hlgh-Passllow.pass filtered
inputs . BNC connectors standard
Price range: $70 10 $150 depending on modelGive us a callfor
data sheet, applicationand orderingmjonnation.r::::r:::I STRIDSBERG
ENGINEERING, INC. Phone: (318) 861-0660t:J.:J P.o. Box 5040_ _
Shreveport, LA 7113 5-5040 , USA. Fax: (318) 861-7068
~HOUR "BUILT UKE R BIITTLEBHIP"
Heavy duly commercial recorder -NOTimprovised
lromconsumermodels
12. 14,and 16 hour modelsalso available BUILT-INvoice activat
ion (add$30)
Applications informationincluded Dimensions: 11.5x7.0x2.75'
~~ 150 Executive Park Blvd.#4600 San Francisco. CA 94134Facrary
Direct Phone: (415) 468-2066 Fax: (415)468-2067 'Since 1971 '
November 1998 MONITORING TIMES 7
-
Inside Italy's
bu t there is also programming in English .French . Span ish .
Portu gesc. German . Swed-ish . Dani sh . Ukrainian. Rom an ian.
Slovene,Croatian . Turkish, Bulgari an. Czech. Slovak .Poli sh .
Serbian, Hungarian. Russian. Arab ic.Am haric. So mali and Esperan
to, for a total of24 langu ages. No orienta l languages arc used
.
In North America, mo st shor twave listen-ers arc fam iliar with
Rad io Roma' s daily 20minute English broadcast fro m 0050-0 I
IUUTe. The broadcast actually beg ins at 2230hours in Ita lian,
switches to English
-
Many RA J news reports and fea ture programs are readied for
broadcast f rom thesebanks of lope recorders.
Jim Frimmel is editor of SelectedProgra mming in MT a nd owner
of DXComputing , radio sol1wore for theMacintosh.
present transmitt ers.RAI has a twice-yearly publica tion
culled
QUINAI, available free of charge from RAIIntern at ional ; Largo
Villy De Luca. 5; 001 88Rom a. Italy. More info rmation about RAI
isalso uvuilnble off the internet at www.raiinlernational,
rui.it
Since Alfa Romeo and Fiat have ceasedexporting autos to the
U.S., it wasenjoyable to see all the Italian cars 0 11the streets
and autostradas. Sorry M 110picture of the new Alfa /56, but here
isa shot of the popu lar new Ford Ka,which parks easily 011 the
streets ofRome.
Looking to the Futu re
When origin ally co nstruc ted in 193 J. thePrato Smeraldo site
was considered far enoug haway from Rome to be interference-free
tocity commerce. Now. sixty-seven years later,Rome has spread out
to the extent that thetran smitter site is in need of relocat ion ,
Untilsuch a mov e is mad e. RAI International islimited to the
lower power outputs of the
rebroadcasts on AM and FM in Australia,Canada. and the USA.
RAI"s sho rtwave transmitting ce nter isseparately Iocuted at
Prat o Smeraldo in theoutskirts ofRom e. All major transrnitters
weredestroyed dur ing World War II and were laterrep laced in
1948.
Prat o Smeraldo Center presentl y broad-casts RAJ 's signals
with six transmitters usin g30 antenna sys tems.
Transmitte rs are al l 100 kW Brown Bovenwith a Marconi 100 kW
used as backup. TheBoveri transm itters use Thomsonwater-coo
ledoutp ut tubes . The AM modulatio n is digitallycontrolled.
Twe lve of the towers use dip oles and IRuse dapple d ipoles
with reflectors. Th ere arealso num erou s vertica l dip oles mad e
withlong wires stretching from tower masts to thegrou nd.
The Transmitter Site
Radio Roma's main program in the AMbroadcast band is an Italian
program calledNotturnoItaliano, which is also broadcast onshortwave
and via sate llite. It mainly co nsistsof six hours of ligh t music
, opera and sym-phoni c music , operettas, and jazz, with new
severy hour in Italian. English, French andGe rman. It is heard in
Europe from 2200-0400 UTe on both mediumw ave andlongwave.
A view of the Praia Smeraldatransmitter site on the outskirts
ofRome. (Photo by Andrea Borgnino)
RAI International Satelradio offers 24 hoursof the top programs
of the three nat ional radiochannels as well as RAJ International.
Pro-gramming consists of music , entertainment,news and information
. Transmi ssion s are viaHot Bird 1 to Europe. Asiasa t 2 to Asia.
Or ion2 to North and Ce ntra l America , Panamsat 3to the Atlantic
coast, Ga laxy LA to LatinAmerica , and to Austra lia via subcarri
er ofRAJ' s TV channel. There are also sate llite
One other English transm ission that is of-ten heard in North
America is actually in-tended for the British Isles. The Englis h
por-tion of that broadcast is from 1935- 1955 UTCon 5970 . 7 145
and 9760 kHz (until October25th). and is best hea rd in North
America onthe Eas t Coast.
RAJ's Mediumwave Output
RAI Satellite Prog rams
November 1998 MONITORING TIMES 9
-
Mal{ing the Best ofApartment Monitoring
By Steve Douglass
I knew it could happen - my land lord had already wa rned
me.Yet, when I opened up the e nvelo pe a nd the letter sa id that
thehou se we we re ren ting had bee n so ld. it was a shock . I
immedi -ately began to contemp late the massive a mo unt o f work
ahead . T helea st o f whi c h was di sm antling my mo nitori ng po
st.
\Vc had bee n livin g in the comfortable ranch-style ho me for
fiveyears. Th e rent was inc redi b ly cheap for the spac ious
three-bedroo mhouse so my vvife and I felt very lucky to rind it.
Since my family onlynumbers three, on ly two bedrooms were used .
Th e other one becamemy office .., and . yes. my mon itor ing
post.
In short ord er the roof o f the ho use beca me an an tenna farm
and the"offi ce" was stocked with wal l-to- wal l radios. To
visitor s it rese mbleda miniatu re ver sion of NORAD. especia lly
at nigh t wi th all the LEDreadouts bl inking, com puters fl ashing
und huge map s of the wo rldadorni ng the wa lls, I mu st sa y, it
was pretty coo l.
I snaggcd a lot of sig nals from that roo m, Bomber s on mission
s inthe Gu lf War. Hurricane Andrew slas hing thc co as t. J immy
Carte rtryin g his best to negotiate a peace ful se ttleme nt w ith
the dictato r ofHait i, and eve n the fall o r the Sovie t Un ion,
a ll fro m my monitoringpost in southwes t A ma rillo .
Was it a ll a bout to end? W hat if I co uldn' t lin d an oth er
such a n idealplace to monitor? Good hou ses we re at a prem ium in
Amarillo; could1 luc k into suc h a find ag ain?
T he answer was rev ea led to us in short ord er. Ren tal rates
inAm ari llo had skyroc keted and we co uldn' t begin to afford a
co mpa-rable place. W ith the deadline for moving out fast
approaching, we hadto opt for a deci sion that I had S\ \!Ofl1 we
would ne ve r ma ke . \Ve hat!to mo ve into an apartment,
DownsizingA week before our mo ving date we fi nall y located an
apartme nt that
semi -suited our needs. It wo uld be quite a chore to compress
2700square fee t of furniture and acc um ulated stuff to fit into
1200 squarefeet o f apartme nt space. Half wa y through the mo ve
we reali zed thatit just wo uldn 't work. Most of our st uff.
including the bul k of mymon ito ring post, would ha ve to be put
in temporary sto rage ,
As a free-lance press str inger for the local televis ion prc ss
it wasimport an t that I st ill have some se mblance of a monito
ring post. After
all , it was my job. I had even de ve loped areputat ion of
sorts as the local "johnny on thespot" when it came to stories of
news interest. Ifit was happen ing and was of interest to the
- public , ch an ces ar e I knew ab out it. The localpres s de
pended on me to be the ir safe ty net andrep ort the important news
that their overworkedreporters would m iss. Would my job suffer
beca use of the mo ve '! I ass ured my cl ients it wouldn 't .I
staked out a sma ll corner of the kitchen/di ning room as my
mon ito rin g roo m and offi ce . There wasn' t mu ch space,
only a eight bytell foot square area that would have to hold eig ht
scanning rad ios, myco mputer sys te m, th ree desk s and a filing
cabine t.
A lso c ra mmed into the postage-stamp -sized spo t would have
to beno less the n three tel evi sion sets that I used to monitor
the three loca lTV networ k affili ates. One ofmy dailyservices fo
r the local medi a was tomonit or a ll three six-o ' clock ne
ws-cas ts at once , pre pare a report on whatsto ries we re covered
by eac h, and faxthat report to the stations,
Th e hard pari wou ldn' t he ge tti nga ll the gear to lit in my
Reader'sDigest condensed ve rsion of an of-fice ,T he problem wou
ld be (0 ge t it al l
10 MONITORING TIMES November 1998
-
A KEYNOTE SPEAKEfrom Grove!
