The talkshow goes on! Stream listeners Jeffrey and Cythelol reported what seems to be the first recorded "background voices" transmision. As both reports were submitting a recording as well, the attached clip by Cythelol can be found here. I will replace it with the one from stream archives when I have identified it! The voices start at about 20 sec. PLEASE DO NOT LINK OR DISTRIBUTE THIS FILE, as it has windows sounds at the beginning and although it has been confirmed by two independent sources, I would not let anything to corculation what has not come off the streamer recording archive!
Also, please be prepared for a short 1-minute break in streaming tonight, as I have to re-start the system to get rid of the 'scattering' artifact.
[EDIT: The scattering has actually had an effect on archive recordings as well, so the one recorded by Cythelol is actually of better quality than mine. I can, however, confirm that the transmission is genuine, as it is present in archive recording and received in USB mode - if it would not have originated from the same frequency, the audio would have had serious pitch shift.]
There is another voice reported on 12:45UTC, but I havent been able to locate it from archive yet.
DISCLAIMER
IT IS TIME TO TAKE SIDES
During almost 12 years the repeater has been up, I have been keeping it apolitical. But Putin has gone batshit and UVB-76 radio station is a weapon. So, while I keep translating it, you are welcome to also watch the Ukrainian news channel '34 Kanal' to see, what kind of events this signal is actually participating at today.
Slava Ukraini!
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Repeater QSL Cards
Running the repeater has been a rewarding internet experiment and last days have been worth every bit of it. The voice message has introduced more than 100K readers for this blog for past couple of days and I cant say I havent multiplied it with $1 each to calculate what it would have been :)
So, I created a 'donate' button!
However, just cashing it in makes it internet-business and looses the whole appeal of mystery, so this is how its going to be: If any of you is deciding to donate anything, please include somewhere on the donation forms your postage address, and I will send you a QSL Card of the Repeater. This is a nice tradition of radio amateurs, and although I have no callsign, the UVB-76 has. As they are not likely mailing out any cards soon, I may as well send it our for them!
So, I created a 'donate' button!
However, just cashing it in makes it internet-business and looses the whole appeal of mystery, so this is how its going to be: If any of you is deciding to donate anything, please include somewhere on the donation forms your postage address, and I will send you a QSL Card of the Repeater. This is a nice tradition of radio amateurs, and although I have no callsign, the UVB-76 has. As they are not likely mailing out any cards soon, I may as well send it our for them!
August 25, 2010 6.54UTC Voice transmission confirmed
Took a while to exec through the list of all supposed transmissions:
I do have reported transmissons from August 16 and 17 what I am unable to confirm, as I do not have recordings between August 15 and 18.
August 23 was OK and has already been confirmed.
August 24 has three reports for 12:00am EST, 9:25am EST and 12:43pm CST. My search on a recordings does not confirm these three, except that 12:43pm CST is likely a commercial radio station breaking in.
August 25 I have three different reported transmissions: 2:45am EST, 6:54 UTC and 11:53 UTC.
Apparently, all three were the same, happening in real life around 6.50 UTC.
Please find the full recording here.
It is the same transmission, last part of which has already been circling around. It matches perfectly both, the text and static noise spikes, so it has come off from same USB stream at the same time.
August 29 has a report of buzzing stopping briefly around 16:31 UTC, but recording does not confirm that.
August 30 has a report of mumbling voices on background, but once again, stream recording does not confirm that.
I do have reported transmissons from August 16 and 17 what I am unable to confirm, as I do not have recordings between August 15 and 18.
August 23 was OK and has already been confirmed.
August 24 has three reports for 12:00am EST, 9:25am EST and 12:43pm CST. My search on a recordings does not confirm these three, except that 12:43pm CST is likely a commercial radio station breaking in.
August 25 I have three different reported transmissions: 2:45am EST, 6:54 UTC and 11:53 UTC.
Apparently, all three were the same, happening in real life around 6.50 UTC.
Please find the full recording here.
It is the same transmission, last part of which has already been circling around. It matches perfectly both, the text and static noise spikes, so it has come off from same USB stream at the same time.
August 29 has a report of buzzing stopping briefly around 16:31 UTC, but recording does not confirm that.
August 30 has a report of mumbling voices on background, but once again, stream recording does not confirm that.
Monday, August 30, 2010
HELP request about transmission dates deleted from Wikipedia
[EDIT: Found the deleted stuff from old revisions, so this is ok. However, I would still appreciate if all of you could send me your observations about transmission times!]
