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Pirate & Unusual Radio Signals

Doc

Doc

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
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Feb 7, 2016
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As well as the Numbers stations, military signals and space/satellite signals I've monitored I've really enjoyed finding pirate stations over the years. I grew up listening to Radio Caroline in the 60's - from the actual ship/s (ye gods I'm old). But pirate radio isn't always about playing music. There have been (and are) some strange stations out there.

KIPM in America is one of the strangest I regularly monitored. "Prima Illuminati Materia," run by "Alan Maxwell" in the USA, this station featured full length narrated "Twilight Zone" type sci-fi and horror stories. It was a regular on 6955kHz, and I sent him so many QSL reports and mentions in the magazines that he sent me a set of studio-quality CD's.

https://soundcloud.com/doc227/kipmcontrol
 

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Doc said:
As well as the Numbers stations, military signals and space/satellite signals I've monitored I've really enjoyed finding pirate stations over the years. I grew up listening to Radio Caroline in the 60's - from the actual ship/s (ye gods I'm old). But pirate radio isn't always about playing music. There have been (and are) some strange stations out there.

KIPM in America is one of the strangest I regularly monitored. "Prima Illuminati Materia," run by "Alan Maxwell" in the USA, this station featured full length narrated "Twilight Zone" type sci-fi and horror stories. It was a regular on 6955kHz, and I sent him so many QSL reports and mentions in the magazines that he sent me a set of studio-quality CD's.

https://soundcloud.com/doc227/kipmcontrol
Click to expand...

If anyone would like more posts about the weird world of radio, let me know and I'll keep sharing it.
 
Ah, Radio Caroline!

I posted this in March, 2009
http://forum.forteantimes.com/index...ld-death-approaches.25458/page-34#post-864182

In the 60s, "I was a student in Exeter, but even there I could pick up Radio Caroline on my tranny in the evenings.

Much later, in the mid 80s, I went fishing for several months on a trawler out of Brightlingsea, Essex. This put me at less than six degrees of separation from the DJs and crews of Caroline, since the trawler owner, Harry Rayner, had used his boat as a supply vessel to the pirate ship back in the 60s!"
 
Shady said:
Yes, please continue dear
And what sort of radio would one need to pick up these sort of transmissions?
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Hiya Shady,

You'd need a shortwave receiver with SSB (Single side band) capability. They receive signals between (usually) 1800kHz and 30MHz. The one I've had for 15 years is a Kenwood R-1000, which can be found on E-Bay for around £100. The most important thing is the antenna; technical kit to tune the antenna is useful but not essential. Attach a long enough wire and it will do. It is tuned manually and can find very quiet signals by careful tuning. I also have an Eton E10, which covers AM, VHF and SSB.

I also have a number of "scanner" radios on which you can put in an upper and lower frequency limit, and it will scan between those to find an active frequency; these generally cover .01kHz to 3000MHz, so need a reasonable knowledge of what you are likely to find, and where, on the radio spectrum.

To search for these signals with no interest in others, I'd recommend something like the R-1000 (it's an amateur radio-graded receiver), with a decent antenna. Time of day and time of year also plays a big part in receiving these signals, because of atmospheric affects.
 
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Thank you and unfortunately i do not trust ebay, but i am interested in this, i would like to hear more about what you have heard, if you dont mind?
 
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Shady said:
Thank you and unfortunately i do not trust ebay, but i am interested in this, i would like to hear more about what you have heard, if you dont mind?
Click to expand...
No problem Shady, will keep posting similar
 
Doc said:
If anyone would like more posts about the weird world of radio, let me know and I'll keep sharing it
Click to expand...
It's a long time since I started listening to numbers stations. That was way back in the era, when there was absolutely nothing in even fringe (let alone mainstream) media, that made mention of them.

Do they still operate, in this marvellous (allegedly) post-Cold War world? I would like to have a listen again, if there's any spot HF frequency you'd care to suggest?

Were you ever a Klingenfluss subscriber? I bought a few synopsis intercept guides, directly from Germany, but only found them of limited use. Also used to be an occasional subscriber to Pop Comm, and similar titles, from the US.

My ICF-2001 is in need of rejuvination (like me). Sadly, I'm not made by Sony: if only that were the case. If it were so, I'd be sorted, and by myself.

