I Received The Strangest Russian Shortwave Signals 

This might be the best channel on youtube jfc

The letters written starting at 5:25 are: закончилась. But here they are displayed in reverse order and upside down, a bit confusing to non-russian readers. The word simply means: ended, or stopped. Cheers.

I remember as a teen listening to "This Transmission is for Testing Purposes Only from the Moscow Radiotelephone Station..." and then they'd cite a book, page and block and start reading five letter groups. Yeah, we all knew quite well what it was. Rumor has it that on Christmas Eve they added an extra "and Greetings to our friends in the CIA." to the broadcast.

Years ago when citizen band radios were popular, my friend's house unit developed a similar buzzing sound. It turned out that the neighbor's farm electric fence unit was not properly grounded and caused a feedback through the whole neighborhood.

As an amateur radio operator of over 60 years, the biggest annoyance was the Russian Woodpecker when it was around our frequencies 😮

The music playing over the buzzer at 2:16 is “Одиночество” by Ivan Karpov, which translates as “Loneliness”

Manipulating transmissions to "draw" characters on the waterfall is so clever!

Ok, russian buzzer being trolled by elevator music is somehow very funny.

The letters at 5:25 - 6:20 are sent backwards (last letters go earlier) and upside down. The message says "ХАЛЯВА КОНЧИЛАСЬ", which is literally translated from russian as "The freebie is over", but the contextual meaning is usually akin to "No more Mr. Nice Guy".

One buzzer jammer was actually on the uvb7600 live page. We'd send him song requests and there they were. Made for a very fun evening

There is something intangibly special about that combination of dreamy, far off music, and Saturn rising through the frame, that made me feel feels I did not even know I was calibrated to receive. Thank you.

6:10 the letters read: "кончилась" (upper case and upside down) which means "finished". 8:20 that's clearly ukrainian with hard cursing.

I'd like to see a transmitter that could jam the buzzer. I wouldn't want to stand near it though.

That was the Ukrainian propaganda channel there in the end. I have heard this voice so often now. There was an evening where you could hear a woman crying and talking, and some guys laughing and talking. After that, background voices got more and louder. Music was playing "Bairaktar", a Ukrainian "we will rock you" version and more. People were laughing and singing in the background. Sounded like an open mic for hours. Still got a recording.

The Morse code is BT 990018??8????? It is Russian Air Defence Morse code broadcast on 4628 Kilohertz CW. It is seasonal activity with this air defence system Morse broadcast and the frequency during Autumn radio period. It has ben transmitting on 4628 Kilohertz CW for decades and goes back to Soviet times. It is a time stamp 0018 is the time. 8 is the air defence district identifier. It will transmit the time stamp every minute. Sometimes it will stream live or practice air defence grid. Again it is an old Soviet system. It is known as M21 by radio enthusiasts.

Wow, seeing letters being spelled out on the buzzer is really unique to me. How neat.. thanks for your uploads

Has Techmoan bought a short wave transmitter? I could swear that was his channel music trolling the buzzer.

Managed to really clearly receive one of the propaganda channels a couple of days ago at night. It was quite creepy, especially because it was really dark outside and i was standing in the middle of a field with my pocket radio. I am in Germany and don't have the equipment to listen to the short wave bands well most of the time. Amazing how good the propagation is getting, now that the winter is slowly approaching.

2:30 The musical piece is "Girl from Petaluma" by John Dwyer and Ronald Alan Mendelsohn

Thank you for giving me an interest in something I knew nothing about :) thank you for putting out interesting and educational content. Looking forwards to the next one (which I will watch and pretend to understand until it sort of makes sense)

I presume that the buzzer is simply an aid to tuning for those who wish to receive these messages to help locate the station. Historically, and there is nothing new about this kind of activity, to send instructions to spies abroad. Back in the 1970s I used to hear things like this on my Dad's shortwave-tunable radio. Famously the British numbers station, based I think in Cyprus, for the British spies in the Middle East used to use the 'Lincolnshire Poacher' as a tuning aid.

What a great channel! In the 80's, I loved late-night surfing on short wave 1&2 via my AM/FM boom box. I also recorded oddball stuff to insert into musical compositions. Hard to find radios like that anymore. This is a pleasure. Subscribed.

I haven't got a Scooby what's going on but I'm fascinated. Much of that sounded better than Roger Waters rehash of The Dark Side of the Moon. As an aside at 3:00 I wept when I first saw Saturn through a telescope in my back yard. That, and stuff on this channel, makes me appreciate how little and insignificant we are. No bad thing. Keep on listening Lewis - loving it!