Grove's improved SI'200B Sound Enha nceris really six products
in one. Just look at itsmany features and capabilities:
Top qu ality speaker : a lso includes headphon e jack
Hand-crafted hardwood cabi net
Adjustable not ch/peak filter (.111 dB , 11.3-6 kHz)
Recorder acti vator
Audio a m plifier (2.5 W @ 10 % T IB>. 8 ohms)
Audio act in.ted squelch
Noise limiter
SP-20 0SOUND ENHANCER
IIOl!!'I,,'d in a stylish. solid oak cabinet hand crafted ill
themountains of North Carol ina. the Grov e SP200 is vurc 10enha
nce any listening po".. Th...' co ntrol panel. co nstruc ted of...
turdy. black alumi num. has been de ... ipned for o ptimum ca
...eund convc nicncc when luning and refining ,i gna l....
Th e: S), 200 combine .. ;1 powerfu l audio am plifier. top
-of-t he-line speaker, and an adj u..table fihc r SYSle l1l10
cTeale the mo ...1vcr...mile and prec i....c li -,tcning
environment available toli... tcncr.... Th e uniq ue pcuk/norc h
filter cy- rcui uud noi-,c lim iterallow the listener 10 pu ll
clear and d i.... tinc t .... igna l-,o ut of thehate \ } I' inter
feren ce ami background noi ....e . while the adj u..tableh,l....
.... and treble pro vide the lk, ihility to cre ate j u..t IIK
..oundy O Il \\,IIl( . voice. music. CW oami data are enhanced \\
hi ll:"interfe ren ce and e lec trical noise are red uced or eve n
eliminatedhy the
-
to work . Noisy , Rf-spewingcomputers next to sensitiveradio
gear, and three televi-sions that produced more in-terference than
a conventionof radio pirates all had to beplaced within inches of
eachother. Plus, I had to havesome kind of antenna farm ,Puny
telescopic whips wouldnot do. I had to have an an-tenn a system
that not onlywould be effic ient enough topull in most area-wi de
signalsbut would also not alarm theneighbors or my landlord.
With this impossible taskin hand, I grabbed a pad oflegal paper
and began design-ing my new monitoring post.
After a few weeks of experimenting, hairpulling,dozens ofcable
ties and ten trips to thelocal electron ics outlet, I finally got
the newmonitoring post situated. It took a bitof tweak-ing, but it
works. In fact it works very well.
Although I don' t quite have the receptionca pabilities that I
had at the old place, on thewhole, I can hear just as much. HF
receptionis a bit deg raded but still much better than
Ianticipated. Area-wide police, fire and emer-gency communications
corne in loud and clearand I can hear about eighty percent of what
Iused to receive on the UHF military bands.
The coo l thing is, none of my neighbors arethe wiser. Only
those who know me are awa rethat a miniature commu nications
interceptstation is ope rating in the nondescript apart-ment next
door.
So, fellow apartment dwelling monitors,take heart. You, too, can
monitor the airwavesalmostas well as your home-owning brethren.Read
on for some leads you can follow to findyour own apartment
solutions.
FoilingInterference
The more distance youcan put between your an-tennas and any
interferingappliances the better, but ifspace is at a premium.
tryshielding both your equip-
ment and the source of the noise. When Iencountered
interference, 1lessened it by care-fully lining the inside of my
receivers withaluminum foil. Using doubl e-stick adhesivetape to
mount the foil, I was able to reducemost computer interference by
about eightypercent.
It also helps LOline the inside of nonmetal-lic computer
monitors and television caseswith foil , but a word to the wise -
be VERYcareful about doing this. The foil could shortout your
computer or shock you if you are notvery careful in your
placementof the foil! Anycontact with electronic components could
fryit or you .*
As I would discover , not all interferencecould be elimin ated
by shielding the equip-ment. A particularly annoying cyc lic
buzzcould be heard corning over my DX-440.After a few days of
turnin g off all electroniccomponents one at a time in order to
isolatethe noise, I was able to deduce that it wasn' tcaused by
anything in my apartment but pos-
sibly due to some type ofheavy machin ery used inthe complex.
Quit e possi-bly it emana ted from thelaundry room and wasbleed ing
into the radiothrou gh the power lines.
A digital signal pro-cessing(DSP) filterhelpedcut down the
noise, but
didn 't eliminate it entirely.The solution came about byacci
dent. After buying a newradio , I ran out of outlets toplug it
into, I switched theDX-440 ' s power supply fromthe wall to my APC
650 BackUpsPro, a backup battery usedfor my computer. I had
for-gotten that th is au tom at icemergency battery supply alsohad
built-in AC line noise fil-ters. Miraculously the linenoise all but
disappeared!
Other no ise red uc tionsteps to improve reception in-cluded
using high grade coaxcable runs to the antennas andreplacingthe
aging,l eakytele-vision cable that ran through
the apartment with a new and better grade ofcoax.**
Secret AntennasThere arc no less than five an-
tennas connected to my monitor-ing system 'and yet all are
totallydiscreet. One is for shortwave re-ception. three for genera
l VHFIUHF monitoring, and one is cutspecifica lly for the 225-400
MH zmilitary UHF band.
Logistically, the only place tomount the antennas was on
theapartment's back balcony. Sometenants grow mini-gardens on
theirterraces; Ichose antennas masquer-ading as two large fake palm
trees.From a distance they can' t be seen.
For shortwave coverage I ex-perimented with several
antennasuntil I found one that would giveme adequate reception and
yet bediscreet. I tried runnin g an almostinvisible thin strand of
wire to anearby tree, but often it broke andonce a bird landed on
it, giving itspresence awa y. I'll never forget thelawn man '
sexpression as he caughtsight of the sparrow perched, preening
hisfeathers seemingly in midair.
Since a long wire was out of the picture, I
* Editor 's Note: We recommend u~e ofan adhesive which will 1I0t
be affec ted by heat, and caution that, should the foil come in
contactwith internal components it could result in damage to your
equipment and could be a fi re hazard. ,1. ."
J;:'i*! Tile AR~L Radio Frequency Interference Handbook
(availablefrom Grov e) contains more theory, troubleshooting tips
and solutionsfi RFl ' ."'J"' . . ,or . r: ... \ ." :'" :..
12 MONITORtNG TIMES November ' 998
-
CONTINUOUS COVER AGE- TUN ESCONTINU OUSLY ALL SHORT WAVE
BANDSAND ANY FREQUENCY IN-BETW EEN
AUTO MEMORY SCAN-AUTOMAT ICAL LYSCANS EVERY MEMORY PRESET &
PLAYSEACH IN SEQUENCE FOR 7 SECONDS
AUTO PRESET SYSTEM -AUTOMATICALLYDETERMINES ALL MEMORY
PRESETSBASED UPON SIGNAL STRENGTH OF STATION
HUMANE WAKE SYSTEM-REPEATING BEEPTONE INCREASES IN VOLUME
EVERY15 SECONDS FOR 1 MINUTE
ILLUMINATED DISPLAY SECOND S DISPLAY AUTO/MANUAL SEARCH
LOCKSWITCH DUAL TIM E DISPLAY ADJ USTABLE SLEEP TIMER 12/ 24 HOUR
DISPLAY SNOOZE CONTROL KEYPAD ENTRY 45 MEMORY PRESETS9/ 10 kHZ
SWITCH LOCKSWITCH TONE CONTROL AM/FM STEREO/SW CARRYING CASE &
STEREO EARBUDS
INCLUDED
THE LAST SHORTWAVERECEIVER YOU'LL EVERNEED TO BUY!!
AVAILAB LE IN THE FOLLOWING DEALERS:C.CRANE
(800) 522-TUNE (8863)www .ccrane.com
AFFORDABLE PORTABLESFor location nearest you ca ll:
(888) 277-2446 Mail o rders welco
mewww.aHordable-portables.com
AMATEUR ELECTRON IC SUPPLYSHORTWAVE HEADQUARTERS
(800) 558-0411AM ERICAN FREEDOM
Box 1750. Johnstown. CO 80534For credit card , call (800)
205-6245
WWW.amerifree .comCANADIAN DISTRIBUTOR
JANSONIC, INC,(905) 738-0998 or (734) 996-8886
www .usascan.comGROVE ENTERPRISES
7540 Hwy 64-N, Brasstown , NC 28902(800)438-8155 Fax (828)
837-2216
www .grove-ent.comHAM RADIO OUTLET
12 Stores, AZ,CA.CO,DE,GA.NH,OR,VA(800) 85460461(800)
4440047
www.hamradio.com- 24 hr. Secure on line orderLENTINI
COMMUNICATIONS, INC.
21 Garfield Street, Newingto n, CT 06111(800) 666-0908 Tech
{860} 666-6227
Fax (860) 667-3561 www.l entinicomm.comJ&R MUSIC WORLD
On Park Row. New York City(800) 2218180 (212) 238-9000
Fax (800) 232-4432UNIVERSAL RADIO, INC.