Despite loving the medium, I wonder who, nowadays, actually uses the HF spectrum, really (professionally, I mean). Do spies genuinely still use one-time pads? In this internet age? One of the biggest unanswered mysteries remains Numbers Stations. Their precise function is still unclear, I believe...
 
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back in the 80s in deepest North Wales, Bangor uni's RAG committee had their own pirate station, BRBS. Used to go out at irregular times of the year, with equipment, er, supplied from the BBC, thanks to some ex-students having connections with that august institution.
 
Ermintrude said:
It's a long time since I started listening to numbers stations. That was way back in the era, when there was absolutely nothing in even fringe (let alone mainstream) media, that made mention of them.

Do they still operate, in this marvellous (allegedly) post-Cold War world? I would like to have a listen again, if there's any spot HF frequency you'd care to suggest?

Were you ever a Klingenfluss subscriber? I bought a few synopsis intercept guides, directly from Germany, but only found them of limited use. Also used to be an occasional subscriber to Pop Comm, and similar titles, from the US.

My ICF-2001 is in need of rejuvination (like me). Sadly, I'm not made by Sony: if only that were the case. If it were so, I'd be sorted, and by myself.

Despite loving the medium, I wonder who, nowadays, actually uses the HF spectrum, really (professionally, I mean). Do spies genuinely still use one-time pads? In this internet age? One of the biggest unanswered mysteries remains Numbers Stations. Their precise function is still unclear, I believe...
Click to expand...

Awesome link Ermintrude, thanks! Longer answer tonight when I have time ... am at work.
 
Nice video, Erm, wasn't there also a gong transmission that broadcast nothing except a distorted gong noise without the numbers interrupting it? No idea what any spies could have picked up from that. Maybe they were supposed to be alerted if it stopped?
 
Ermintrude said:
It's a long time since I started listening to numbers stations. That was way back in the era, when there was absolutely nothing in even fringe (let alone mainstream) media, that made mention of them.

Do they still operate, in this marvellous (allegedly) post-Cold War world? I would like to have a listen again, if there's any spot HF frequency you'd care to suggest?

Were you ever a Klingenfluss subscriber? I bought a few synopsis intercept guides, directly from Germany, but only found them of limited use. Also used to be an occasional subscriber to Pop Comm, and similar titles, from the US.

My ICF-2001 is in need of rejuvination (like me). Sadly, I'm not made by Sony: if only that were the case. If it were so, I'd be sorted, and by myself.

Despite loving the medium, I wonder who, nowadays, actually uses the HF spectrum, really (professionally, I mean). Do spies genuinely still use one-time pads? In this internet age? One of the biggest unanswered mysteries remains Numbers Stations. Their precise function is still unclear, I believe...
Click to expand...

No, never mentioned in the media back in the day.

I never subscribed to Klingenfuss; could never see the value. My references were Airwaves (military frequency lists for world military - frequencies change quite often so a yearly update was useful), Callsign (a similar book but obviously on unit callsigns), a similar book on international warship callsigns, and membership of half-a-dozen online groups of fellow anoraks tracking aircraft, ships and ground units across the globe.

Ahhhh PopComm, used to snap it up and devour the pages, especially the loggings.

Unfortunately most of my radio-activity (yes, I glow in the dark) took place in Australia; a much quieter electromagnetic environment (from 1992 the nearest set of traffic lights was 25kms away, the local police, fire and ambulance were on unencrypted VHF - was nice to know where the local cop car was).

I still have the equipment capabilities, but rarely venture onto shortwave now due to a. Living in a steel-framed flat - have to deploy a stealth-antenna outside for shortwave) b. Way too much EM interference for weak-signal work. c. Gone back to a life of a 9-5 job, different hobbies in whatever spare time I get (metal-detecting, camping). So I haven't heard any NS for a while, and don't know if and where they still operate. I'm betting they do.

I do occasionally deploy a scanner or two, especially if we're camping near an air base. We sometimes camp within visual range of Lakenheath and Mildenhall, and listening to the F-18's and Ospreys, the Spectre gunships and the KC-135 tankers, is surreal in a darkened tent.

Yep, nobody ever definitively proved what they were all about. But all the hints were there ...
 
