Listening in on Russian HF transmissions

Univertsity of Twente Wide-band WebSDR ^ | 02/26/2022

[SamAdams76]

During that time, the Sony ICF-2010 was the holy grail for portable shortwave radios. The Grundig Satellit 700 was a close runner-up.

Never had the Sony myself. I loved my Grundig 700. Used it nearly daily for over 10 years, the last few years it was more used for FM listening than for shortwave. Had a very rich sound to it.

[farming pharmer]

5331 kHz being actively jammed when the Russians are communicating. . Must be something good.

[RushIsMyTeddyBear]

😆

[JPG]

Maybe... "Get me the f__ out of here"

Or...."Don't park that damn crematory truck upwind of us."

[MachIV]

My God!!.....someone is screaming bloody murder on that frequency!!

[Southside_Chicago_Republican]

I started with a 40s vintage Sears AM/SW radio from my grandmother’s attic. Then I had a couple of sets from Radio Shack and a Grundig portable.I

Yes, that is one of the things the internet spoiled: the fun of finding and reeling in that rare and distant station. With streaming, it’s like being a birder and having the birds all show up in your back yard instead of your having to go out and look for them.

[steve86]

I have a $50 Chinese software-defined radio (SDR), hooked to a laptop for visual frequency spectrum that is not much inferior to those classic radios (if at all). Going to look for activity later.

[ClayinVA]

Twitter was reporting a couple hours ago that the Russian Bear Bomber HF was very active. The assumption was that long range cruise missiles were going to be fired into Ukraine again today.

[SamAdams76]

Nice analogy. Having all the birds show up in your backyard takes the fun out of birdwatching. Most of the fun is always in the search and makes the reward much more satisfying.

I had some really transcendent moments while DX'ing in those days. I would occasionally pick up the most exotic music from someplace in South America or even across the ocean that would mesmerize me. Now whatever you want to hear is just a click away.

Yes, you can hear just about any piece of music you want on YouTube on demand. But the joy of discovery is taken away. It's just not the same.

[bankwalker]

Twitter was reporting a couple hours ago that the Russian Bear Bomber HF was very active.

Twitter reports nothing ... one of their millions of account holders does ...

[nascarnation]

“Ukraine chicks welching on Tinder dates...bummer”

[stuck_in_new_orleans]

On a iPhone. Switched to mobile friendly version. Not hearing anything

[PIF]

If you are really clever you could wind copper coils to break out the separate channels - each channel would require a separate coil - there is usually one or two channels of clear voice.

[higgmeister]

You are making me think back to my military days of transmitting and receiving teletype tone packs (VFTG or VFCT) on HF frequencies.

Overseas we had a short link with the Portuguese and we got their attention for a radio check saying, Santa Maria, Santa Maria this is Lajes, Lajes on dois, sete, sete, dois, how copy, over?   We found out after a few months that the other guy at Santa Maria was a farmer who lived down the hill that they asked to go up there and make sure that the power was on and to be there for our radio checks.

Back in the CONUS sometimes from our fixed facility we would get up on HF to exercises in the field, meeting with voice in the clear using code names.   I'll never forget on Brave Shield, we were Acrobat with an HF shot to Hard Ball.

It started out something like this:

Hard Ball, Hard Ball, Hard Ball this is Acrobat, Acrobat, Acrobat how copy, over?

Then repeat every minute or two.

I had to get back to running the shift and told an Airman to keep trying to get up with them.   Then I heard that wisenheimer come up with Balls this is Bat, Balls this is Bat, do you copy.

[Georgia Girl 2]

I just translated something. It says “Trump says “tell Vlad steaks are on me next time we get together. Thanks for taking one for the team”.

[PIF]

There are some blurry photos online of the gear we used in ASA in the 60s I think the radio was something like an RS232 multichannel patched to 4 demux boxes to break out 4 ch PPM systems and those to a tape reel to reel. All the standard Russian freqs were available from tanks to LEO manned space.

[farming pharmer]

If you are really clever you could wind copper coils to break out the separate channels - each channel would require a separate coil - there is usually one or two channels of clear voice.

The feed comes from a university in Europe. They probably have a decent antenna setup.

[PIF]

You can probably pick them up on your own - we used to get WBZ Boston in Turkey on skip

[Scram1]

When listening to this being broadcast now in real time,
the question is who is doing this now?

Säkkijärven polkka
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Säkkijärven_polkka

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXXdWtZpayQ

[Southside_Chicago_Republican]

It was a great experience. It really opened the world to me. I liked QSLing and getting mail from all over. Music from Latin America could cheer me up on a cold Illinois winter’s day. I also liked the various utility stations and the weird stuff that was always out there: numbers stations, strange noises, etc.

There is a website that has clips of old interval signals, a nice way to preserve some history. I downloaded Radio Nederland’s carillon for my ring tone.