6830 Americana PkwyReynoldsburg. OH 43068
(800) 4313939 Tech (614) 866-4267Fax (614) 866-2339
www.untversal-radic.com
LOADEDWITHFEATURES: AM/FM StereotSW Pl L Dual Conversion
Receiver 306 Memories 28 SW Pages Programmed at factory42 World
City Times Preprogrammed Full RDS Reception 5 Tuning Methods Auto
Tuning Methods AutoSW Search ATS Automatically Presets Memories
Manual Editing USB/LSBSingle Side Band Select RF Gain Con trol 3
IndividualTimers Adjustable Sleep Timer Dual Time System Selectable
TuneSteps Priority Key Wide/NarrowFilter Battery Strength Indicator
Signal Strength Meter Mono/Stereo Switch LCD Display Light Auto
Daylight SavingsTimeButton Lock Switch Reset Switch Audio Record
Output 9KHZ/10KHZSwitch Casselle Record jack Tone Control Includes
ACAdapter IncludesANT-60Antenna Includes Carrying Case 81/4" x5,0"
x 11/?"
WRTH R-.J;o "",,,,'ry A .....a... ,9JK>rt......... r""
.D...,-
"lIl....u--. '",=.:::.
.. ..... .... h..",..."".,.,...-
e151...1IJ1
SANIiEANAMERIC A, INC .2651 Troy Avenue, South EI Monte, CA
91733Tel: (626) 579-1600 Fax: (626) 579-6806Shortwave "Hot Line"
Toll Free 1-888-SANGEANwww.sangean.com e-mai
l:[email protected]
-
decid ed to go another route . Mounted hori-zontally along the
wooden rail of my balco nyis a Citize ns Band 27 MH z stee l whip
antenna.To make up for the rather short antenn a lengthI ran the
coax to a Radio Shack shortwaveantenna amp lifier. Igrounded the
anten na to ametal plumbing pipe with a short run of cop-per
wire.
Althoug h the antenna can' t compare to agood longwire dipole,
recept ion isn' t bad andonly really falls off at lower freque
ncies. Ihave no problem receiving shortwave powe r-house broad cas
ters or even relatively weakmilitary sideband communications, which
iswhat I listen to most of the time anyway.
I mounted one of the VHF/U HF disconean tennas on a
photographer' s light stand thatI picked up at a garage sale for a
few bucks .Another home-brew discone was mountedusing nylon cable
ties righ t on the trunk ofoneof the fake palm trees. The antenna
elementsblended in with the faux fronds making itnearly impossible
to spot.
14 MONITORING TIMES November 1998
Tornado TransmissionsDuring severe weat her season I can be
usua lly be found chasing twisters in the TexasPanhandle.
However, there are times when Iju st can't pull myself away from
work but stillwant to help coordinate with local weatherspotters
and dispatch the press into the areawhere severe weather is
occurring. For thispurpose Iobtained and licensed two program-mable
VHF FM transmitters. One is mountedin my chase vehicle and the
other is used as abase station for communicat ing with fellowstorm
spotters in the field.
When I can't go out into the field what Iusually do is monitor
the severe weather ontelevision, connect to local weather radars
viathe Internet, and monitor police li re and emer-gency cha nnels
for reports of severe weather.If the spotters are not in the local
area I relayinformation via ce llphone. but if they areclose by I
use the VHF two-way radio. Thelatter posed a rea l problem since I
no longerhad a roof on which to mount a transmittingantc nna.
The solution'? I attached
-
Made inAmerica
~...... ---- ~C:OO'J
.:. -- --
- . , ....
-. -'-
SW-2 Full Coveragee LWIMW/SW Sync. Detect.e AM/LSBIUSB 100
Memories. 100 Hz Readout OPT.The Drake SW-2 may be the best value
in shortwave radio today . The SW2covers all longwave, medium wave
(AM) and shortwave frequen cies. Singlesideband is easily tuned
with separate LSB and USB positions. When ashortwave signal does
start to fade you can engage sideband selectablesync hronous tuni
ng to stab ilize and improve the signal. The nonvolatile
memorysystem stores 100 channels. Other refinements include: RF
Gain, Tuning BarGraphs, Huge 100 Hz readout and Dimmer. Dual
antenna inputs accept eithera PL-259 coaxial orwire feed line . A
mini ea rphone and 1/4- external speakerjackare provided. The
optional remote (shown) lets you operate this radio fromacross the
room (Order # 1589 $48.95). All Drake receivers are proudly madein
Ohio, U.S.A. and feature a one year limited warranty.List ' 499.00
Order #2222 ' 48!r.95 Sale 5399.99 (+'7 UPS)
ATS-606APIt's all here. You get continuous coverage of LW,MW and
SW (153-30000 kHz) plus FM stereo.Enjoy 54 memories, scanning, dual
clock timer, 1kHz LCD, dual conversion circuit, dial light,
diallock, keypad entry and local OX switch. Includesmultivoltage AC
adapter and wind-up antenna!Limited time offer . One year limited
warranty .
Order#3319 '~ Sale 599.99(+' 6 UPS)
YB-400 PEThe new YB-400 PE has a striking titanium i
--;;;:;;;::;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;::lcolored case and includes a wind-up
an-tenna, case, SW Guide gru;! AC adapter.This is our best selling
worldband portable!List 5249.95 Order #0400 ' 199.95 (+$8)The
original YB-400 is similar but with ablack colored case (AC adapter
optional).List'219.95 Order #0040 ' 169.95 (+'7) L1llIoi:;;;- - - -
- - - - -Get a FREE Lucite stand with either model!
The BayGen FPR-1 Freeplay radio combine sthe ingen ious Baylis
generator with the latest inradio technology. Winding the handle
for 20seconds provides 30 minutes of listening. Hereis assured
radio performance, day or night wlth -out the worry (and expensel)
of batte ries. Theanalog dial cove rs AM, FM and SW from 3 to
12MHz. Made in South Africa. 1/3123 ' 99.95 (+$7)
The smaller Freeplay FPR-2 model cove rs just AM & FM.
1/3667 ' 69.95 (+$6)The Freeplay FPR-2SM is gray, AM & FM with
solar cell. 1f24 f3 ' 79.95 (+$6)The Freeplay FPR-2SC is clear, AM
& FM with solar cell. 1/144/ $79.95 (+$6)
Universal Radio Communications Catalog #98-06This new Universal
catalog was printed in June and is ourbiggest ever! With 116 pages,
it features everything for theradio enthusiast. Please request your
FREE copy todayI
Universal Radio, Inc .6830 Americ ana Pkwy.Reynoldsburg,
Ohio43068-4 113 U.S.A.'2 800431-3939 Orders & Prices'2 614
866-4267 Informotio n1\11 '614 866-2339 FAX LineQ
dx@universal-rodio ,com
SW-1 Full Coveragee LW/MW/SW Digital Readoute Keypad Entry 32
Memories RF GainThe Drake SW-1 sets the stage for worldwide
shortwavelistening with ease, simplicity and clarity. Coverage
from100 through 30000 kHz provides solid coverage of long-wave ,
medium wave and shortwave in the AM mode (noSSB). This makes it an
ideal broadcast receiver for thedesk or bed-stand. Tuning is a snap
via the keypad,manual tuning knob, Up/Down buttons or 32
memories.The huge LED display features 1 kHz readout. Antennainput
is via a 50 ohm terminal or 8 0-239 jack . A lIa~ minijack is
provided for use with earplug or headphones (notsupplied). Operates
from 12 VDC or supplied AC adapter.Order #1100 ' 249095 Sale S19999
(+'7 UPS)
[JRC)NRD-545
DSP
VISIT UNIVERSAL RADIO ON THE INTERNETwww.unlversal-radlo.com
Prices and specs. are subjecllo change. Returns subject to a 15%
restocking fee. Used equipment list available on request.
-
Ir.
By Rimantas Pleikys
On the evening of November 29 . 1988.: 11 2100UTe. the Sov iet
Union ceased to jam allforeign rad io stations. Th e jammi ng ses
sio nthat lasted for 40 years was over. This articleis wr itten in
dedi cation of the 10th ann iver-sary of its end.
The Cold War between Russia and theUnited Sta tes was more than
a conflictof powerful armies and nuclear mis-siles in silos . It
was also .1 baitIe of wordsplayed ou t on a globa l scale via
shortwaveradio. Internation al broadcasters such as theVoice of
America and Radio Moscow. usingpowerful transmitte rs and multip le
frequ en -cies. broadcast their respect ive messages tumillions
across the planet. T he forme r USSRdidn 't want the mess age of
democracy to getthrough 10 its people and pUI up an elec tro
nicbarr ier using powerful transm itters thatjammed signals from
the West.
Fourteen of the 16 Radio Free Europe!Radio Libert y language se
rvices werejammed.and 12of the 2 1lang uages 0 11 Voice
ofAmerica(VOA) . Deut sche We lle was jammed in fiveof its I I East
Europe an and USS R langu ages.
16 MONITORING TIMES November 1998
The BHe was jammed in two of its 12 Easternlan g uages.The
effectivenes s of jammingranged from a minor annoya nce to tota l
block-age.