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Relay of the relay! desync.com has provided 2x1000 slots!
The stream has been literally 100% of the time 100% utilized for past 24 hours and many have obviously been on "retry hell" with this, especially Windows Media Player users as this player does not give "stream full" message, but fails with rather strange error. Thank you all for your patience, as I havent received a single hate-mail about this! Instead, lot of supporting e-mails have arrived and some with different offers for help - Thank you David, Ben and Justin!
The most straighforward was Ben-s solution, who did set up a relay with 1000 sockets for both feeds at desync.com! It streams off the original streams, so its the same data as from two main feeds.
The most straighforward was Ben-s solution, who did set up a relay with 1000 sockets for both feeds at desync.com! It streams off the original streams, so its the same data as from two main feeds.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
August 23, 2010 9:35AM PST Voice transmission confirmed
I hate to pour more oil on this fire as there are steady 60+ listeners on stream already, but streamer arhive recordings show that the August 23. voice transmission is genuine and has happened! Please find the recording here.
Most received it garbaged, as the transmission was taking place almost entirely on upper sideband (USB), as most of the normal UVB-76 transmissions are. (Although it is not pure USB, as the carrier is present).
Most received it garbaged, as the transmission was taking place almost entirely on upper sideband (USB), as most of the normal UVB-76 transmissions are. (Although it is not pure USB, as the carrier is present).
Third feed serving UVB-76
There is a huge interest about the feed for past two days, so both the AM and USB stream capacity has been on its maximum for several hours a day. As the Conet Radio meanwhile serves only one or two listeners max, I have temporarily replaced it with the UVB-76. This is the copy of AM feed, just different streaming address - see the top of the page.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
"Backward Music Station" or "Whales" on WebSDR
Ther is a rare(?) opportunity to listen live to an unearthy phenomena what is described as "Backward Music Station" on a WebSDR. While the WebSDR project is worth a gold star all by itself, the backward music station is nicely located inside an amateur band. Just tune in to frequency 3634kHz with LSB modulation and enjoy!
For those not having shortwave receiver in their posession, the WebSDR is an excellent site to explore! It requires Java to be installed tho, but its worth it.
For those not having shortwave receiver in their posession, the WebSDR is an excellent site to explore! It requires Java to be installed tho, but its worth it.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Mystery Signals of the Short Wave
The Mystery Signals of the Short Wave website link appears on German Wikipedia UVB-76 page. As I havent seen this before, I thougth it is worth noting here. Nicely set up site by Brian Rogers, with nice snippets about various shortwave oddities as well as about UVB-76.
Definitely a worthwile reading!
Definitely a worthwile reading!
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Then Again ...
The scattering sound of UVB-76 yesterday had nothing to do with station itself. After a sleepless night the new system is running hopefully without ugly artifacts. Thanks to everybody who pointed it out for me that the sound is strange and my apologies for interruptions in broadcast tonight because of that same work.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Welcome to the wonderful world of (almost) 24/7 reception
Things have been quiet lately, and so has been sometimes the stream. Partially because of heatwave what created one steady mass of 35 deg. centigrade air all the way from here to Moscow. Partially because the antennas on my end, however smart, were too small for the task. So, as a result, the listening post has received a total upgrade in all aspects.
This is what has changed:
- First of all, I have managed to squeeze almst 80 meters worth of antenna wire between houses. Considering that I live in a city center, this was quite a challenge. For antenna enthusiasts, this is currently forming a full wave zig-zag dipole. There is definitely some room for improvement, as only one half is working decenly (although both sides connect to radio with 4:1 balun at the moment).
- The streamer has now its own dedicated machine, running off the UPS, as the rest of networking equipment. While this does not keep it up indefinitely on power outages, it will last a good 15-20 minutes so only major outage or planned works will have an effect.
- Receiver is the same Soft66Lite as previously, the soundcard is, however, my old pro STA dsp24 MKII with ADC/DAC2000 external converter. While this does not make much difference, it allows connecting four radios instead of one, so there will be an opportunity monitoring more stations in future..
- The software setup is pretty much the same, running on Windows XP (earlier setup did run on Win 7 and no problems there, I just did not have a spare Win 7 license for a new machine ..). SDR signal is processed by WinradHD, then broadcasted using edcast standalone to mixstream.net. Everything is hooked together with Virtual Audio Cable.