Was half expecting (hoping) to see Aphex Twin appear 😊

The Morse Code you're struggling with is probably Russian Morse Code, and they have 4 more characters than the Roman alphabet. I think Wikipedia has a list of all the letters in Russian Morse Code. Great video!

The thing about jamming is that it doesnt matter how poorly the blocked signal is heard elsewhere. Jamming is to prevent a signal from being heard in a particular place near the jammer not to obliterate the signal from the airwaves. Think about jamming as control bubble where the jammers signal is stronger than the blocked signal. That is the purpose of the technique. Where @ringwaymanchester is listening from is in the overalap of the bubbles so he hears both without one overpowering the other.

Great catches!! This stuff is really fascinating to me. Thanks for sharing.

Another brilliant video - I used to only have a passing interest in radio, but your channel keeps teaching me more things and keeping me hooked, it’s fascinating. You somehow manage to produce new videos that never get boring - there’s always another curiosity or story to follow - please keep it up - and thank you!

I'm so glad I found your channel, this is amazing! When I was kid, I was fascinated by radios and what I could listen to... I had a small old radioset at our summerhouse, the antenna was busted but I hooked it up with a long piece of steel wire to a metallic curtain rail. I had no idea at first what it would do but I just figured more metal have attached to the antenna, more I can listen into. The place is in Finland near Russian border, then ofc Soviet Union. I could hear a lot of Russian chatter, some very weird stuff too and the woodpecker was there, making a mess of certain frequencies. I loved it and was intrigued without understanding a word that was said. I could also find plethora of other channels from further away, all with that tiny little crummy radio, but the big ass curtain rail was amazing antenna. Oh and one of the things I often found was Russian speaking channels which repeated a phrase followed by a long morse signal and then it repeated. That one I could find always on the same spot easily. Most of the cryptic ones went quiet around the end of the SU.

the pre recorded stuff on 7103 is most likely coming from ukraine. sometimes they broadcast in different languages and i once caught them offending putin in german. not sure if its randomly generated sometimes it sounds as if someone was actually triggering samples on a keyboard

This channel is bloody excellent - i cant get enough of these SWL / numbers station stuff - utterly brilliant - not sure I'd have the patience to listen all the time. Could set me KiwiSDR back up again, but not happy the software has been and will probably again be rooted on it.

Have heard the loop sampler on 7103kHz a few times during our early mornings around 1300 UTC. Can get up to 5x9 plus in the Southern Hemisphere, interspersed with jammers and others shouting presumably abuse. Nice catch on the Buzzer Lewis!

Wow! Really interesting stuff, ill have to check back because the comments often gave great stuff to add when you post mysterious stuff like this.

Nice catches! Very interesting video. Thank you for sharing!

Wonderful, moody, evocative intro video & music. TOP job, Ringway!

I had no idea people figured out how to make letters on the waterfall. that's incredible .. The introduction of the waterfall on receivers years back was the coolest thing to happen to ham radio.

Very interesting and entertaining video, I would love to see more like these! Have a nice day mate.

Back in the late 1970s I had a radio to listen to John Peel on his late night radio show. It had SW too and occasionally I'd go through the frequency to see if I can catch anything else and now and again there would be Morse code. I became quite good at writing it down and decoding it, but it was all a jumble of letters and numbers. In the 1980s I was lucky enough to find myself posted to West Berlin and had the use of a range of radio equipment (the PRC320). Again, lots of Morse code and clear exchanges between Russians (in Russian of course) and the East German military. We even set up an antenna one day (I forget the terminology, carrier wave?) to talk to Cypress! And picked up Chinese! Great times.

I sure do enjoy the videos you put up. It's informative and helpful.

I knew nothing about the whole genre of airwave communication until this channel appeared in my recommendations a few months ago. Find this stuff very interesting thanks for adding to my knowledge not thst will ever be of use to me 😂. Plus i do love the dnb outro music you use

Last Saturday afternoon i picked up a strong pirate station 6870 khz. I listened for about 45 minutes and moved on. It's unusual for pirates to be on that long at any given time. I went up to ten meters and South America, Japan and Australia were all over the phone portion.

thank you for the nice video, unfortunately several big transmitters are being shut down A good old LW transmitter bites the dust. Kalundborg 243 kHz will be closing down at the end of 2023, on December 31st. It has been in use since August 29th, 1927. 73 from denmark

That digital sound over the buzzer sounds like it’s from Charlie and the chocolate factory where Mike Teevee was being transmitted through the Wonkavision 😊

My love of radio was started as a kid listening at night to distant broadcasts on LW and MW. But when I found these weird noses, it would freak me out. They sound so eerie. It definitely helps when you know what they are!