On December 16.l lJXS. Czechos lovakiastopped the jamming (which
had bee n go ing(1I1 for 37 years) nf Radio Free Europe 's
broad-casts to that country. and on December 23rdBulgar ia followed
suit. By the end of yea r19X9. about 3.000 jamming tran smitter s
weres\....'itched off. fro m Pragu e to Kamchatka. in
So viet made communications receiver" R399." 1-32 MHz
synthesizer steps JIJ(Jliz. used i ll shortwave communica-tions,
surveillance, and jammi IIgsystems. (Photo by Rimantas Pleikys)
some 200 to 220 jamming sires.Shortwave jammers (high frequency
or
HF) were of two types: short range. alsoknown as "gro undwave,"
low power faci litiesintended for covering big ci ties. and
longrangejammers (ionospheric, or skYW
-
CHEROKEE]M
. i:~~ , ),,:'1::;.0., '~" 'Wo. ,;~ ~~,.,... ,Once agai n,
Cherokee leads the way with today's newtechnology. Unbelievable
range and performan ce in asuper s mall design. Only from Cheroke
e! .
"No w You're Talking "'"For more informat ion on all the
Cherokee radios andwhere you can purchaselhem, call us at
1800259-0959,or visit us on the web at http:ltwire
lessmarkeling.com.
Cherokee Is a trademark of the Wireless Mar1l:eting c crpcretlon
;Schaumburg, illin ois
Visit our Internet Web Page or Phone/FAX us for program
features, newproduct releases and pricing schedule. DELTACOMM is
available forICOM R9000, R7100, R7000, A71, R72, IC-735 (features
vary with typeof radio). Also check out our DELTATONE 2.0 repeater
programmer.h ttp ://w w w .exec pc .com/-de ltaco m
Box 13677 - Wauwatosa, WI 53213 FAx/Phone (414) 353-4567
DELTACOMM 1-8500 Communication Manager for the rCOM
ICR8500communrcanon receiver With speed as a design goal
DELTACOMM'sQUICK LOG function Will log signal level, frequency,
mode, date. time andoptional Global Positioning System (GPS)
coordinates at speeds In excess of2400 channelsper minute. Here are
a few examples of fhe many advancedfeaturesDELTACOMM 1-8500 has to
otter
Delta Research VIS A
We have Scanners with800MHz coverage! .
We don' t make SCANNERS orthe ICOM IC-R8500 RECEIVER
- We make t he m better -
ATLANTIC HA M RADIO LTD.(416) 636-3636 [email protected] 368 W
ilson Ave(4 16) 63 1-0747 (fax) Downsview, ONTwww. inte rlog .com/-
ahrlscan.htm Canad a M3H 1Sg
We do Modifications for yo ur Scout/All Orders Shipped Expedi
ted
Load 40 channels of information includi ng ALPHA NUMEAICS
intoone of the A8500 's memo ry banks in 3 seco nds.
Separate volume level, resume scan dela y and maximum mon itorde
lay plus 40 characte r information field for each scan channel.
Priority cha nnel operat ion samples at 2.5 second intervals.
Multi-receiver control will hand off active frequency to next
receiver
on line . Ab le to co ntrol up to 125 ICOM receive rs
(optional). Traditional scanning is a thing of the past with our
CYBEASCAN
fea ture, used to track systems employi ng frequency hopping.
Activi ty log function automatica lly reco rds and calcu lates tota
l
spec trum usage time. Unique search operation stores all
frequencies found active and
then automatically skips those frequencies during the
remainingsea rch cyc les . This feature eliminates redundant
logging.
AOR AR-5000, 5000/3+, 3000, 8000Yupiteru MVT-9000, 7100,
8000
OPTOELECTRONICS Xplorer, R11nearfield receivers
New Welz/Standard WS-2000 (very tiny)WinRadio WR-1 OOOi ,
WR3000i
ICOM R9000, R8500, R100 , R10, PCR1000leorn R-10
500KHz - 1300Mhz coverageAM/NFM/WFM/USB/LSB/CW Modes
100 x 10 banks = 1000 memoriesComputer Control interface
Selectable Step SizeTrue SSB (Lower and Upper)
Note to U.S. consumersonly: II is unlawful to import,
manufacture, or marketcellolcr-ccpoble or cellulcr-restoroble
scanners into the U.s .
November 1998 MONiTORING TiMES 17
-
Typical gro undwav e jammingequipm ent: communications
transmitter" l'ia: -M2-0 1'," 5 klV; 3-30 ,11Hz atPane vezys
(Lithuania} site. (Photo byRimontas P/eikys)
ca l jamming transmiuers ranged in powe rfrom I to 20 kw. typic
ally 5 kw. with anaverage of 15 transmi tters per station. If
theneed occurred. several ja mmers. most ofte npositioned in
different locations. were en-gaged to hlock a frequency of an enemy
radiostation. The antennas for long range jammersusually were
vertical curtain arrays of 2/4 or4/4 configurations. Local ja mming
faci litieshad widcband, mult i-wire dipoles. suspendedvertica lly
or at 45 degree angles.
According to some InternationalTelecom -munications Union (lTU)
directio n find ingtriangulat ions. clu sters of ja mming
sourceswere ge nerally found in the more popu louswestern regions
of the USSR ncar Moscow.Leningrad (St. Petershurg) and Kiev ; in
thesouthern republic of Kazakhstan : and in theea stern part of the
Russian Fede ration nearNo.vosibirsk and Khabarovsk. Some
expertsestimate that the USS R alone might havebeen spending at
least USD XOO million annu-ally for ja mming foreign radio
stations.
The roar of jam mers smothered Radio
18 MONrTORING TIMES Novembe, 1998
Libe rty. Rad io Free Europe. Kol Yisrael,Deutsche Welle. Radio
Free Afghani stan,Voice of America. Radio Beij ing. RadioT irana.
BBC and some other stations beforemid-seventies. Several times,
when the politi-cal climate became warmer. the USS R wouldstop jam
ming governme nt stat ions from Lon-don. Washington and Cologne.
But the jam-ming returned with a powerful howl afte r
theCzechoslovak and Polish crises of 1968 and1980. In add ition.
the USSR jammed Polish.Czech/Slovak, Bulgarian. Hungaria n and
Ro-manian programs of the Radio Free Europe. aswell as Rad io Free
Afghanistan .
A Look Behind th e Jamming WallThe Soviets were far more
advanced than
ma ny other countr ies in the number of short-wave radio centers
(44 in all ). HF broadcasttransmitters (about300).antennas(over
1.(00),and in transmitter power (up to 1.00012.000kw). plus nearly
3.000 j amming units.
Jamming Contro l and Correc tion Posts(CCPs) used to be
installed at some distancefrom the transmitt ing sites : from 3 to
10 km inthe case of local jamming stations and up toseveral
thousands of kilometers in the case ofionospheric wave systems. The
CCP opera-tors. mostly women. monitored the HF broad-cast bands in
order to identify the stations to beja mmed. They also checked the
"quality" ofja mming and issued orders to the techniciansat the
transmi tting faci lities. among whomwere a lot of elderly people
and heavy drink-ers .
The jamming mana ger/senior engineer re-ce ived a salary of 165
rubles per month. Mr.Vytautas Liatukas, the supervisor of
Kaunascity local jammer in Cen tral Lithuania. com-pla ined in an
institutional paper " Kaunoradistas" back in 1975 about their
station "be-
A semi-profes sional tape deck " Tembr-2M," used in Vilnius
(Lithuania) andother jamming CCPs [or playback oJspeech-typej
amming signals. (Photo byRima ntas Pleikys)
ing in continuous shortage of filament s forrad io tubes GU -50.
transmitter measuring de-vices , cabling, as well as about the poo
r co n-dition of the roof of the j ammer building andante nnas: '
Some of the KV-5 type transmi t-ters were said to bein operation
for as much as20 yea rs with no major overhaul and were indan ger
of fall ing apart at any time.
Si nce th e tran smitter feeders wereunshielded. V. Liatukas,
who had to work inan environment of 150 MV for more than 30years .
eventually developed cataracts and waslater reassigned to the safe
r CCP.
In order to save tubes, sometimes transmit-ters were put at less
power. Detailed ja mmin grecords - frequencies, times. station
names.languages and audibility - were entered
inshiftjournals.Thejam med radio stations werecalled
"communications correspondents: '
Some skywave jamming transmitters werelocat ed at normal
broadcasting or fixed com -mun icat ions radiocem ers. In some
cases whenHF broadc ast transmitters were off duty. theywere
assigned jamm ing duty.
"The classic jamming pattern still found( 1965) in the case of
RFE Czech/Slovak andBulgarian services, and uscd against all
RFElanguages prior to November 1956. is that ofextensive coverage
of a country with low ormedium intensity interference from long
rangejam mers located in the Soviet Union or inother satellites ,
plus reinforce ment in high lypop ulated areas by large number of
loca ljam mers" (from RFEJRL archive docu mentdated October 17.
1965). For exa mple. sev-era l HF radio stations near Len ingrad.
Kiev.M oscow. Sve rdlovsk (Yeka ter rnburg).Kuibyshev (Samaraj .Tas
hkent and Almatywere invo lved to guarantee theeffective short-wave
jamming of RFE Polish language ser-vice.