GNC said:
...wasn't there also a gong transmission that broadcast nothing except a distorted gong noise without the numbers interrupting it?
Click to expand...
A gong has been used to punctuate/introduce some numbers stations, but I'm unaware of a numberless gong station.

@Doc all noted, fair enough. A completely-familiar story, thanks, some parts of which I've also travelled before.

(@Ulalume I need to respond to your post on the actual Numbers Station thread)

@Doc as a scanner-person, I wonder if you're familiar with the massive ongoing Brazilian national hacking/pirating of the US Navy FltSatCom satellites? Confusingly, the satellites are officially referred to as 'UFO's (this standing for something much-more mundane than flying saucers....wonder if this was Mr Gary McKinnon's downfall?)

It appears to be a complete national pastime, with many thousands of people enjoying country-wide, free (but decidedly-unprivate) voice intercommunications on high VHF around 250MHz. I wish I knew someone that could speak Portugese, and they could tell us what they're prattling on about

http://www.wired.com/2009/04/fleetcom/
 
Ermintrude I will reply tomorrow re the FltSatCom comms ... I built myself an antenna to better receive these. More later (with recordings if I can find them)
 
This is an intercept of the radio transmissions from the Russian bomber that was flying over @rynner2 's house yesterday....or exactly a year ago, the internet seems unsure.

(well, nearly overflew, and almost over the Cornish coast)

Listen to Russian bomber sending coded messages as it flies over Cornwall
By Plymouth Herald | Posted: February 19, 2016

http://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/Listen-Russian-bomber-sending-coded-messages/story-26053869-detail/story.html

THIS is the moment a Russian bomber sends coded messages back to base as it flies near Cornwall.

The RAF scrambled Typhoon fighter jets to escort the two Russian Bear bombers who flew terrifyingly close to England as they passed up the Celtic Sea on Wednesday.

The planes are believed to have flown around Ireland, in international airspace, before flying close to Cornwall and the English Channel.

The message was picked up by an amateur aviation enthusiast Tom Johnson in Lincolnshire
 
In the early 90's, I had a mate called Phil who was a computer hacker going by the name 'Dangermouse' on boards like The Wall and Blue Wave ... he was a proper crafty sod. He was friends with a local pirate radio station called Rave FM and told me that another of his friends was once being followed in pursuit by the police. This guy phoned Rave FM and as he drove past the secret head quarters, they stuck a microphone out of the window, live recorded the police car siren and the D.J. live mixed the siren's sound into the broadcast.
 
Ermintrude said:
A gong has been used to punctuate/introduce some numbers stations, but I'm unaware of a numberless gong station.

@Doc all noted, fair enough. A completely-familiar story, thanks, some parts of which I've also travelled before.

(@Ulalume I need to respond to your post on the actual Numbers Station thread)

@Doc as a scanner-person, I wonder if you're familiar with the massive ongoing Brazilian national hacking/pirating of the US Navy FltSatCom satellites? Confusingly, the satellites are officially referred to as 'UFO's (this standing for something much-more mundane than flying saucers....wonder if this was Mr Gary McKinnon's downfall?)

It appears to be a complete national pastime, with many thousands of people enjoying country-wide, free (but decidedly-unprivate) voice intercommunications on high VHF around 250MHz. I wish I knew someone that could speak Portugese, and they could tell us what they're prattling on about

http://www.wired.com/2009/04/fleetcom/
Click to expand...

I used to regularly monitor the Pacific FltSatCom birds. I could hear them on my discone antenna, but I built myself a tuned antenna out of plywood and adhesive copper tape with soldered joints. Big improvement.

The saddest signals I ever (regularly) heard on there (261.4MHz) emanated from a U.S. DoD project which had historians and forensic archaeologists on the ground in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, tracking down the remains of U.S. POW and MIA troops. These people lived in camps, in the jungles (I personally know the conditions where they were and it's not pleasant), around approximate helicopter & aircraft crash and battle sites, digging for DNA-identifiable remains of crews and troops.

Many an American Soldier or Airman has been identified and returned home by this project, even if only minimal remains. At least "Killed in action", with details of where and when, is better than "Missing in action" forever. Even though no-one from the project will probably ever read this, I salute them.