The text in the waterfall (mirrored and upside down) reads "кочилась", which means "wandered around", as best as I can make out. What it means exactly might be anyone's guess.

Lewis, outstanding video my friend. Wow is all I can say.

Glad to hear that I wasn't the only one going crazy trying to figure out what that sound was over the buzzer on the 10th

The tones at 6:15 made my Alsatian puppy howl like crazy. Maybe she was receiving a new firmware update :)

Great video, really interesting. Have you noticed any changes in the alarm lately?

I love all of the videos. they are great for learning about new activity's in the on the shortwave radio and also watching his videos for fun !

Best youtube intro ever! It really sets the mood. Well done.

Music identified at 2:00 , it's Ivan Karpov doing Oanhoyectb.

Missed opportunity to put Rick Astley to work.

My decoder ring translated one of the signals as "All Your Bases Belong To Us." 😁

Bloody loved this video! Really interesting

I don't know how relevant this is, but maybe someday you could do a video or a series on the radio noises coming from Saturn and other celestial objects. NASA's Cassini probe sent back the creepiest signals I've ever heard, picked up by its sensors inside Saturn's magnetosphere. NASA slowed them down to audio rate and posted them on the web back in the 2000s and I made the mistake of listening to it in a dark room alone late at night. 1950s Forbidden Planet type sound effects. Also, at least one Apollo crew picked up weird signals on their radio while orbiting the Moon, thought to be a heterodyne whistle perhaps. A video about the radio systems used for Apollo comms might be cool, too.

Thats a beautiful radio you have there. I’m saving up for one hopefully one day!

Another great vid Lewis..thanks

Brilliant video Lewis. Interesting stuff 👍

I believe the morse on 4628 khz is a common Russian Air Defence frequency and the numbers are transmitted every minute and represent the time and date.

Bloody love your channel it’s so interesting, and I learn a lot, thanks again for your work you put out there for us little people. Ps you could put a drum beat over it and send it back, sorry just being silly. Thanks again Alan from Luton 🤔👏🇬🇧💯👍

Solid! Top KEK! Peace be with you.

This digital transmission on buzzer channel could be related to recent military training, at least they claim they had it. It would be interesting to fact check if it corresponds with timing

Lettters at 6:07 are just a word "КОНЧИЛАСЬ" ("ended" on russian), mirrored and rotated upside down

Personal theory about recurring signals: there is no message in the signal, but the exact timing of signal outage/change is the 'message'. Much like a 'book-cypher', it's difficult to suss out the actual message. If a day comes where all of the radio-menagerie goes quiet at once, I would be nervous.

Interesting video. Will need to look out for this. Thanks Lewis.

great video. glade to see you using the adjustable notch filters . some day I will get the 705 but may go with the 905 to get upper bands. The ICOM 7300 does a super gob with RX using the notch filters and outher features for RX. the letters on the waterfall is a interest . most of that only comes in after sun set hear in NY . with radios like the ICOM 7300 and 705 receiving SW is simple. just a long wire needed. just get it out a bit. no need to worry about SWR when just listing . sometimes a use a MFJ manual antenna tuner to peak the RX signal/ I find it helps when a high noise floor. 73's

The music’s called ‘The Girl from Petaluma’ by a band called Cocktail Shakers - (it’s on RU-vid).

This is what the morse code message at 6:56 says: BT 99 00 18 IMI IMI 8 IMI IMI IMI IMI. The BT means "Break Text" aka "Message To Follow". The six numbers equate to unknown. Each "IMI" is basically a question mark with the number 8 thrown in for reasons unknown.

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing.

The signal at 4:10 is actually not a STANAG, it's a Russian CIS-12 signal. Looks like they transmitted it themselves over the Buzzer frequency, which is quite interesting ... The morse code means: =990018??8????? (0 is sometimes transmitted as T)

The digital signal looks like a remote control system signal to activate something. Maybe to turn on a record feature at the receiver.

#1:24 That sound is Olivia. A well known HAM mode. I guess it's not to overpower the signal but to overpower the echo. That guy only has to overpower some µW echo with his signal, that's all. It's an OTHR system. They don't live from the sig, the zombies live from it's echo. You kill the echo, you kill the sig. While the sig is too broad for normal HAM radio rigs, if this crap is invading our bands, and 6 or 7 Olivias with 2kHz bandwidth just try to do some Olivia QSO there, this crap will go away.