Czechos lovakia and Bulgaria most likelypaid the Soviets for its
export jamm ing. Itwould be interesting to know how much theyhad to
pay. Or whether there was a barterarrangement: Czech shoes and
Bulgarian fruitsfor Sov iet rad io defense?
According to an old Soviet standard. mastsof the ja mmers were
painted in ye llow andblack unt il 1975. to prevent enemy aircra
ftfrom ident ifying them in the natural back-ground. From about
1975 onwa rd. all theradioand TV towers. includingjammers.
werepainted in white and red. Thev have been
i ~lumi nated at night with red non-blin kinglight s.
Jamming TechniquesEvery short range jammer used the same
-
Originally published in the October 1986issue of Monitoring
Times byBob Grove
TABLE ONE: MORSE CODEJAMMERS AS IDENTIFIED BY
THE FCC IN 1986
ide ntificat ion code. or ca ll sign. fo r a ll itstran smitte
rs, usually made up of two letters.T he mo re power ful skywav e
jamm ing tran s-mine rs may per hap s hav e had their own IDsig na
ls. Th e call letters o f the jamm er we resent from eac h
transmitter cu rrently in op era-tion two time s per minut e. and
twi ce eachtim e. Th e Morse signa l was produced by asimp le de
vice: a di sk, driven by an e lectricmotor which co nnected
particula r contac tsinto a short circ uit cvery 30 seconds. T hej
ammer per son nel called it by the Russianword "mashinka." (See
Table I and the Oct'8 6 AIT article, " FCC Relea ses Rusian Ja
m-mer Loca tions")
Th e IDs wer e assi gned in order to enablethe CCP monito rs to
identify each indi vidualjam ming station. eve n d istant ones. T
he fina ldecision concerning the jammi ng target wasadopted by the
rele vant fie ld CCP: it de-pended on the actual audibility of the
station10 be jammed . CCP operators issued orders bydedicated ph
one lines to the transmitter pe r-sonnel to IUll C u part icul ar
transmitter 10 aparticu lar frequency. Th e jammers eng inee rsnev
er had a chance to listen to what theyjamm ed. Aft er thc unit was
tuned in. its radiofrequency stagc was swi tched on and off re-
Pock et Loop
Kiwa Electronics612 South 14th Ave. , Yakima WA 98902@ 509-453
-5492 or 1-800-398-1146 (orders)
~I ktwaeswolfenc t .com (Internet/calJ.log)..... ht tp:/ /www.wo
lfe.nct j -kiwa
I~\iff ~~tt I '"j~ \ Ii. r' Thl' Kiwa !'ockct Loop is a 12.5
inch
diameter Air Core Loop An telln" thatcollapses to fit in your
poc\u!l!This antenna is designed for po rtable
receive rs to enham{':-.1\'o/ and SW rece ptto a . Tun ing
isfrom 5JOkl-L: to2J MI lL. Ideal for tra velers .
NEW! Pocket Rege ne ration Modul eIb e I'RM is an accessory to
til .. Pocket Loop pro vidingTE-gen C' ra lilm from 530 kHz to
>10 Mllz. Increase Kalil\8 dB wi th improve..'d selectlviry
l
X. During the 1960... the Sovie t Union usedan es pec ia lly w
ild jamming type : mediumwave transmitter s. usually by nigh t,
were tun edall 46 5 kHz inte rmediate freq uency. Suchemiss io ns
paralyzed nearly all o f the neigh -bo rin g rad io recei ver s.
blocking out eve ry-thin g !
9. The "De mo cra tic Republic" of Ge r-many a ired its dome
stic radio programs viaMW tran smi tters tu ned to approximate ly
800
4/4 configuration vertical curtain typereversible /IF antennas
at theradiocenter No. /1-/, Ilear Lesnoy,northeast of IW OSCOW: At
least some ofskyway jammers of the USSR used thissame Iype
ofantenna. (Photo by BerndTrutenau)
merely fro m the Cont rol and Correctio n Post.There were at
least ten typesof radi o broad-
cas t jammin g methods :I. To block out the "most
anti-Soviet"
stati ons. a wide spectrum. ele ctroni catl y-ge n-cra ted white
noise signa l was used . RFE/RL.Kol Yisrac l. and Radi o Ti ra na
wo uld ex pc ri-CIl l:C this type of jamming.
2. On A ugust 3. 1964. one more so urce ofinterfer en ce was
inven ted : Radio Ma yak (Ra-dio Beacon ) used its dist orted
program 10jamsome "grey propaganda" stations suc h as VO A.BBC,
Deut sch e Well e. and Rad io Be ijin g.
3. Around 1978. So vie ts started 10 usc thespee ch type, or
speech resemb ling signa l. Itsadv antage was that it conforme d to
the timbreof the huma n voice. T his jam ming sound.whic h used to
be played hack from open reeltape s . was compose d of two vo ices
of malean d fema le Ru ssian announce rs of the AllUn ion
Radio.
4. T he re were sev eral occasions reportedwhe n jammi ng mad e
use of a non -m odu latedcarr ier wave. Th is technique was
ineffect ive .
5. An ot he r di ffic ult to identi fy jammingmethod is whe n a
jamm er started broadcast-ing a regu lar domest ic or foreign se
rvice pro-gram on the frequenc ies or the tar get station.
6. A unique case was the Po lish service ofthe Radi o Free
Europe: from 1971 un til 1980onl y tap es w ith recordings of light
instr um en -tal m usic we re employed to jam it, bo thnondisrortcd
and overmod ulatc d .
7. J ust befo re the end of the jam ming eraone morc insid iou s
trick wa s invent ed . Bymeans of a directional HF an ten na . thc
pro -gram of the jam med station was recc ived. T heaud io was fed
by cable to the c irc ui t whichcha nge d its phase hy ISOdegrees.
and se nt itback to the jamming tran smi tter. blocking thetarg et
station.
"Slleg-Al " /IF transmitters (19 xlOOkW), mostly us ed ill pairs
toprovide 400 k W, very com mon forsky wave jamming at radiocenters
No.11-1/2 near Popouka, southeast ofSt.Petersburg. (Photographer
tIItk, fOWII )
CounhyUSSRUSSRUSSRCzechoslovokicUSSRUSSRUSSRUSSRUSSRUSSRUSSRUSSRUSSRUSSRUSSRBulgariaCzechcslcvckioUSSRUSSRUSSRCzechoslovakiaUSSRUSSRUSSRRomaniaChinoUSSR
Location58-47N 029-31 E38-28N 066-09E64-42N 175-30E50-30N
015-30E52-39N 032-48E54-21N021-00E54-30N 034-29E56-18N
032-04E49-54N 131-56E48-45N 135-16E49-13N 135-29E48-32N
134-20E49-00N 023-00E41-50N 064-46E47-27N 030-30E43-17N
027-07E49-05N 016-36E40-56N 067-41E55-18N 037-17E48-39N
135-47E49-09N 018-41E47-04N 134-30E49-32N 027-54E55-43N 034-40EM
-03N 024-39.27-59N 11 7-24E55-43N 034-40E
10lG4FAW818DDRDUGIGMGRIGKBMPMUNSR6S5TKTVUAU7UDUSWIZl
November /9 98 MONITORING TIMES 19
-
April 28, 1988: Demolition of the 88.5 meter tower of the
Vilnius (Lithuania) localjammer ("Object No. 6(JO") (PIIlJ /(J by
Sigitas Zilionis)HI. outside of the freq ue nc ies of the We
stBerlin bused RIAS (Radio In the AmericanSector) .
10 . The Sov ie t Uni on never used the"wobble jammers" - the
swing ing carrierj ammers. which we still hear from Cuba andfrom
some Middle Eas t countries . Someso urces re fer them to as being
o f Fre nch origin("!).
The signals emitted by powerful jammingtransmitters , which we
re usuall y based indowntown areas . were even picked up by
thecircui ts of do mestic tape and casse tte ma-chines and record
players and TV sets. Insteadof a music or news one had to listen to
amixtu re of ug ly "odd noises."
Penetrating the WallT hose \\'110 used to mo nitor the dial
and
were pat ient enough. could ofte n li nd "ho les"in the jamming
wall. T wilight immunity wason e of sev era l technical me thods
used form.U1y years by the We stern broadcasters toreduce jammi ng.
Twilight imm unity in cs-scnce mak es usc of broad casting to the
targetarea on a certa in frequency on whi ch theskyw ave jammer.
placed a few thou sand kilo-meters 10 the East. could not be
effecti ve for agive n area because o f its lower maximumus able
frequen cy (M UF) at that time.
So me of the broadcasters liked to bcdecep-tlvc: Radio Beijing
used to ch ungc its frequen-cie s s lightly during the broadcas t
(freque ncyagi lity method }, leaving the hoar se cho ir ofSoviet
jamme rs as ide . T here were seve ra l
20 MONITORING TIMES November / 998
occasion s recorded when Rad io Be ijing playedits Russian
programs hackwa rds. an d theseparticular frequenc ies were not
jumrned !T hereare LW t ) ve rs ions of this trick. Acc ording
tothefirst. a spec ia l sec ret ag ree me nt was made byMoscow an d
Beij ing authorities ,v'here theUSSR did not inte rfe re with the
Russian ser-vice o f Rad io Beij ing on the frequencie (s) thatwere
audible backwards. Moscow mon itor swould make tap e reco rdin gs.
play them back -wa rds to make transcripts. and submit thescripts
to the KGB and Com mun ist partybosses.
