In article , says...

From the ARRL's saturday morning missive:

=="INTRUDER SIGNAL" ON 40 METERS REMAINS A MYSTERY FOR NOW

An unidentified signal that's been showing up on the 40-meter phone band
on or about 7238 kHz has mystified amateurs in the western US and Canada,
where it's been heard frequently for the past few weeks. Although it
resembles a steady carrier, a closer inspection suggests that the
intruding signal actually is a series of closely spaced signals. Don
Moman, VE6JY, in Edmonton, Alberta, says the signal is quite loud at his
QTH.

"This signal looks a lot more interesting than it would sound--just a
broad tone/hum/buzz, depending on where you tune," he said. One
spectrogram from VE6JY showed perhaps a half-dozen or more discrete
signals. "It's certainly loud enough out here, peaking broadly
south-southwest from Edmonton," he said. Moman was using a 5-element Yagi
and was hearing the signal at 10 dB over S9.

That conforms with observations reported by Bob Gonsett, W6VR, at
Communications General Corp (CGC). He says engineers at the CGC lab in
Fallbrook, California took a quick look at the intruder September 6 at
around 2120 UTC and found "several close-spaced CW carriers--perhaps from
one specially modulated transmitter, perhaps from transmitters at
different locations," he reported. CGC reported the signals appeared on
7238.063, 7238.150, 7238.237 and 7238.412 kHz, with the 7238.237 kHz
signal being "the strongest of the group."

While no one's sure what it is, the FCC HF Direction Finding Facility has
been able to determine that it's coming from somewhere north of Prescott,
Arizona, and west of Interstate 17. FCC monitoring indicates the "buzz" is
centered on 7238.1 kHz with a bandwidth of about 1 kHz and spikes spaced
at about 90 Hz apart.

Reports to the International Amateur Radio Union Region 2 Monitoring
System indicate the signal has been heard from about 1700 to 2130 UTC,
although Moman reported hearing it at around 0300 UTC and said the signal
even went off the air for a few seconds while he was listening to it. Jack
Roland, KE0VH, in Colorado also heard the signals for a couple of evenings
this week. "Something is not right there," he remarked.

High Noon Net Manager Bill Savage, N5FLD, in Albuquerque, New Mexico said
several net participants--in Nebraska, Colorado, Nebraska, Wyoming,
Minnesota and Arizona--were able to hear the mystery signal.

So, like the Russian Woodpecker, just swamp it with about 10 hams
running full legal limit, and keying quickly, and randomly. Maybe
you can chase it away. Or maybe find it's source, and destroy it,
and it's owners. It continues to **** me off that 'official' agencies
think nothing of plopping signals right in the middle of amatuer
bands, and ****ting on us, even thought there are rules that forbid
such uses of our frequencies. Gee, wasn't it possible for the signal's
owner to put it over 7.300 mhz. Screw them with a capital F.
I used to love to drive the woodpecker crazy. It was easy to chase it
out of the ham bands. Maybe we can make the 'mystery' signal
useless to it's owners. Now why is it that 'they' could find us
quicker than 'they' can find the mistery signal and eliminate it???
Hahaha, wish I still had access to some 500kw Navy shorebased
rhombic stuff. Although the rhombics probably would not be facing
the correct direction. At one time I may have been able to swamp
their receiver into oblivian.

Just the ramblings of another ****ed off ham who hates folks using
hambands 'without our prior consent'.

If you would 'google' it up, you would find that the military prempts the
FCC and can operate just about anywhere they want without 'permission' from
the FCC. I found some military stuff right in the middle of our 450 band a
couple years ago, and challenged the operator. He was only to glad to give
me a phone number to call, which I did, I ended up at a military base
talking to a high ranking officer who directed me to several web sites that
explained it all. He was right, they were legal, and I was supposed to 'bug
off' whenever I heard them even though my ham license said I could operate
there. The FCC couldn't do a thing about it...

Jer

"gudmundur" wrote in message
...
In article ,
says...

From the ARRL's saturday morning missive:

=="INTRUDER SIGNAL" ON 40 METERS REMAINS A MYSTERY FOR NOW

An unidentified signal that's been showing up on the 40-meter phone band
on or about 7238 kHz has mystified amateurs in the western US and Canada,
where it's been heard frequently for the past few weeks. Although it
resembles a steady carrier, a closer inspection suggests that the
intruding signal actually is a series of closely spaced signals. Don
Moman, VE6JY, in Edmonton, Alberta, says the signal is quite loud at his
QTH.

