International Marconi Day is April 26

International Marconi Day is a yearly amateur operating event also of some interest to utility listeners. This year, it lasts from 0000 UTC on 26 April 2008 (afternoon of the 25th in the US) to 2359 UTC, 26 April 2008.

It is organized by an amateur radio club near where Marconi transmitted his historic transatlantic signals. The home page is at http://www.gb4imd.org.uk/
.

K6KPH, the amateur radio station of the Maritime Radio Historical Society at the historic KPH "Power House" on Pt. Reyes, CA, will be active starting at noon Pacific time, 1900 UTC, on Saturday, the 26th. Frequencies are 3550, 7050, 14050 and 21050 kHz.

As always, QSL to:

Denice Stoops
PO Box 381
Bolinas, California 94926
USA

Firedrake Jammer Revealed (CD Available)

Every so often, I run across a web page that just makes my jaw drop off. The latest Oh My God is this Satdirectory article on the source of the Firedrake (Firedragon) jamming signal used by China to cover Falun Gong's "Sound of Hope" broadcast from Taiwan.

One can make a case that this item pertains to world broadcasting, not utilities. However, the signal pops up on or near utility frequencies regularly, as it chases SOH around the bands. Lately, it's been heard daily in the fertile ute hunting ground just above 20 meters, on 14410 kHz around 2300 UTC.

It's actually rather good music, when conditions permit clear reception. It has some real nice drumming. It certainly beats all the other noise blasted into the HF bands by governments that can't handle freedom of opinion.

Well, here's what Satdirectory has to say on Firedrake:

Shortwave Radio Enthusiasts and Ham Radio operators have been watching China's Firedrake with interest. They believe that the primary Firedrake transmitter location is on Hainan Island off the coast of Southern China, however it is believed that there may be other transmitter sites also in use. It has also been noted that the Firedrake audio is a one hour loop with no announcements. This got us thinking at Satdirectory; how does the Firedrake programming get to the transmitter site? Is it delivered by a tape or CD on repeat, or is it like most other Chinese radio, delivered by a satellite link to the transmitter?

Well, a search with our 3 meter dish has found Firedrake! The audio is transmitted on Chinasat 6B within the China National Radio (CNR) satellite feed circuits. Many of the China National Radio feeds are in stereo, however one channel that is solely mono is CNR 8 - The Voice of the Minorities broadcast which features programs in the Kazakh, Korean, Mongolian, Tibetan and Uighur languages. The CNR 8 audio feed to the Chinese transmitter sites can be found on the left audio channel of a feed circuit labelled "Lzh8Rdjy". On the right audio channel of this feed is the audio for the Firedrake transmitters.

Following our discovery we tuned up a shortwave receiver to 17780 kHz which at the time also had the jammer running. The audio from the satellite feed and the shortwave radio were synchronised with no delay. This confirmed that the Firedrake shortwave transmitter site was also being fed by the same satellite feed, otherwise we would have expected a delay of a second or so due to the satellite uplink and downlink path delay when compared to the shortwave broadcast.

Satdirectory has actually made a CD with the full, 60-minute cycle. Since the copyright status is unknown, this one is available for non-commercial use only, from support(at)satdirectory.com. The only costs are to cover shipping and duplicating.

There's also a 4-minute sample of the high-fidelity audio right off the downlink, in Windows .wma format. Yes, there's some of the cool drumming.

Get it right here. But do go to the site and check out the whole story, with technical paramaters for those with a shot at Chinasat 6B, and some hilarious propaganda art.

Digital Mode of the Week: RTTY (Part 2: Teleprinting over radio)

Having discussed the origins of the 5-bit teleprinting ("Baudot") code, now we can talk about one of the oldest digital modes. This is RTTY, for radioteletype. It has undergone several incarnations, from wire teleprinting (like news wires), through various types of hardware-based radio modems, and finally to just another digital option in multimode computer sound card packages.

RTTY is sent over the radio by keying a transmitter between two tone frequencies corresponding to binary states. These are called mark and space. The process is called frequency-shift keying (FSK, F1B emission).