Accordi ng to the second theory. the Chi -nese were j ust play
ing with Russ ians : theyex pected regular "dear Soviet radio
listeners"to tap e the progra ms and later to play them inreve rse
mode. Pe rsonally. I favor the firstex pla nation as the more like
ly .
In the mid -e ight ies the Un ited States Infor-mation Age ncy
(USIA ) made the deci sion tolocate its new HF sites for RFEJRL and
VOArela y stations in Israel and Sri Lan ka (Ccylon).These projects
we re not imp lemented due toso me environmenta l. fina ncial and
po liticalproblems. However , the Soviets started pre-paring for
the constru cti on of high powershortwave countermeasure jamme rs
in Syriaand probably Vietnam as soon
-
AR7030AR7030PlusSDU5500ARD-2
Wid e RangeReceiver
Mult i-Mode Recep tionFrom .1 to 2000 MHz .
Channel Scope. AM/WF M/FM/SSB/CW. 1200 Memories. Superb
Sensitivity.
Cle ar Soun d.
GPSllI
"EW!
I C ALL FOR MOREINFO & P RIC ING~fINCO
DJX10
GPSIIICombines a GlobalPosition Sys tems(GPS) Receiver withan
Electronic Map. ItNot On ly Shows Youthe Lay of Land ButAlso Just
Where You Stand.
GPSIII $299.95UPS Included
GPS12...$149.95 Street Pilot...$549.95GPSII Plus...$249.95Call
For Accessories
World's SmallestDual-Band
Amateur Handhel d
WideBand Receive From76999 MHz . CTCSS/DCS
Alphanum eric. Display. 500mW Power Output
1 Wall w/External Power Ca ll For Mor e Info
$2 19.95UPS Included
Handheld"TrunkTrac ker"
VX1R
"TrunkTracker "
BC9000XLT $379.95 UPS includedBC3000XLT $359.95
Pill$229.95
UPS Included
CommunicationsReceiver
woebano. All ModeRece ive From 0,1to 2000 MHz .
Many FeaturesSimi lar to ICR l 0
The Q7A is a ...,...Wideband RX Scanner, ..... " ,f30130 9.995
MHz (Less Cellular). wil hCTCSS and a DualbandHam Radio All In
One!
Triple Conve rsion . CTCSS Tone Scan. 200 Memories . Superi or
Audio. 300Mw TX Power on 2M
and 70cm Ham Bands Size: 2.3-(W) x
3.75' (H) X 1.1"(0 1CA LL FOR PRICING' AMIFMIWFM
. MORE!
Receive: 76-200MHz.300-540M Hz590-999MHzcellular blocked
Transmit: 144148MHz430-450MH z
AM Aircraft ReceiveDig ital Coded SquelchHigh Speed Scanning112
Memory ChannelsMuch . Muc h More !
Wideb and. AllMode ReceiveCapability From100kHz 101300 MHz.
1000 MemoryChannels Witha-CharacterAlphanumericNames.Many
Other
Featu res !
TEKK PR(). SPORTTF-461 FR$ 14 Cha nnels... Each $69 .95
pair for $ 129.95Chero kee CBCBSlOOO AM"SSB Base CALLCBS-500 AM
Base CALLCM I OAM Mobile CAl lAH-27 Walkie CALLAH100 AM/SSB Walkie
,. ._.CALLFR465 Family Radio ... CALL
CALL FOR ALL C8 EOUIPMENT10-Meler2950... CALL2970 CALL2990..
CALLNorthstar CALL
IC-R2A SCannerAvailable Nov.tsec
call for info!
14 Channel DigitalCod ed FRS Two-WayRadio with NationalWeather
ServiceReception .
500MW RF OutputPower/2 Mi le Range .
No License Required .each only$99.95
or 2 fo r$189.95
Drake Shortwave RadiosRBA . .. $99995 + $14 UPSR88 (r ew)
$1159.95 $14 UPSSW8 $779 95 + $10 UPSSW2 $489,95 + $7 UPSSW1.. .
519995 ... $7 UPS
SONYICF2010 ,. .. 5349 95 .. 57 UPSICFSv..77 $469.95 $7
UPSICF-7600G,. . _$169.95 $6 UPSICF76JOGS .. $234,95 57
UPSICFSV/1000TS $469,95 $7 UPSICF-SW100S . $369.95 57 UPSICF-SW55
$3-1995 57 UPS
CommunicationsReceiver For Computer Cove rs .0 1-1300MHz. All
Mode WFM . FM,
AM. sse.cw Employs Bano-I racklnq
RF Filters. Connec ts to Your PC
Externall .
-
lamarand ItowtoItear tltemlive
By Dave Cawley
ImnarSill is a svstcm o f co mmunica tionsatellites 111,,1
allows people to ta lk andexchange data ea sily from almost
everyplace in the wor ld. Co mpris ing fo ur geos ta-tionary sa te
llite s. the system was started in1979. l1carly 20 years ago. Using
simpleequip-ment and a topend scan ner. monitors callhea rteleph
one truffle and witness import ant dec i-sions being mad e 'III
over the wor ld. rightnow, i ll real time.
Inmarsut. sho rt for Internation a l MaritimeSate llite. was
crcured so that ships at sou co uldcommunicate reliably. HF radio
(high tre-qu cncy or shortw ave) is so metimes d ifficu lt10 usc
and is ofte n unre liable .The militar y had
Once a maritime communicationssystem, Inmarsat is increasingly
used bynews reporters, relief agencies,businessmen, and other world
travelers.
rea lized this and alrea dy had the ir own satel -lite sys tems
in ope ration. But what about thelong haul ships. the cru ise
liners. ~U1d othervesse ls out of normal communication range ?
It was Arthur C. Clarke who. in OctoberIlJ45. published his
paper "E xtra-TerrestrialRel ays." suggesting thaij ust three gcos
union-ury satel lites could cove r the wor ld ' s surface.In fac t.
his title for the art icle was or igina lly"The Future of World
Communic ations" and.as we all kno w. he was right - as shown
bythese ope ning remark s:
"Although it is possible, by 0suitoble choice of frequencies
ondroutes, to provide telephony circuitsbetween a ny two po ints or
reg ionsof the eorth for 0 lorge port of thetime, long-d istan ce
communica tionisgreo~y hompered by the pecu-liorities of the
ionosphere, and therea re even occosions when it may beimpossible.
A true broodcastservice, givingconstant field strengthat all times
aver the whale globewould be invaluable, nat to sayindispensable,
in a world society."
T hese wor ds must have rung true in theco nsort ium of 47 count
ries who agreed in1979 to build u tru ly worldwide communica -tion
sys te m. Not limi ted by po litica l or physi-ca l bou ndaries and
free for a ll to usc , prov id-ing safety and co ntinuity wh ere ot
hers hadfailed . lnmursat beca me the only se rvice tousc.
ArthurC. Clarke had suggested three sate l-lites would covcr the
wo rld. but to have over-lapping coverage four we re eventua lly
used .lnmarsat A has the "c onstant fie ld strength"that Clarke
sugges ted. which means that for aslong as the sate llite is
visible its strength is
C"""".,ylnmo,,,,'
constant. T here arc few sa te llites that provi desuc h big
"footpri nts." ot her than perhapswea ther sate llite s.
Who uses Inmarsat ?Who ma kes usc of the lnm arsut service?
Ce rtai nly mo st ocea n-going ships, hut in re-cent years more
and more ind ividu a ls arcusing the service.Take the traveling
business-man. for exa mple. There is 11 0 worldwidemob il e phone
se rvice. so he has to re ly on thehote l phone . often at S12 to
S15 per minute.anti freq uent ly in Third \Vor ld co untrie s pos
-ses sing little or 110 te lepho ne se rvice at al l.
If he has a small briefcase-sized lnmarsatphone wit h him , it
(,:os ts j ust S~ a minu te - ~10argu ment so co mpelling I'm left
wo nde ringwhy I do n' t have on e. In fact. despit e o wninga
world coverage GSM phon e, I discoveredwh ile in Eg ypt recently,
that. !CS.GS~ t wo rksin Egypt. hut no, there is no reciprocal
licens-ing ag reem ent. ~hiking import ant ca lls throughthe ant
iquated hote l telephone service mannedby onl y Arabic speaking
people cost me over5600 in one week!
But there a rc more important nonmarineand noncommercial uses.
such as d isa sterrel ief. hel p in inacce ssible and hostil e a
reas,scie ntific resea rch, and, of course. fron t linenews report
ing .
Types of ServiceImll ~l rsat A
lnmarsat A was the first standard to he usedon the sa tellites .