This project was not without cost; on at least one occasion, a Russian-built MI-8 helicopter flying a team into the crash site crashed, killing all on board.

https://soundcloud.com/doc227/261-400a
https://soundcloud.com/doc227/261-400b2
 
Doc said:
I used to regularly monitor the Pacific FltSatCom birds. I could hear them on my discone antenna, but I built myself a tuned antenna out of plywood and adhesive copper tape with soldered joints. Big improvement.

The saddest signals I ever (regularly) heard on there (261.4MHz) emanated from a U.S. DoD project which had historians and forensic archaeologists on the ground in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, tracking down the remains of U.S. POW and MIA troops. These people lived in camps, in the jungles (I personally know the conditions where they were and it's not pleasant), around approximate helicopter & aircraft crash and battle sites, digging for DNA-identifiable remains of crews and troops.

Many an American Soldier or Airman has been identified and returned home by this project, even if only minimal remains. At least "Killed in action", with details of where and when, is better than "Missing in action" forever. Even though no-one from the project will probably ever read this, I salute them.

This project was not without cost; on at least one occasion, a Russian-built MI-8 helicopter flying a team into the crash site crashed, killing all on board.

https://soundcloud.com/doc227/261-400a
https://soundcloud.com/doc227/261-400b2
Click to expand...

BTW DOC what did you use a reflectors on the antenna since they must be conductors. A Discone Antenna can be a bit unwieldy, especially if it were built for BW and a degree of gain. I'm guessing you had it poking up fairly high as well. For you to pick up southeast Asia form Australia at 260 MHz is pretty good.

I knew an awful lot of Vietnam Vets so I sure can relate to this post and my brothers at arms.
 
Jim said:
For you to pick up southeast Asia form Australia at 260 MHz is pretty good.
Click to expand...
Ah, but remember this is Ground-Sat-Ground, so @Doc was just receiving the downlink. Which isn't as narrow a spot-beam as some might expect (or, fairer to say, just about feasible to hear with basic enthusiast equipment).

Although the standard meaning of the term 'pirate radio' is associated with unlicensed transmitting, strictly-speaking it also extends to receiving transmissions that aren't intended for public reception.

But it's worth noting that although technologies for limited/complex encryption of voice have, realistically, been available for almost as long as radio has existed, certain transmissions appear to be deliberately sent "in the clear"...such that their sometimes-traceable presense itself forms part of the tangible deterrence. In this sense, for nuclear strategic forces, it's almost a form of overt covert advertising....
 
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Jim said:
BTW DOC what did you use a reflectors on the antenna since they must be conductors. A Discone Antenna can be a bit unwieldy, especially if it were built for BW and a degree of gain. I'm guessing you had it poking up fairly high as well. For you to pick up southeast Asia form Australia at 260 MHz is pretty good.

I knew an awful lot of Vietnam Vets so I sure can relate to this post and my brothers at arms.
Click to expand...

I knew a lot of Vets too Jim. I think these two clips are the only ones I recorded on my CD, but I remember times when the teams came on air with reports like "we can confirm we have excavated a femur and a pelvis". Heartbreaking to think that these guys were vets too - they just disappeared for years, until the teams rediscovered them, matched their DNA and returned them home.

My discone was 30ft above my roof level. Signals from it were run through a JIM (not kidding!) M-75 preamp. I also had a vertical antenna (about 15ft I think) and a double-dipole, arms N/S/E/W, each arm 100yds long mounted 30ft up.

I don't recall the exact design of the home-made now - it was 20-odd years ago - I only remember cutting the adhesive copper tape to resonate at the 260 MHz band.

Hearing the sigs from SE Asia wasn't difficult; don't forget, I wasn't hearing the ground-to-satellite signal, I was hearing the reflected satellite-to-ground relay.
 
Ermintrude said:
Ah, but remember this is Ground-Sat-Ground, so @Doc was just receiving the downlink. Which isn't as narrow a spot-beam as some might expect (or, fairer to say, just about feasible to hear with basic enthusiast equipment).

Although the standard meaning of the term 'pirate radio' is associated with unlicensed transmitting, strictly-speaking it also extends to receiving transmissions that aren't intended for public reception.

