It would be pretty cool to run a series of tracking receivers by citizen scientists. Each equipped with an SDR and GPS for precise timing. Each would encode it's location, timestamp and a signal fingerprint into a small file that was shared with the community. Then said files could be processed to locate the position of the transmitter. Known transmitters could be used to calibrate the systems. Signals would be broken down into small time blocks to make processing easier. Thoughts?
I’ve had a similar idea for some time. Figured government authorities are already doing this. Easy enough to grab an entire chunk of spectrum and record relative phase information to get a direction for any signals of interest
It sounds good, but various propagation issues would muddy the results.. Hight of the refractive section of the ionosphere, if the path was in day ro night the refractive zone would be different hights, and if the path was multi-hop or "long path" that would introduce more variables. With good gain movable directional gain antennas with good front to back ratios, it would be easier to get a bearing on the path, (including elevated arrival angle) and make calculations a bit easier..
It's called amateur radio or ham radio digital modes. Because when you really wonder what is going on, the phones and internet and satellites will all be out of order due to too many gamma rays and alpha particles.
@@keysersmoze The phones are still mostly radio, short wave, mm wave, and microwave through the years. Ham radio is fun, got on it a ton as a kid, bounded signals off the atmosphere and talked to folks in Japan from TX. I will say this about phones. They are frequency hopping. A pricy feature for many radios that fall under HAM use. The de facto standard for all militaries. Even if you get an military freq hopper, or pay for a civy one, you would need a group on the same page to transmit too and receive too. Many HAM radio permitted freqs may be jammed in a SHIF or darkout attacks happen.
Back in the early 1970s, as a young kid, I built an HF receiver from Practical Electronics or Practical Wireless and was absolutely fixated on the different jamming types used, probably by or against the Soviet Union during those cold war years. There was also piano music of the kind you played in your clip. Memories! Most of the jamming sounded like machinery.
Think it was a Practical Wireless Project. Radio Vienna, Radio Prague, Vatican Radio, VOA, Radio Australia all had memorable (at the time!) similar Interval/Ident jingles. At that time there were a lot of teleprinter transmissions around which did sound pretty mechanical!
@@barrieshepherd7694 Now you mention it, I do remember teleprinter sound too. They were the days...discrete components and vero board unless you had the money to buy the PCB and kit from the magazine! 😁
@@ianwalker1182I did give it a go myself once Ian but it was in the days of CTC and other horrible chemicals so getting hold of it wasn't that easy and then disposing of it was difficult too. I borrowed a UV light from my mate's dad! 😁
@@juniorsilvabroadcast nothing gets past you does it. If you ever get into a computer science related field, and even specifically communications technologies, you're gonna be in for a shock about the amount of furries in these fields.
Before Germany reunited, the DW ID after the piano was, Hier sind die Nach- richten aus Koln. That in English meant, here is the news from Cologne, (West Germany). I grew up with the German Language here in the US because my Father was from Germany, and my Mother was from Zurich, Switzerland 🇨🇭 which is in the German speaking part of Switzerland and she also spoke the Swiss German dialect too, Aufwiederluge! Also, on a cruise going back to Florida years ago from Mexico, when we passed between Havana, Cuba and Key West, one could hear Cuban jamming of Radio Marti, Ismoralada, Island, in the Florida Keys, I believe on 1180 KHz. On my Sony Color NTSC system portable, I was also able to receive Cuban VHF programming, and their Educational TV on UHF, which system I believe is now shut down for DVB.😅
There are a few still going, Australia has two groups sending 120lpm which is too fast to sound spooky. Doesn’t seem to any 90 or 60 lpm stations and none sending greyscale. Black and white fax sounds like a digital signal, even a bit like slow scan TV. Greyscale has that wavering tone reproducing the brightness level of a photo.
In the mid-70s when I was a kid. I was given a Hellicrafters shortwave radio two tanker with. Believe it or not I remember hearing that piano music, but unfortunately that radio and my logbook are long gone .
Great video, Lewis! DW has maintain for years now that they no longer broadcast in SW, but that clearly is their ID. I also wonder whether more countries will begin broadcasting on SW again, geopolitics being what it is these days. Cheers!
We have a lid in the Philadelphia area who likes to jam ham repeaters. For a long time, his repeater of choice was the 70cm N3KZ linked system, with about 40 receive sites an 20 or so transmit sites. He would run sirens, burps, farts, car horns and other annoying noises. Due to the way that system is set up, the control operator would end up taking the whole system down to silence him. They apparently figured out enough to scare him off, so he moved on to W3WAN. This repeater is linked by Allstar to repeaters all over the world. Whenever the lid starts his jamming, the system operators just cut W3WAN free, so the jamming doesn't affect the rest of the system.
@@QuadMochaMatti Lid is a term used by ham operators to describe an operator with poor technique, one who is inept or rude, causing interference and/or annoyance to other hams.