Direct FSK is still used in some dedicated RTTY equipment, but audio frequency-shift keying (AFSK) is far more common today. It is done by generating the proper modulation of an audio tone, which is then sent to the audio input of a standard single-sideband voice radio. (Note that power is lowered due to RTTY having a continuous duty cycle.)

Either method produces the same signal in the receiver. To the ear, RTTY sounds like a continuous warbling tone with rather clicky bit transitions, and often kind of a busy, chattery pulsation to it.

The difference between mark and space frequencies is the shift (in Hz), and the number of bit transitions sent in a second is the speed (in baud). Sometimes you also see speed in words per minute.

Common speeds are 45 (actually 45.45), 50, and 75. Common shifts are 170, 450, and 850. Characters are sent asynchronously, as they are generated. The five data bits are preceded by a single start bit and then followed by 1, 1.5, or two stop bits. (In practice, a long stop bit just sounds like a brief pause on the tone, making RTTY sound even more chattery.)

RTTY's standard tone center (halfway between mark and space) varies a bit. For the most part, it's around 2210 Hz. RTTY used to require careful tuning to center the tones on their respective filters, but today's decoders are more forgiving. Usually, one simply clicks on or between the two peaks on a display, or the software jumps to the loudest signals. The tone center is sometimes relevant for frequency logging, however.

RTTY dial vs listed frequencies can get pretty ambiguous. One can easily be 2 or more kHz off, and not even be sure which way. If you hear nothing on the listed frequency, tune around.

The third important parameter is signal polarity, which can be "normal" or "reverse." This refers to whether mark or space is the lower of the two tones, preferably when tuned in LSB. Unknown signals require some trial and error to find the speed and polarity which print readable text. Shift is usually more evident.

RTTY has no error check, meaning that any problems with the signal will create gibberish, or no print at all. Missed characters on fades are just something we live with.

The good news is that RTTY may be primitive, but it's still heard all over the HF bands. The bad news is that most of this is encrypted, often in a secure military/ government mode called KG-84. There is absolutely no way to get meaningful copy from it. A few navies, particularly the French, still run RTTY test loops and an occasional real message in the clear. Remaining weather stations in Germany and Canada have regular RTTY schedules.

RTTY in the military can also be referred to as RATT.

Old time RTTY stations stored messages on long reels of perforated paper tape, a character at a time. A procedure named "tape relay" existed for the storage and forwarding of traffic. Tapes were punched by perforating devices attached to Teletype machines, for transmission later. Received traffic could be punched directly onto this tape by a reperforator, and relayed by sending the tape to a reader. Much of RTTY's operating nomenclature such as "brag tapes," "test slips," and "loops," is a holdover from this era.


1950s US Navy tape position

The American Radio Relay League (ARRL) headquarters station W1AW sends long RTTY bulletins daily, on time/frequency schedules listed all over the Internet. Shorter transmissions, by hams shooting the breeze or in operating contests, can be heard up or down maybe 10-15 kHz from 14080.

Acarsd Pre-Release 1.7 Now Available for Testing

We finally got to see the new version 1.7 of acarsd, the free ACARS decoding and logging program that also does HFDL via data transfer from PC-HFDL. Beta versions of this new version have been hard to come by, after some users apparently misunderstood the meaning of the term "beta," as in "help us find the bugs."

This download is a "Release Candidate," something more than a beta but still not the official stable release. You can get it here. Right now the newest versions are Public 1.70 Release Candidate 3 30.03.2008 for Windows, and Public 1.70 Release Candidate 2 29.01.2008 for Linux.

I grabbed RC3 and installed it. The "Quick Install," a DOS program, was hard for me to understand, so I did the full install. There is now a setup screen in acarsd that runs the first time, and lets you set a lot of options that used to be deeply buried in the self-documenting acarsd.ini file. The graphic user interface now has its own .ini file, which I haven't looked at yet.