But it's worth noting that although technologies for limited/complex encryption of voice have, realistically, been available for almost as long as radio has existed, certain transmissions appear to be deliberately sent "in the clear"...such that their sometimes-traceable presense itself forms part of the tangible deterrence. In this sense, for nuclear strategic forces, it's almost a form of overt covert advertising....
Click to expand...

Well said Erm. "such that their sometimes-traceable presense itself forms part of the tangible deterrence" - this took place a lot pre-D-Day; The presence of a whole army group was simulated in Britain by masses of radio traffic sent in the clear to deceive the Germans.
 
Doc said:
Crow was one of the supposed operators at Mystery Science Radio. The other was Cherokee Jack.
View attachment 1992
Click to expand...

Reception reports and QSL cards used to be a long-winded, time-consuming chore. But with the coming of the interwebbynet thing, it became possible to sit listening to a broadcast at 0200 local time, email your reception report to the operator, receive an on-air name check with thanks for the report, and the QSL card could arrive in the mail or even by email.

Radio Borderhunter, from the Netherlands.

https://soundcloud.com/doc227/borderhunter3

bhuntqsl.jpg
 
Doc said:
Reception reports and QSL cards used to be a long-winded, time-consuming chore. But with the coming of the interwebbynet thing, it became possible to sit listening to a broadcast at 0200 local time, email your reception report to the operator, receive an on-air name check with thanks for the report, and the QSL card could arrive in the mail or even by email.

Radio Borderhunter, from the Netherlands.

https://soundcloud.com/doc227/borderhunter3

View attachment 1993
Click to expand...

I always used to leave a receiver or two tuned to the USAF/US Navy High Frequency Global Communications System (HFGCS) frequencies (4724.0 kHz, 6739.0 kHz, 8992.0 kHz, 11175.0 kHz, 13200.0 kHz and 15016.0 kHz). It is these frequencies which carry/carried the SKYKING broadcasts. They also carried other things.

11175kHz is known as "triplestick" for the 3x1. For some reason, Indonesian and PNG fishermen and pirates used Triplestick to stay in contact on their overnight seagoing trips, thereby "pirating" the frequency. Needless to say, communications discipline was not good!

This recording has been dubbed "The Triplestick Song". Very eerie to listen to in the o-dark-hundred hours of the morning.

https://soundcloud.com/doc227/triplestick1
 
Doc said:
The presence of a whole army group was simulated in Britain by masses of radio traffic sent in the clear to deceive the Germans
Click to expand...
And how many additional non-existent nuclear B-52s might have been similarly-simulated, by recorded radio messages, at the peak of the Cold War? At 50,000ft, it's not always easy to be sure.

Similarly, perhaps there were also shoals of virtual SSBNs, calling-out on ELF, like absent whales. A dropped sonobuoy can be made to whistle, whirr, click and converse just like a big expensive non-existent submarine.....and then obediently go fizzbangpop, job done, to disappear down, down into the deep dark depths of deception.
 
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Maybe I should start a thread of military signals as well as numbers stations and pirates; I have lots of signals which "make you think"; a KC-135 airborne tanker trying to get back into a German base (maybe Spangdahlem), except his refuelling boom is stuck in the "down" position ... which makes it impossible to land ...
 
Ermintrude said:
And how many additional non-existent nuclear B-52s might have been similarly-simulated, by recorded radio messages, at the peak of the Cold War? At 50,000ft, it's not always easy to be sure.

Similarly, perhaps there were also shoals of virtual SSBNs, calling-out on ELF, like absent whales. A dropped sonobuoy can be made to whistle, whirr, click and converse just like a big expensive non-existent submarine.....and then obediently go fizzbangpop, job done, to disappear down, down into the deep dark depths of deception.
Click to expand...
Nice, Erm!! :)
 
Doc said:
Nice, Erm!! :)
Click to expand...
Well, you clearly understand a lot about propagation and troposcatter, I'd guess. My guesswork is that if anyone really (genuinely) wondered about what HAARP really is/was, forget all the weather weapon/global warming/alien death beam rubbish.

It could've been just for doing precisely what I'm just guessing....bending HF/VHF radio signals in a modified ionisphere, and making them appear to originate from wherever they needed to seem to be at.
 
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