"This signal looks a lot more interesting than it would sound--just a
broad tone/hum/buzz, depending on where you tune," he said. One
spectrogram from VE6JY showed perhaps a half-dozen or more discrete
signals. "It's certainly loud enough out here, peaking broadly
south-southwest from Edmonton," he said. Moman was using a 5-element Yagi
and was hearing the signal at 10 dB over S9.

That conforms with observations reported by Bob Gonsett, W6VR, at
Communications General Corp (CGC). He says engineers at the CGC lab in
Fallbrook, California took a quick look at the intruder September 6 at
around 2120 UTC and found "several close-spaced CW carriers--perhaps from
one specially modulated transmitter, perhaps from transmitters at
different locations," he reported. CGC reported the signals appeared on
7238.063, 7238.150, 7238.237 and 7238.412 kHz, with the 7238.237 kHz
signal being "the strongest of the group."

While no one's sure what it is, the FCC HF Direction Finding Facility has
been able to determine that it's coming from somewhere north of Prescott,
Arizona, and west of Interstate 17. FCC monitoring indicates the "buzz" is
centered on 7238.1 kHz with a bandwidth of about 1 kHz and spikes spaced
at about 90 Hz apart.

Reports to the International Amateur Radio Union Region 2 Monitoring
System indicate the signal has been heard from about 1700 to 2130 UTC,
although Moman reported hearing it at around 0300 UTC and said the signal
even went off the air for a few seconds while he was listening to it. Jack
Roland, KE0VH, in Colorado also heard the signals for a couple of evenings
this week. "Something is not right there," he remarked.

High Noon Net Manager Bill Savage, N5FLD, in Albuquerque, New Mexico said
several net participants--in Nebraska, Colorado, Nebraska, Wyoming,
Minnesota and Arizona--were able to hear the mystery signal.

So, like the Russian Woodpecker, just swamp it with about 10 hams
running full legal limit, and keying quickly, and randomly. Maybe
you can chase it away. Or maybe find it's source, and destroy it,
and it's owners. It continues to **** me off that 'official' agencies
think nothing of plopping signals right in the middle of amatuer
bands, and ****ting on us, even thought there are rules that forbid
such uses of our frequencies. Gee, wasn't it possible for the signal's
owner to put it over 7.300 mhz. Screw them with a capital F.
I used to love to drive the woodpecker crazy. It was easy to chase it
out of the ham bands. Maybe we can make the 'mystery' signal
useless to it's owners. Now why is it that 'they' could find us
quicker than 'they' can find the mistery signal and eliminate it???
Hahaha, wish I still had access to some 500kw Navy shorebased
rhombic stuff. Although the rhombics probably would not be facing
the correct direction. At one time I may have been able to swamp
their receiver into oblivian.

Just the ramblings of another ****ed off ham who hates folks using
hambands 'without our prior consent'.

In article ,
Jer wrote:

If you would 'google' it up, you would find that the military prempts the
FCC and can operate just about anywhere they want without 'permission' from
the FCC. I found some military stuff right in the middle of our 450 band a
couple years ago, and challenged the operator. He was only to glad to give
me a phone number to call, which I did, I ended up at a military base
talking to a high ranking officer who directed me to several web sites that
explained it all. He was right, they were legal, and I was supposed to 'bug
off' whenever I heard them even though my ham license said I could operate
there. The FCC couldn't do a thing about it...

For the 420-450 band in particular (and many of the other UHF bands as
well), the FCC's allocation of these bands to the amateur radio
service is "secondary", with government users being the "primary".
Amateurs "must not interfere" with the government users and "must
tolerate" interference from government users. There are certain other
services which have been granted "primary" use of these bands in
certain parts of the country, as well, and amateurs must not interfere
with these.

FWIW, I didn't see any indication in the ARRL article which suggested
that the 7238 kHz carrier cluster is from a government operation, and
as the signal doesn't appear to be actually carrying significant
intelligence in its carrier or sidebands it may just be some odd piece
of equipment which has started oscillating strangely.

I'll be really interested to learn what it eventually turns out to be.

--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Hosting the Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!

.... I found some military stuff right in the middle of our 450 band a
couple years ago, and challenged the operator. He was only to glad to give
me a phone number to call, which I did, I ended up at a military base
talking to a high ranking officer ....