Several nice new features are apparent. The parsing of messages is a little better. What I was really interested in, however, was the expanded use of the ICAO24 airplane address to help identify aircraft making HF position reports. Basically, the idea is that instead of just logging all these planes as .NO-REG, the program uses this hex ID to look up the registration. This is a big improvement for HF users.

Since this is a pre-release, and since the acarsd documentation has never been especially detailed anyway, it took some digging in the .ini file before I found the option that would enable this search. Once I did that, the ICAO lookup worked as advertised.

So far I've had no major problems with version 1.7 RC. In fact, the only issue of substance I can think of is that so far I've been unable to change UP from Bahamasair to United Parcel Service. This issue is caused by the fact that UPS used to use a different IATA prefix.

It took a while to test all this out, since band conditions have been absolutely putrid. When you can't hear San Francisco on 6 or 8 MHz in Los Angeles, you know it's bad.

Digital Mode of the Week: RTTY (Part 1: ITA2 Telegraphic Alphabet)

We begin a new Utility World series of basic descriptions of digital modes you hear on the air.

First up is one of the oldest modes, but it is still used widely. It's usually called RTTY, for Radioteletype. In the military, you'll also see references to RATT, also Radioteletype.

RTTY's earliest precursor is the Baudot telegraphy code developed in the 1870s by two people working for Jean-Maurice-Émile Baudot, a French engineer. (Yes, that's where we get the transmission speed unit "baud.") This was a 5-bit code, that became known as International Telegraph Alphabet #1 (ITA1, no longer used).

The Baudot code was improved by Donald Murray and others in the early 20th century, leading to an originally Western Union wireline standard called ITA2. This is still the one used for basic English-language Baudot teleprinting. It is still a 5-bit, 32-state, 58-character code, with longer pauses marking start and stop of characters. The name "Baudot" for ITA2 is not technically correct, but in practice the two names are interchangeable. Several ITA alphabets with higher numbers exist for use in other languages, and of course we don't even have time to talk about "third shift" modes for such non-Latin character set languages as Russian.

ITA2 has no lower case. The cases are LTRS (Letters; all upper case) and FIGS (Figures; numbers and punctuation). The case is changed by transmission of control characters corresponding to each. Since the normal mode is letters case, they can also be regarded as shift in (to figures) and shift out. A missed shift character leads to gibberish, and most RTTY systems have the option USOS (Unshift On Space) as a partial (and only partial) solution.

ITA2 bit states are based on timing, and they do not correspond to the base-2 places used in binary numerical notation, which was not used in mechanical teleprinting. Since a bit is technically a "binary digit," we should probably be calling them something else, but we won't. However, note how many of the ITA2 control characters carried over, with bit changes, into later binary computer codes such as American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII).

The 5 bits were typically stored by punching holes in paper tape run through a perforator machine from reels resembling 16-mm movie film. These were read by tape keyers, which controlled a "current loop" connected to a "terminal unit" that interfaced with mechanical teleprinting machines. Many of these were made by the Teletype Corporation, and so "Teletype" is actually an old business trade name, though it has become somewhat generic.

Messages could be relayed by "reperforating" at the receive site. Note that the character pair RY is sent with alternating 01010 and 10101, testing all possible bit states in the code. Even in this electronic age, the test "slip" RYRYRY..., sometimes accompanied by THE QUICK BROWN FOX... is still common.

Here is the ITA2 code (click for bigger image):

New Cycle 24 Spot Emerges

After a couple of days with no visible sunspots whatsoever, a tiny Cycle 24 spot has just emerged.

Currently, there is something of a controversy over the precise nature of Cycle 24. While the mainstream prediction is for a fairly energetic cycle, there is an alternate theory. Its proponents argue that the length of Cycle 23 (longest ever recorded) is evidence that Cycle 24 will be late and weak, and in fact will begin a long term decline in solar activity leading to a sort of mini Maunder Minimum (the period in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries of no sunspots at all, and a mini ice age in Europe). This, of course, would pretty much spell the end of consistent F-region skip propagation above 21 MHz.