It has a con stant field strengthand is ana log : in fact , it
behaves just like agood qua lity te lep ho ne line. Users can
con-nec t modern s anti cull the ir office , send andrece ive FAXe
s and, of co urse. have a highqu ality telephon e co nve rsation.
So me use rscontinue usin g the A sys te m for its analog
22 MONITORING TIMES November 1998
-
...."'; lnmarset I!I~EJlnmarsat carries clear speech telephon e
conversations f rom around the world.
AOR-E AOR-~ POR IORA' lO 2.01 Q 134 .BB Q 21 a .14 Q 38 .23 QEl
4 .44 Q 30 .B 3 Q -8.7'1 Q -'17 . 19 QL., a . a OoN o .oaQM O.OOQ N
O.OOQNL ong : 15. 50 QUl 54 .00 QtJ 178 . 00 QUl 64 .50 QE
You will find that on each sate ll ite there isa z-rhour rad io
st.uion. A"'~ (Am erica n ForcesNe twor k). which can he used to
align theant e nna. You simply co nnect the cables a ndusc on e of
the supplied ad apt er s to fit yourscanne r. W ith the scanner se
t to 1537.0 MHz
Setting up a system
that I can rece ive three. the maxim um pos-si ble.
AOR-\V is the West At lantic Region satcl-lite and cov ers most
of Nort h and SouthAme rica and also mo st of Europe. It ha s mu
chclear spee ch traffic a ll da y a nd nigh t. Itslocati on is 54
.0 degrees West.
AOR-E is the Ea st Atlantic Regi on sate l-lite and cove rs par
ts of North Ame rica. SouthAmerica. Europe and the Middle Eas t. It
hasa lo t o f c lear speech tra ffi c in sev eral lun-guagcs as it
co vers suc h a large area o f nonEngl ish spe aking people. It is
locat ed at 15.5degrees West.
lOR is the Indi a Region sate ll ite a nd co v-c rs the who le
of Ind ia. Europe and Weste rnAustra lia. This sat e ll ite has a
lot of very inte r-estin g traffi c indeed. mo st of it in Eng lish
. asit co ve rs what used to he the main part o f theBri tish
Empire. It is located at 64.5 deg reesEas t .
POR is the Pacif ic sate llite and coversJapan. Australia and
the West Coast o r No rthAm er ica. This sate llite is out of m y
range. butI know that severa l Au str alian reader s aresuc
cessfully mo nitori ng it. It is located a t 17Xdegrees \Vest.
There arc four sate ll ites in the se ries . Inmost plac es in
the \...-orld yo u wi ll prob abl yrecei ve two ; here in Eng land
I a m ve ry luck y
The Satellites
scanne rs. There arc IW O wa ys arou nd this: oneis to pu t up
with the s light distort ion on so mesigna ls. and the other is to
use a n ou t-boarddemodu lat or . In fact. the tra nsmi ss ions usc
acompander that limit s the dynamic range orthe vo ice transm
ission a nd expa nds it at therece ive r.
In rea lit y. a standa rd out -of-the-box rc -ccivcr is fin e
for cas ua l monito ring of nearlyall sig nals: onl y the Ita lian
s sound di sto rted!
W hat if you arc willing to put up with a hitof distor tio n now
and again . bu t yo ur di sconcisn 't pick ing up anyt hing at all?
T his is such acommon qu estion. I pu t the following. ra the
rtechnical an swer on the Intern et.
T he ave rag e scanne r has a sen siti vity ofabout 1.0 uV at
1540 MHz (for 12 dB signal-to-noise). Usi ng a 35 dB gain preamp
lifierwith a 0.5 dB no ise figu re increases thi s SCIl -sitivity
to j ust O.ORuv . a d ifference of 22 dB .1\ 3 1'001 long. c
ircularly po lar ized. heli calantenna c ut for 1540 Ml-lz w ill g
ive about 15dB more gain tha n the best d iscone. Addantenna cable
loss of about 6.0 dB . A nd youend up with 4 3 dB more sig na l.
resu ltin g in arecei vabl e signa l from ln marsat of aboLll 20
+dB signa l-to- noise. So when you try to recei veIn mar sat on yo
ur disconc , it will be about 2l->dB be low the no ise : hen ce
. you wi ll get ab so-lutcl y noth ing at a ll.
Inmarsat CInm arsat C is a vcry popul ar service C' I-
pable of se nding and rec eivi ng digital datafrom a sim ple
omni dir ectional antenna. T heor igina l usc wa s for a Telex typ
e system. butthe sta nda rds arc flexible e nough to handl edata
for all so rts of uses .
Inmarsal Blnmursnt B is a di gital se rvice that pro vides
low qu ali ty vo ice co mmunica tion and me-dium spee d da ta
capability. O nce popular. it isprobably a dying mode now .
Inmarsat MInmursa t M is a high er -power ed sys te m
usi ng spot beams. In fact. the spot beamscover mo st o f the
civilized world . and formost trave le rs it is quite sufficient. T
he sy s-tem uses di gi tal speec h and low cost. small.light
briefcase-t ype terminal s. So popu lar isthe M sys te m tha t you
will lind ad verti ser s inth is magazine sc ll ing syste ms.
A lot of scanners and nearly all top e ndrecei ve rs now cove r
the lnmarsa t frequenciesof 1535.00- 1543.50 M Hz. Th ere arc only
twoproble ms. T he first is that your receiver wil lonly receiv e
ana log voice transm ission s andtha t restri c ts yo u to the In
marsat A se rv ice .T his is no grea t prob lem because it always
ha sse vera l telephon e calls at any time to monitor.
T he second problem is that you will need asuitable ant enna and
a very low noi se pream-plifier. T here are at least two manufac
turersready and wi lling to he lp yo u in this area.
A slight additiona l problem is that thebandwidth of the Inm ar
sat A tran sm issions isslig htly wider than tha t provided on mo
st
How to receive Inmarsat
Inmarsat 0Inmar sut D does not ye t officia lly exist. but
it will soon. II is conceived as a pa ger and lowrate return
syste m. Fo r exa mple. a road ve-hicle carry ing a valuable cargo
ca n be po lle dfrom the D se rvice . and it ca n re tu rn its G
PSpo sition usin g a low speed di gi tal signal. No lmuch ac tual
information wi ll be tran sm ittedor received. bUI for those tha t
need th is infor-marion. it w ill be ve ry valuable indeed.
qu alit y whe n othe r se rv ices wou ld be c hea pe r.T here
arc a lso a lot of A terminal s in usc .
becau se it was the first se rvice and because ituses the con
sta nt fiel d stre ng th ph ilosup hy. Itsuse rs have chose n the A
se rvice for thesespec ific qualit ies and are unlikely to swap
toan other service - good ne ws to the hobbyi st.since it is this
serv ice that is so eas y to hea r.
November 1998 MONITORING TIMES 23
-
The auth or call receive three lnmarsat satelliteswith this
array at his location ill England.
and the antenna pointed roughly in theright direction. soo n you
will hear thebroad cast; it is a simple matte r to adju stthe
antenna for maximum clarity.
(Editor's note : It has been reportedthat AFN broadcasts on AOR-
\V andlOR have beendiscontinued and replacedwith high powered HF
broadcasts in the416/ 12 MHz marine bands.)
Unlike satellite TV, you haw a toler-ance of at least 15 degrees
within whichyou can still hear (he satellite. FromChicago. for
example. AOR -W is 134degrees, nearly southwest. and 30 de-grees
elevatio n. Once you have foundthe satellite, usua lly after only a
fewminutes, then it' s time to fix the antennapermanently. although
for years I had mine atground level resting on a plast ic box. I
have achea p coa x switch that gives me either thediscone or (he
Inmarsat antenna .
1 have tried nearly all the rece ivers thatco ver the lnrnarsat
frequ encies and they allwork well; you do not need a very
expensivescanner. As all the signals arc the same strength.the
receiver's per formance is not very critical.and a preamp lifier
helps make up for anydeficiencies. However, in my experience , Iwou
ld recom mend Icorn and AO R as reliableperform ers.
There is a cho ice of at least two com mer-cia l manufacturers
from which to purchasethe antenna and preamplifier . If you decid e
tobuild your own. there arc just a couple ofthings yo u need to
know. Th e transmissionsare in narrowband FM and received with
aright hand . circularly polarized antenna. Yourrece iving sys tem
must be able to resolve 0. 1uV or bette r and the anten na needs
about 15dB of gain.
There arc other options. too: in Europe it ispossible to modify
a TVRO system, remov ethe 4 or 12 GH z sec tion from the LNB.
andfeed a two- or three-turn hel ical feed directlyinto the IF
amplifier of the LNB . Difficult. butnot impossible: I have even
seen what lookedlike nearly complete lnrnarsat systems at theDayton
Hamfest!
Details of the Timestep preamplifier
What you will hearThi s is the excit ing part !The people
using
lnmarsat systems arc not short of money .w hat they have to say
is very interesting . Ihave heard ships being illegally boarded.
shipowners instructing their captains abo ut thetime to dock to
improve Customs relations.news reporters, dea ls inside large com
panies.military communica tions. and lots more that Isimply ca nnot
mention. Though you usua lly(hut not always) gel only one side of
theconversation. it is gene rally obvious what ishappening.