- The most important change in appearance to outside world is, however, that we have now two streams instead of one. The difference between two are, that one is broadcasting the signal as AM demodulated stream, while the other is processing it as USB demodulated. It is getting way technical for most to explain the difference, but generally it meas that AM stream can be heared about half the day and the rest of the time onlu USB demodulated signal can be heard. This does not contain all of the UVB-76 broadcasted signal, but only about 3/4 of it. It also sometimes changes notably in pitch, if there are some maintenance works in progress at UVB-76 itself. It is, however, a good tool to make a "health checks". Both links are now at the top of the page.
Happy listening!
This is what has changed:
- First of all, I have managed to squeeze almst 80 meters worth of antenna wire between houses. Considering that I live in a city center, this was quite a challenge. For antenna enthusiasts, this is currently forming a full wave zig-zag dipole. There is definitely some room for improvement, as only one half is working decenly (although both sides connect to radio with 4:1 balun at the moment).
- The streamer has now its own dedicated machine, running off the UPS, as the rest of networking equipment. While this does not keep it up indefinitely on power outages, it will last a good 15-20 minutes so only major outage or planned works will have an effect.
- Receiver is the same Soft66Lite as previously, the soundcard is, however, my old pro STA dsp24 MKII with ADC/DAC2000 external converter. While this does not make much difference, it allows connecting four radios instead of one, so there will be an opportunity monitoring more stations in future..
- The software setup is pretty much the same, running on Windows XP (earlier setup did run on Win 7 and no problems there, I just did not have a spare Win 7 license for a new machine ..). SDR signal is processed by WinradHD, then broadcasted using edcast standalone to mixstream.net. Everything is hooked together with Virtual Audio Cable.
- The most important change in appearance to outside world is, however, that we have now two streams instead of one. The difference between two are, that one is broadcasting the signal as AM demodulated stream, while the other is processing it as USB demodulated. It is getting way technical for most to explain the difference, but generally it meas that AM stream can be heared about half the day and the rest of the time onlu USB demodulated signal can be heard. This does not contain all of the UVB-76 broadcasted signal, but only about 3/4 of it. It also sometimes changes notably in pitch, if there are some maintenance works in progress at UVB-76 itself. It is, however, a good tool to make a "health checks". Both links are now at the top of the page.
Happy listening!
Monday, August 2, 2010
Data bursts near UVB-76 frequency
There seems to be a lot of different broadcasts trying to allocate the same spectrum as UVB-76, as this would be the only frequency on a shortwave band .. At the moment, I can spot at least 4 additional carrier frequencys distorting the signal!
Two of them are, however, of special interest. Previous posting already covered the morse code, but even more sophisticated transmission is happening on a lower sideband of the signal. Something somewhere is transmitting very dense data bursts on 4.623325MHz, what are audible as scratching sound on UVB-76 signal. It happens once or twice an hour and is never more than about 10sec. long, so it is a telemetry data of sort.
What makes this signal spectacular are three things: First, it has relatively high-speed data rate for a shortwave band. Second, it has chosen its existance at the same frequency spectrum as UVB-76. Although UVB has lower sideband seriously supressed (i.e. most of the signal is radiated above 4.625MHz frequency, as opposed to regular AM signals what radiate equal amount of energy on both, upper and lower the base frequency), it has still a reasonable amount of signal there to give headic to whoever is trying to use it. And third, the signal itself is asymmetric, i.e. upper and lower sidebands are transmitting different data!
This is what the spectrum on WinradHD screen looks like:
Two of them are, however, of special interest. Previous posting already covered the morse code, but even more sophisticated transmission is happening on a lower sideband of the signal. Something somewhere is transmitting very dense data bursts on 4.623325MHz, what are audible as scratching sound on UVB-76 signal. It happens once or twice an hour and is never more than about 10sec. long, so it is a telemetry data of sort.
What makes this signal spectacular are three things: First, it has relatively high-speed data rate for a shortwave band. Second, it has chosen its existance at the same frequency spectrum as UVB-76. Although UVB has lower sideband seriously supressed (i.e. most of the signal is radiated above 4.625MHz frequency, as opposed to regular AM signals what radiate equal amount of energy on both, upper and lower the base frequency), it has still a reasonable amount of signal there to give headic to whoever is trying to use it. And third, the signal itself is asymmetric, i.e. upper and lower sidebands are transmitting different data!
This is what the spectrum on WinradHD screen looks like:
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