Note that recent fading on HF was the result of a coronal hole, not sunspots or solar flares.

We shall see what we shall see.

HF-GCS Goes Crazy

For two days now, activity on the US Air Force High Frequency Global Communications System has been far busier than normal. Right now (0110 UTC) 11175.0 kHz USB is going crazy.

The activity resembles the Nightwatch net (a TACAMO airborne CP and supporting units), but there are way too many players. Emergency Action Messages (EAMs) are going out far more frequently than usual.

At 0110, "Aircraft 113" is working "Aircraft 115" for a radio check.

At 0122 FOUL LINE is passing multiple EAMs, and at 0124 he is "standing by for traffic."

Most other players are also using joint tactical callwords, though there is also a unit with a CHARLIE WHISKEY prefix (US Navy) simultaneously patching to Duty Office. Yes, I have QRM here, though they all seem able to hear each other where they are.

Highly experienced military monitor Jeff Haverlah heard one of the "for" format EAMs, sent to something like six units at once. According to Jeff, this hasn't happened in years.

Best guess is an exercise, and a big one. Anyone who knows what's up can e-mail this column at the usual drops.

Lockheed Martin Wins Huge JTRS Contract

Washington Post:

Lockheed Secures Bid for Military Radio System

By Dana Hedgpeth
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 29, 2008; Page D02

Lockheed Martin of Bethesda yesterday landed two major contracts worth a total of $1.3 billion, including one to overhaul the military's radio system so that all the service branches can communicate with each other.

The world's largest defense company beat out Boeing to get the $766.2 million Pentagon contract to design and build a new radio system that will connect aircraft, ships, submarines and ground stations.

The Defense Department's program, called the Joint Tactical Radio System , is a major step toward replacing the older radio systems the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine troops now use, allowing them to have one system that can transmit video, conversations and other data.

...

JTRS accomplishes the above goals through highly flexible, mostly software based, radios. Obviously developing a single, interoperable, full-featured communications system for the entire US military is a rather ambitious undertaking, and this program has been around for quite some time. In 2005, there were serious doubts about its feasability. Obviously, many meetings took place, and in 2007 a Request for Proposals was made for an early phase called the Airborne and Maritime/Fixed Station Joint Tactical Radio System.

Today, the announcement was made that Lockheed won. This contract is worth $766.1 million. Depending on what happens, it could ultimately be a lot more. Presumably the usual defense radio vendors will supply equipment and expertise.

Shuttle Landing is GO

Just a few seconds ago, the decision was made to land at KSC tonight. The de-orbit burn is in 8 minutes. The landing is still scheduled for 8:39 Eastern time (0039 UTC). Ground track is over Mexico, out into the Gulf right over the Yucatan, and northeastward toward Florida.

Space Shuttle May Land Tonight

Just as I was posting this, the Endeavour landing opportunity at 7:05 PM (2305 UTC) was waved off due to poor weather.

This leaves a second opportunity at 8:39 PM Eastern (0039 Thursday UTC). The shuttle's backup sites for landing, Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., and White Sands Space Harbor, N.M., were not activated Wednesday.

Weather seems to be improving, but if this second one waves off, they'll try again Thursday.

Two hours after landing, NASA officials will hold a media briefing to discuss the mission.

Solar Activity Picks Up

Cycle 23 active regions #987 and 988 have appeared from behind the sun's east limb, already with very large sunspots and one M-class flare. A third region is currently appearing. As this complex rotates more toward the center of the sun (as seen from Earth), there's a possibility for more activity. At a minimum, solar flux should go above 80 for the first time in quite a while (it's 79 right now), and with a southward Bz at present one can't discount the possibility of aurora should the solar wind increase.

Ice Season Is Here!

North Atlantic icebergs are worst in the spring months. The Titanic hit an iceberg on April 15.