Those involved in internationul cri me of-tcn use lnmarsat: it
works anywh ere. it isthought to be secure. it is though t to be
bug andtap free. and you can pay your bill anywherein the world .
Monitors have allegedly hearddrug und anns deals. trade embargoes
beingbroken. several pirate ships working. and poli-tician s
colluding and genera ting cover-ups.
There arc dozens of channels in use at anyone time ; you simply
tune up and down anddecid e what to monitor. Nearly everything
isthe same signal strength. Com purer softwarecould he left to scan
and. using the voicedetection mode. could store hundreds of
mes-sages into your computer via its sound card.lnrnursut is
perhaps the only wayofusingyourscanner to listen to new and
sometimes distantcountries.
At home near Cambridge. England. I havethree antenna s on the
end of my house so thatI can listen 10 three out of the four
satellitesavailab le. If 1 hear any interesting news onCNN. I
immediatel y select the appropriatesatellite and get the rest of
the story hoursbefore it breaks! As I write this article.dozensof
calls arc in progre ss on AOR E. The Jokerin the pack'? Yes. there
is an unknow n. ord i-nary FAX transmissio n in the clear.
Wonderwhat would happen if you connected yourreceiver to a FAX
decoder?
Inmarsat monitoring is a huge andlargely untapped area. You owe
it toyourself to put your scanner to somegood use above 1500 MHz.
After all.didn 't you buy it because of its widefrequency coverage?
Now is the time tomonitor satellites!
Where you can buyThere arc two sources of ready built
equipment. Timcstep, who provide asystem comprising: helical
antenna ,prea mplifier . 65 feet of cable, powerinserter. adapters
for your scanner and amanual. Th is Timestcp system. costing$399.
requires only a 12 V power sup-ply.
Swager Enterprises provide a 3 foot dish,feed horn coverin g
1500 -1ROO MHz. pream -plifier, power inserte r, power supply
andmanual. Th is Swagur sys tem. cos ting $545.requires only
cable.
Ti rnestep System (Europe sales)T imestep PO Box
2001NewmarketCB88QAEnglandTe l. +44 1440820040Fax +44 1440 82028
1e-mail [email protected]
Swagur EnterprisesBox 620035MiddletonWI 53562-0035TeVFax 608 592
7409e-mail swagu [email protected] site www.swagur.eom
AcknowledgementsArthur C. Clarke, who so graciously in-
vited me to his horne in Sri Lanca in July 1992and who gave me
his scient ific autobiographyand an annotated copy of the
"Extra-Terre s-trial Re lay" article .
Mart in Goodrum from British Telecom-mun icat ion s Research Lab
oratories whoworked with me on a DGPS project usinglnmarsat. hence
giving me the enthusiasm toexplore fun her.
Dove Cawley, G4IUG, is owner of Timestep,which produces weather
satellite receivingeq uipment. He wa s formerly a senior des
ignengineer for Philips specia lizing in rece iverdesign, ond has
been a ham for thirty years.
24 MONITORING TIMES NovembO' 1998
-
GROVE ENTERPRISES, INC.1-800-438-8155 US a nd Ca nada
828-837 -920ll FAX 828-837-22167540 Highway 64 West Brasstown,
NC 28902-0098
e-mail : [email protected]: www.grove-en t.com
ew Utility BandARSAT!
ption never hasthis easy!
T his super-wide -coveragerccci vc r ranksamong the bestev er
made !
T he A RSOOO PLUSIII ex te nded-frequencycoverage receiver is tu
nabl e from 10 kHz thro ugh 2600MHz (less cellular) and offers do
uble and sing le sidebandsynchronous detection . 2000 mem ory
channels. AM & FMaut om at ic frequency co ntro l. 10 VFOs. 40
search ban ks.and mo re. For the first time. you can hear VLP tim e
sig na lsand na val co mm unications. c ivilian and m
ilitaryaeronau tical transmi ssion s, VHF/UHF pub lic safety radio
,ham repeater s. mic rowave earth satell ites. and mu ch . muchmore
!
This tr iple-con ver sion, luxury recei ver offers out-stand ing
se nsi rivity (D.15 microvolt SS B. 0.3 microvoltVHF/ UHF I'M , 0,6
microvolt AM) , rapid SOehanncl pe rsec ond scan/se arch speed. I
Hz to I M l-lz pro g rammabletuning steps. all mode receptio n (A
M/ FM/ LSB/US B/CW).selectable IF bandwid ths (3/ 611 5/4011
1()/220 kHz), superbfrequ ency stability (+/-1 ppm, ()SO deg. C.),
mobile orfixed power ( 12 VDC /120V AC ). and mu ch . mu ch
more-all on one radi o ~
ORDt'H\\'BRIlP (AR; OOOPlus Ill)
$2,09595Please add $1 6 2nd DayUPS or USPriority MaL
O tmERSC~ 1 (tCOM llR;OO )$1 49995 Pleaseadd$16 2nd Day, UPS or
USPriOrity Mal.
Here is oneof the most popular. wide -frequency coverage ( 100
kHz1999.99 MH z. less ce llular) recei vers. Tune longv..'ave ,sho
rtwave, VHF/U HF , all se rv ices and mod es (FM , AM,US B, LSB ,
CW ) wit h high sensitiv ity, IF shift. se lectableAGC liming, aud
io peak filter , buil t-in RS232C and C IVfor direct computer co
ntro l, 1000 scannable memorychanne ls , Svme te r. noi se blan ker
, and 12 VDCIl 20 VACope ration.
High stability crysta l oscillators combine the automat
icfrequency co ntro l circuitry for outsta nding stability.Mul tip
le luning speeds optimize signa l hunting.Alphanumeri c di sp lay
aids in identifying mem ori zedfrequ encies. Automatic memory
stores sea rch-d iscoveredact ive freq uencies. Three antenna
connectors providechoices for frequency ranges. optio na l voice
synthesizerand rem ote control-an incre d ible array of
advancedfeatures !
Abrave new world awaits the radio listener on theInmarsat
satellite frequencies, and youcan hear all theaction on the learn
R8S00 ana AOR ARSOOOreceivers.Just odd a small portable dish and
preamp system (likethe one from Swagur Enterp'rises) and youare set
to tunein aeronautical, morine, land mobile, government,
andmilitary dear voice communications from22,300 milesabove
theearth.
November 1998 MONITORING TIMES 2S
-
RichardBame"[email protected]
TheWorld Above 30MHz~i----------That New Band to Scan
BAND PLAN
Inlegnltld Voice HlghS_ HlghS_ Inlegnltad Vole.DstalYldeo
DatalVldeo& Data Syatems SYltaml Systama Daw 5yllam.(3 MHz) (3
MHz) (3 MHz) (3 MHz)
24 MHZ(100%)
8.8 MHZ(36.7%)
i TOTAL .!SPECTRUM
TVCtl .84(77o..noMHz)
(000-806 MHz)
12 MHZ~240 Cm
4.8 MHZ(96Cm
WIDEBAND(50KHZ BASISCHANNELS)"
are vert ically polari zed whil e televisionbroadcast is hori
zontally po larized, and likeissues. While broadcaste rs seek to
insure thatno land-mobi le signals will interfere withtheir televi
sion tran smi ssion s, public safetydoes not want to be hamstrung
with regu la-tion s that make it all but imp ossible to utili zethe
new band .
At the tim e of the convention in August,this much was
known:
no
Mobile Transmit
Fixed Transmit
7.8 MHZ(1248 CH)
I NARROWBAND
I, (6.25KHZ BASISCHANNELS)'
TVCI'l . 63(784noMHz)
(794800 ~Hz)
USE
TOTAL 'I 12MHZ(l920CmI
SPECTRUM USE DISTRIBUTION
SUBJECT TO 3RD I 3.4 MHZS.4 MHZFNPRM ! (544ern (108Cm
Integ nltectVoice HlghS_ HlghS_ Inttgl1lted YolceOetalVldeo
DatllVldeo& Dl ta 5Yltems SYltems SYl lam. & Oata SYlteml(3
MHZ) (3 MHZ) (3 MHZ) (3 MHZ)
,"' .~ -ce.s 80
78.
me mbers and manufacturers, had as theirobjective a desire to
ado pt a more aggressivemobileffV shari ng cri teria than tha t
used at470 -5 12 M Hz. To max imize spectru m avail-ability for
public safety without not iceab leimpact 011 TV broadcasters, it is
importantthat the FCC takes into account the propaga-tion diffe
rences bet ween 470 M Hz and 750M Hz ; the lower power output of
mobil es andportables ; the fact that land mobile signals
In previous issues we 've discussed thepen ding opening of the
746- 806 MH zband for pub lic safely co mmunications.This is the
top end o f the UHF TV spec tru mwhich is not full y popul ated by
broad castersnationally. The problem is that there are TVbroad
casts with in this band seg ment in mostof the major metropolitan
regions - theexact areas of the country where the spec-trum is
needed most
T he call for add itional frequ encies grewout of t