My experience locally was on two meters, but the high-ranking officer
said that if/when it happened again, I should call him and ask to have
their frequency(ies) changed to something that didn't interfere with
whatever we were using.

--Myron.
--
Five boxes preserve our freedoms: soap, ballot, witness, jury, and cartridge
PhD EE (retired). "Barbershop" tenor. CDL(PTXS). W0PBV. (785) 539-4448
NRA Life Member and Certified Instructor (Home Firearm Safety, Rifle, Pistol)

"Jer" ) writes:
If you would 'google' it up, you would find that the military prempts the
FCC and can operate just about anywhere they want without 'permission' from
the FCC. I found some military stuff right in the middle of our 450 band a
couple years ago, and challenged the operator.

In general, the military everywhere like to rely on Article 38 of the ITU
Conventions.

The first para of Article 38 pretty much says the military radio
installations of any country can do whatever they want.

But the second para says "Nevertheless these installations must so far as
possible observe statutory provisions relative to ... the measures to
be taken to prevent harmful interference [to other services] ..."

Many military people are like other people I know (present company
excepted of course HI) - as soon as they find something they like, they stop
reading, so they never get to the second paragraph of Article 38.

It may be worth reminding them occasionally that ITU Article 38 is not a
blank cheque.

.... Martin VE3OAT

Behold, gudmundur signalled from keyed 4-1000A filament:

So, like the Russian Woodpecker, just swamp it with about 10 hams
running full legal limit, and keying quickly, and randomly. Maybe you
can chase it away.

I've always wondered why it's called the "Russian" woodpecker when it's
really US Navy OTH-B RADAR???

--
Gregg t3h g33k
"Ratings are for transistors....tubes have guidelines"
http://geek.scorpiorising.ca

In article XKe2d.33770$KU5.7747@edtnps89, says...

Behold, gudmundur signalled from keyed 4-1000A filament:

So, like the Russian Woodpecker, just swamp it with about 10 hams
running full legal limit, and keying quickly, and randomly. Maybe you
can chase it away.

I've always wondered why it's called the "Russian" woodpecker when it's
really US Navy OTH-B RADAR???

--
Gregg t3h g33k
"Ratings are for transistors....tubes have guidelines"
http://geek.scorpiorising.ca

Yes, In fact the Navy, and other groups operated American OTH radar
sites on the west coast. However, at the time (mid 70's to mid 80's)
the Russians (USSR) either had a similar OTH radar system, or, at
least realized they could key a high power array at 10hz and boone doggel
the American OTH. Perhaps the Russians had no return echo screens,
and no radar system at all, but they loved sending those annoying
clicks easterly off their eastern shores.

RDM7 1975-1996 (Moffet Naval Air Station)

Here's the modern woodpecker :-)

http://www.raytheon.com/products/hfswr/

--
Gregg t3h g33k
"Ratings are for transistors....tubes have guidelines"
http://geek.scorpiorising.ca

gudmundur ) writes:

I used to love to drive the woodpecker crazy. It was easy to chase it
out of the ham bands.

The Woodpecker changed frequency all the time anyway, whether anyone tried
to interfere with it or not. It was part of their operational plan. And
the pulses carried a PSK coded pattern to make it easier to recover the
returned echoes, sorting them out of the interference. I doubt very much
that anyone could really interfere with them when they operated.

.... Martin VE3OAT

I kind of chuckled at the thought of a handful of gnat-like hams chasing
out the 800 pound gorilla Woodpecker. It's reminiscent of the guy doing
the little dance. When asked why, he said, "to chase away the lions".
"But," came the response, "there aren't any lions within thousands of
miles." "See, it works, doesn't it?" said the dancing man.

As Martin points out, the Woodpecker would sit at one frequency for a
while, then jump to another -- I heard it many times. But I hadn't
realized there were people out there congratulating themselves for
chasing it off when it did make one of its frequency jumps.

Roy Lewallen, W7EL

Martin Potter wrote:

gudmundur ) writes:


I used to love to drive the woodpecker crazy. It was easy to chase it
out of the ham bands.


The Woodpecker changed frequency all the time anyway, whether anyone tried
to interfere with it or not. It was part of their operational plan. And
the pulses carried a PSK coded pattern to make it easier to recover the
returned echoes, sorting them out of the interference. I doubt very much
that anyone could really interfere with them when they operated.

... Martin VE3OAT