At present, the Boston ice chart is being updated once a week, but this will shift to daily before long. Note the distinctive callsign "NIK" used for the ice broadcasts. Here is the schedule for these (times UTC, frequencies kHz):

0438 FAX 4235, 6340.5, 9110
1218 SITOR 8416.5, 12579, 16806.5
1600 FAX 6340.5,9110
1810 FAX 6340.5, 9110.

And here's a typical chart copied a couple of days ago:

STS-123 Count Continues

Launch is on schedule for 0628 UTC, one hour from now.

Booster Recovery Director (BRD) at Cape Canaveral, FL is on 6897.0 USB working Booster Recovery Vessels Freedom Star and Liberty Star. Good signals in California.

Weather, though cloudier than expected, is still only a 10% probability of preventing launch.

US Loran-C Will Stay On Air

Following an investigation and comment period, the US Coast Guard has decided to continue funding the LORAN (LOng RAnge Navigation) network on 100 kHz. It was decided (accurately, IMHO) that a modernized version of Loran-C provides a reliable backup to the GPS system in case of an outage or disruption.

The eLoran system mentioned in the release adds another pulse to the existing burst. This can provide additional user data. This has been tested in the field, and the extra pulse displays on triggered scopes tuned to the particular chain's Group Repetition Interval. Loran-C transmitter chains use very high pulsed power levels, and they are audible just about anywhere on this low frequency.

Also, more modern transmitters are being installed. These are completely solid state, and essentially high-powered strobes for RF instead of light waves. Controlled by atomic clocks, they dump a huge capacitor across a circuit, producing the precisely timed short pulses that make the system work.

Here's the release from the Department of Homeland Security:

February 7, 2008
Contact: (202) 282-8010

STATEMENT FROM DHS PRESS SECRETARY LAURA KEEHHNER ON THE ADOPTION OF NATIONAL BACKUP SYSTEM TO GPS

Today the U.S. Department of Homeland Security will begin implementing an independent national positioning, navigation and timing system that complements the Global Positioning System (GPS) in the event of an outage or disruption in service.

The enhanced Loran, or eLoran, system will be a land-based, independent system and will mitigate any safety, security, or economic effects of a GPS outage or disruption. GPS is a satellite-based system widely used for positioning, navigation, and timing. The eLoran system will be an enhanced and modernized version of Loran-C, long used by mariners and aviators and originally developed for civil marine use in coastal areas.

In addition to providing backup coverage, the signal strength and penetration capability of eLoran will provide support to first responders and other operators in environments that GPS cannot support, such as under heavy foliage, in some underground areas, and in dense high-rise structures. The system will use modernized transmitting stations and an upgraded network.

###

STS-123 Launch Tonight

Countdown continues for the launch of space shuttle mission STS-123 at 2:28 AM Eastern time. (That's 0628 UTC.) Yes, that's the middle of the night, but that's when the window opens. Night owls in the southeast should get a rather spectacular light show. It's really amazing how bright it is.

NASA TV schedule (All times UTC):

NASA TV coverage begins ----------- 0130
Launch (middle of 10 min window) -- 0628
Launch video replay --------------- 0641
Additional camera replays --------- 0713
Post-launch news conference ------- 0730
Ascent team video replay ---------- 1200
Launch engineering replays -------- 1228

At present, weather has only a 10% chance of preventing launch.

PEMEX Adds ALE Frequencies

PEMEX, Petroleos Mexicanos, the Mexican national oil company, has finally put up more Automatic Link Establishment (ALE) frequencies to go with the original three. Three freqs isn't much of an ALE net, but now it starts to look like the real thing.

These are the frequencies that various people have reported. The ones I can verify personally have a * :

2182.0 * (1)
3700.0 *
4078.8 *
4487.5
4900.0 * (2)
7450.0 *
8291.1
8242.9
9265.0
11095.0 *

Notes:
(1) This is an international maritime calling and distress frequency, and it is doubtful if Pemex is allowed to sound there for any length of time.

(2) 4900 has so far only had Mexican military here, but I'm keeping it in the scan because others have heard Pemex.