Yeah, late 60's/early 70's was a goldmine for the broadcast DX'er ! I had a slight advantage with I/D signals - being a muso, I could scribble them down on the manuscript pages that I stuck at the front of my logbook to keep track of them. Lewis mentioned some jamming signals being a bit scary - do you remember the I/D for Radio Peace and Progress ? Somehow, those two clarinets could really put the chills up the late-night listener !
Interesting to see Vietnam on the channel..... I live in Vietnam, but don't have any radio equipment here. But have been toying with the idea of a SDR setup.
The British government do this as well, I well remember them jamming Radio North Sea on MW in the '70s. In an attempt to defeat them, North Sea moved their signal right next to BBC Radio One which at least where I lived meant that you couldn't listen to Radio One without interference either, which many agreed at the time was no bad thing.
@@violinfanatickamraz1403 Radio North Sea was an offshore broadcaster, they anchored off the UK coast in 1970 and attempted to fill the void left by Radio Caroline which had ceased broadcasting in 1968 due to financial pressures caused by UK government sanctions. There was probably more than one reason for the UK government wanting to get rid of them, but complaints from foreign governments of interference on their frequency allocations was probably chief amongst those, so they decided to jam them to see if that worked, and it did, they eventually upped anchor and relocated off the Dutch coast, and when that happened the jamming ceased. By this time one of the old Caroline ships was back though and we all thought the jamming would recommence but it never did.
@@rhodaborrocks1654 thank you. I'm a sucker for history and odd things. I'm in Montana and am new to these radio things other than listening to music on my local frequencies.
Excellent content! I just added an outboard SDR to my Yaesu FTDX-3000d as a panadapter- now I have a scope to find these Rouge frequencies . I've said before here that, as a young lad I had an old Heathkit HW101 SSB only rig in the 70s and 80s those tunes warbling in late at night gave me the hebe-jeebies. Now I can hear and see these signals ,finding them much easier . Those old fire-drakes roaring away back in the cold war days were hellish! Plus we had the woodpecker to fight off too.
Thanks, Lewis, just stopped this video to see the episodes of jammers, I think I missed those. I did it too on the 11m taxi drivers, I used burst tones on Alpha channels, so you had 2 frequencies in one go :) of course it was illegal, but CB was back then already illegal in the 70s hehe.
During the 1970s I used to hear a Short Wave station that used what sounded like piano exercises as it's interval or indetifying signal. It would go on for quite some time and I never recall the station reverting to voice, only the piano music. I can still hear it in my head when I think about it, but have no clue as to its' origins as a piece of music or as a radio signal. There were two distinct versions, one with notes lower down the piano keyboartd and the other with higher notes. Does anyone else remember it or, better still, know anything about it?🤔
My ear told me that was a harpsichord rather than a piano. Other uses of jammer is to cover over much weaker covert transmissions. Now that WWIII is coming, I suspect HF to light up with all sorts of things. I just ordered my HF/SSB, Pactor modem and tuner for my sailboat radio station. A 150W Kenwood TKM-707. Yes I have a Starlink and GPS, but want an HF radio and sextant for SHTF. Now my ear says, maybe it's a piano.
I remember growing up in Reading there used to be some kind of siren jammer on FM. I think this was around 2005? Around the same frequencies that the BBC broadcast on, so low 90s. My parents only ever listened to Radio 4 and I remember hearing it a lot. No idea why anyone would be trying to jam FM radio other than someone trying to cause trouble. Is there anyone else on here who lived in Reading around that time and knows what I'm on about?
Ahh, this damn thing! Now that I think about it, I first heard that siren jammer as a kid with a dinky Realistic radio from Tandy around the mid 90s. Always wondered about that freaky noise.
All them idents and jamming signals brought back a rush of nostalgia, especially the piano ident. Keep up the good work, I for one really appreciate your channel.
They say SW is dead. But here is USA,I ran out a long wire about 150' and connected to a cheap small battery powered SW radio. The bands are full of broadcasts. Granted many are in languages I don't understand,but they are there! Enjoy your channel.
I'm in a general Far Eastern region now and I heard and recorded all sorts of jammers, together with stations they're trying to jam. I could provide my recordings if you need them.
Remembering the DW signal from the '80s. Still has the old receiver Hi-Fi 160 also known as HSR-160 manufactured by Ei Niš of ex-Yugoslavia. This had been also marketed under the Polish brand Unitra ZRK /Ei Hi-Fi 160. The old antenna Gorenje Elrad RA 0207 H KOAX is still installed at the attic. Since then everything works perfectly. Only the SW, LW and MW stations vanished. Of course it was an enjoyable video.