Very interesting. Excellent channel. Thank you.

A other fascinating video Love this type of content ❤

Very odd. Most of the time I get s8 of QRM/N on the HF bands. I'm going to have to track some of this down, which I was paid to do some forty years ago. 🙂 I think most of it these days is powerline adaptors, switch mode power supplies and lots of other 21st century technology. On the subject of QRM, cigar lighter plug phone chargers can be and usually are, a real problem device., If I plug my phone in, the DAB signal is compromised for most of the time, as well as some noise on two meters. Thanks for another interesting video.

I'm so excited to be one of the people to have witnessed this live, it was freaky and it felt surreal. I was sitting on University of Twente and I highly recommend it for surfing shortwave if you don't have your own kit. There's also a chat! My callsign is Crow or CrowFM :D

Amazing how we can communicate to almost anywhere in world using relatively primitive equipment.

Liking the new intros with the split text effect 👍

@3:54 I tipped my phone upside-down, ITS A MASTERPICE

You really should stay in more, Lewis. Bet you never thought you'd hear that. 😉

Just watched your video, had a look at the buzzer. It still has that morse code signal in it. It also seems to have, what sounds like high pressure air, interference.

Beautiful footage of Saturn BTW! Nicely done sir

1st Signal sounds like Starlink bleeding through the Airwaves! Love your Channel!

I'm wondering if they're still using some sort of old-school soviet signal generator for the buzz. Seen some soviet lab equipment do that, especially if they're mostly analogue. They'll ramp up. rather than just switching on.

I vote for a group 'field trip' to the Buzzer compound. We can make out we are terribly lost and ask to come in and use their phone...

Thankyou Lewis. Very interesting.

This reminds of growing up in the Outer Hebrides in NW Scotland during the 80s. There was a NATO base a few miles from my house and the entire FM space between local stations was filled with Radio Moscow transmissions! We occasionally used to pick up live baseball broadcasts too, for the benefit of the Americans on the base.

1:40 That sounds a lot like a RACAL SS2931 Jamcat, a jamming device used with Clansman radios.

I LOVE These weird and strange radio signals and interferences. I'll get a cheap radio that has MW and LW and I hope to at least get some interesting out of my country radio signals, that would make me extremely happy. If I ever could hear some of these russian noises, my life would be complete, but I doubt i'll get that far with a $40 radio lol

good hf propigation pulls out some of the best in folks who are getting QRM'ed by things they dont understand great video as usual

0:15, There is an interesting phenomenon about the greyline which can be seen on a DF plots of a radio signal. If a transmitter is in the greyline and the DF station is also in a greyline on the other side, the line of bearing (LOB) can see seen on the greyline. If the transmitting station is north of the equator, the radio signal will follow the greyline up over the north pole (if the greyline is that high) and then south towards the equator on the other side. Once the greyline passes the transmitting station then the LOB will snap back to the expected great circle route to the DF station.

Wow, this really takes me back to my youth listening to shortwave radio including all the Eastern Block garbage. I still have my shortwave reciever (nearly 50 years old, but still in fine working order), but haven't listened to it for years now. It's got all the bands on board and even a stereo unit (back in the day there were even radiostations transmitting in stereo on the shortwave). Reckon I should have another go at it and see what I can pick up.

I've been to Naro-Fominsk a few times, but not once since learning of the existence of the buzzer. Our local colleagues used to say the Russian soldiers on the near by base would take pot shots at passing cars occasionally. Nice place........

Great video Lewis

this is awesome. Never seen letters in the frequency spectrum before.

So, by now we definitely know that it *is* a channel marker. Can’t explain this behavior with anything else. It stopped, transmitted some digital and encrypted message, then continued. It also means that it’s some element of a larger and significant plan, otherwise they hadn’t been going on for decades now. Also, if it was „just“ a way to send info to some spies, they wouldn’t mark and block the channel 24/7. There also was nothing that signaled that a message would be incoming (maybe except the time), which to me means that the channel is monitored 24/7 by some system/s or entity. The fact that the activity increases kinda worries me…

I didn't know know they can make letters out of a signal. Wow that is odd

Another great video. At the end of the second sequence of Morse code were several repeats of the ? prosign ..--.. I'd check some of the other code as they may also be prosign characters - punctuation marks and other abbreviations. Thanks!

That was excellent thank you!