USCG NMN (Norfolk) to Drop On-Call Sitor-A

And it is probably only a matter of time before other CG stations do similar.

ZCZC GA82
USCG CAMSLANT HF ON CALL SITOR TERMINATION ADVISORY
1. USCG CAMSLANT CHESAPEAKE VA (NMN, SELCALL NR 1097)
WILL TERMINATE ALL HIGH FREQUENCY (HF) RADIOTELEX (ON CALL
SITOR) SERVICES EFF 2359Z MAR 31, 2008. SHORE
RECEIVE FREQUENCIES 6262.8, 8386.3, 12488.3, 16694.8,
AND 22298.8 WILL NO LONGER BE ACTIVE AFTER THIS DATE.
2. AMVER AND NOAA METEOROLOGICAL REPORTS WILL CONT TO
BE RECEIVED AT NO CHARGE THRU SHIPCOM HF RADIOTELEX
(NBDP) SERVICE VIA WLO NEAR MOBILE, AL OR NOAAS SEAS
(SHIPBOARD ENVIRONMENTAL (DATA) ACQUISITION SYSTEM)
PROGRAM OVER INMARSAT C. AMVER REPORTS MAY ALSO BE
SENT AT NO CHARGE THRU GLOBE WIRELESS.
3. BROADCASTS OF MARITIME SAFETY INFORMATION FROM
CAMSLANT CHESAPEAKE VA BY HF SITOR (HF NAVTEX) ON
FREQUENCIES 6312.3, 8414.8 12577.3 AND 16804.8 WILL
NOT BE AFFECTED BY THIS ACTION.
4. CANCEL AT TIME//040001Z APR 08//

NNNN

New PC-HFDL Data File

The new pchfdl.dat file for HFDL system table #33 has been installed to the config directory of PC-HFDL, and it works. The frequencies now show in kHz again, instead of just the numbers.

The file has been copied to the Utility World web site. As always, shut down PC-HFDL first. Go to the config directory, and rename the existing pchfdl.dat something like oldpchfdl.dat or pchfdl32.dat. Copy the new file to this directory, make sure it is still named pchfdl.dat, then restart PC-HFDL. If you're lucky, the system table will show as #33, and the frequencies will appear in kHz.

This doesn't always work for everybody, but this file as usual is the one on the Yahoo HFDL group, and works for most users there. As always, don't worry that a text listing of the file looks like gibberish, with binary data and fragments of ACARS messages. The system table is in there somewhere.

Once again, I thank this group for getting the data up in such a timely manner. I might get a system table live on the air here in The Land That Short Wave Forgot, and I might not.

New HFDL System Table

About 24 hours ago, ARINC put out a new system table for its HFDL system.

The new table is number 33, or 21 in hexadecimal.

The only changes are to the Molokai ground station (number 02). The old frequencies of 5538, 5529, 5508, 3001, and 2878 kHz have been deleted. They are replaced by 13324, 13312, 6565, 5514, and 4687 kHz.

The new pchfdl.dat file will be uploaded to the Utility World web site as soon as it is tested and verified working here.

Sunspots Hit Absolute Bottom

Recent pictures of the solar disk often show something we don't see often. This is a solar disk completely free of sunspots. In fact, the daily sunspot numbers have as often as not been zero in the past couple of weeks (a condition reported as SPOTNIL by people who are into these things). These numbers are not obtained by counting visible spots, but by counting visible active regions as 10, and individual spots as 1. Therefore there can't be any active regions either for 0 to be reached.

Today there's one active region, I think. It's a pretty weenie one. The recent fluctuations in the A and K index are due not to sunspots but to a coronal hole and southward interplanetary magnetic field (Bz).

Daily solar uncorrected solar radio fluxes from the observatory used by WWV have been running in the 68 range. Folks, it just doesn't get very much lower than this. It can't, with these laws of physics.

Today was the first time in a while that HF propagation was absolutely putrid. Let's face it. It sucked the big one.

All this is further evidence, as if we needed any, that Cycle 23 is ending. Yes, there's no where to go from here but up.