About 6 months ago someone was playing super mario theme music on 40 meters. At first i was confused because of the QSB, then i realized what i was listening to so i recorded it. Inbound to M3HHY
The PRC's and DPRK's aggressive jamming programs have made it nearly impossible for me to listen to any broadcast from VOA, R. Free Asia, R. Taiwan Int. or SOH, as I live in Japan and all of those broadcasts are completely jammed. The only solid English Broadcast I can hear these days is R. NZ
Not into this but, the jammers I hear in this video have some unpredictable tones which would be harder to filter out than a 'car alarm' which has a very predictable sequence. Idk, here for the next comment from a real captain..
(short and incomplete answer, without writing a wall of text) Nothing will absolutely remove an interfering signal, but there are ways to minimize it. They include: a rotatable loop or a phased array where the phasing can be changed will help, how much depends on many factors. Audio filtering can be of some help, also. Keep in mind that since most of these transmissions are aimed at poor/third world countries, not many of the people who are receiving them have the ability to do these things. (The exception is the rotatable loop, which is literally a loop of wire a few feet in diameter that can be turned by hand.) Hope this helps.
Speaking about Jammers, Right now on 13 30 UTC Radio Free Asia is being Jammed on 13720khz by a buzzing noise. Not much of a siren or anything I recognize..
I listen frequently to the DPRK on 9560 khz down here in New Zealand, I enjoy the music. A weird jamming is constantly interfering, it then magically ceases always at 11pm NZDS time. Its a constant whooshing sound, Id be interested if you have any idea where it originates.
Sounds like someone set off an emergency locator transmitter or emergency position indicating radio beacon but of course the frequency is wrong for such operations.
I’m not sure if “Yankee Doodle” is still the station interval for the Voice of America. It may not be PC any more. I haven’t listened since the 1970s. I also liked the Cuban and Soviet signals
Being devil's advocate, in some of these cases, could it be a faulty transmitter? I was thinking the one where the german tune is found in several places, i say this because, i until recently worked in the cable tv broadcast industry, we had a batch of modulators, which when they had been run very hot would develop another parasitic carrier, this was enough power it would knock out a frequency some way up the spectrum, it wasn't obvious, because to find this required taking down services, when we found the cause, we became proficient in chasing them down. Did anyone else think the noise at 3.00 minutes reminiscent of Doctor No's underground lair?
Unused to hear this or very close to this for a few hours every afternoon at the same time on some section of the "11 meter" band I used in the 90s. It was in upstate New York.
As just one more shortwave radio enthusiast out there I can shed some light on certain points you mentioned. 1) At about 3:00 into the video you show a beehive jammer apparently being from North Korea. In fact, it's from South Korea 🙃 SK jams NK's domestic frequencies, not only 720 but also 657, 819, 855, and a few others. Chris Kadlec shares some more information about jamming from noth North and South in his Seoul AM Radio Guide. (BTW South Korea does NOT jam Voice of Korea nor clandestine Echo of Unification on shortwave! It's too niche, apparently 😂) 2) I haven't heard it personally but couldn't know it without leaving a browser tab with Twente WebSDR open throughout last Monday evening 😆 but indeed, the SDR's chatbox users reported Deutsche Welle Interval Signal on 9790 & 11995 kHz, and even DW's Portuguese broadcast at 1900-1930z on 11995. The point is, these frequencies are normally used by Radio France Internationale in French from a transmitter site in Issoudun, France; it's just that somebody at that transmitting station forgot to switch back to RFI feed after another DW transmission they were scheduled to relay finished 🤭 Unfortunately I forgot to check if RFI was back on both frequencies yesterday 😞 Hope this helps :)
If they would just use old Brother Stair broadcast to jam with they would just blend in :). Also, do you have any light to shed on the old Radio Metallica Worldwide pirate station?
What time zone are you in? I believe it's just subtraction for us in the US. For example it's-5 hours for Eastern, -6 Central, -7 mountain, and -8 West Coast. Or I might be completely wrong.
Unfortunately jammers like this push more and more services to digital and more services to have an excuse to leave shortwave. This is killing shortwave radio for everyone
Radio Free Asia (Read the U.S. Agency for Global Media) reaches an estimated weekly audience of 60 million people. Cambodia and Vietnam are still Socialist and Communist states remember. The population of those two alone is over 110 million. Vietnam borders China whom most definitely do not want US 'media' upsetting their apple cart. As for "How many people listen.." that's a very good question. If it's jammed then probably not many (obviously) but if it wasn't well yea, would anyone bother? Politicians, Generals and Gov Spooks from all sides are all freaking weird.
In today's day and age one no longer has to rely on just FM, AM and Shortwave radios anymore to share information in parts of the world like North Korea, China, and Putin's Russia. The people will always find ways to get around those systems on their own.
I actually got to listen to this station. And no wonder it was loud and clear from where I live (I'm from the Philippines, btw). I initially thought it was some kind of troll, but aren't all radio jammers trolls? Hahahahahaha
I agree with @luminousfractal420, a RTL-SDR dongle (there's a website) is cheap. The software is free. Thin wire (salvage a junk transformer) is cheap/free. Be sure that you get the version of the dongle that will receive HF.
