I Solved One Of Shortwave Radio's BIGGEST Mysteries! 

Watch this first: How Radio Detectives Solved One Of Short Waves Biggest Mysteries! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-lhthbykkE4s.html

Mel Blanc, the voice of Yosemite Sam, was an avid CBer and used to talk in some of his Warner Brothers cartoon voices on the air in Los Angeles in the 1970s. He would be proud to know his voice still gets used for oddball radio transmissions.

I used to be obsessed with this station as a teenager. It's nice to get some closure on what it was.

I work in Wi-Fi, and we still use NI PXI cards ("pixie") for signal generation and analysis. If the customer didn't know about PXI and its capabilities relative to HP/Agilent rack equipment, it was undoubtedly a military customer.

one major downside to wikipedia is that primary sources in the form of witness accounts are not accepted. you have to be interviewed or covered first (like this video), and THEN you can be used as a source for wikipedia. its annoying, but it does keep malicious people from claiming wild things they witnessed. also i love that it was a tech working with labview and not realizing he was transmitting for real hahaha. that is the most real engineering thing i've heard in a while. thankfully there is no fine for broadcasting in that band!!

Great to hear that Yosemite Sam is alive and well, roaming the desert of New Mexico!!! 👍

That was very fascinating and interesting. However, it begs the question, who was "the customer" and why did they need such a set up? Unless I missed the answer in this video, then I say we need a part 3 to officially put this to rest.

Watching this and thinking back, when I was young, a friend of mine had a walkie-talkie that would pick up on something quite unusual, it was a male voice that would just seemingly spout nonsensical things like "Joy to the Island of Centifica" and just listing out different home electrical appliances and other random stuff. Thinking logically now, I believe that it would most likely have been a test of some kind, either a test for signals intercept operators or like Yosemite Sam here, just some automated thing randomly sending nonsense for a specific testing purpose. I remember it scared the shit outta me, cause it made no sense and the voice was so clinical and creepy. This was in Sydney Australia around 2002-2003? Not sure what frequency my mate's walkie-talkie operated on, but likely to be 27 MHz ISM.

I knew I shoulda taken that left turn at Albuquerque!

So let me get this straight. Somebody "Didn't think anyone would notice" transmissions of a Looney Tune every 10MHz between 10-70MHz at a minimum of 100W up to half a kW?

This is the kind of information and detail that makes this one of your best videos!

Brilliant as ever, enjoyed all aspects of this video from the technical detail, as thorough as ever, to communications/emails to the person involved. Could easily watch your videos all day, its easily some of the best radio related content available on the internet.

THIS IS AMAZING! My friend and I have listened to this and tried to drive down to New Mexico to get a better signal. You are such a hero for figuring this out!

That report is a genius of corporate sales pitch with enough technical info to baffle most financial decisions makers and to inform the experts appropriately. Wonder who the client was , and what they were trying to achieve long-term ? Mil or Mobile Comms ?

Interesting. I was doing some RF work in Yuma at the same time. We had some new compartmental but not secret monitoring systems, which had weird audio tracks. We were exploring a variety of new encryption and clear (without encryption) transmissions in prep for the follow up for the desert warfare back then. There were unknown factors we had to overcome. What how & who are all likely still classified but it's fun to see what public interceptions found back then. There was a lot of noise in the spectrum from 2001 - 2005, I'd never heard of this Yosemite Same station until now. Good on you for figuring this out.

“Say your prayers, rabbit.” - Yosemite Sam

This is fantastic. He had no idea what his work would start. The technical details reminded me of encabulators. I wonder if side fumbling was an issue?

"Varmint...I'm-a gonna blowwww ya ta smithereens..." Something to do w/either rabbits or ducks, one assumes...

Love,this. Keep them coming. You're creating a magnificent archive of Radio and it's technology.

System security, Windows XP accounts and Windows XP Remote Desktop....it was never secure!

This sounds like they are looking for the best frequency from the location to transmit on. Like a ham operator looks for the beacons from each band to know what frequency is useable. The idea being to use the highest Mhz frequency available. The time of day and solar activity and weather will be different and the ability to use the same frequency at the same time each day will change. I wonder who would be able to use whatever frequency they wanted and whatever modulation and signal type they wanted ? I am thinking this is for military use.

"I didn't have a clearance *at the time* ." 🧐

Great to see solid/hard/empirical information - much of what the Internet is missing. Thanks for the really interesting video. Cheers

As someone who sat behind tons of RF test equipment I can say playing something random like that if given the chance would be on the top of my list. I love radios, but it can get pretty mundane sometimes, so little things like that or slipping in easter eggs where you can happens fairly often.

love your work keep doing amazing stuff...you cant stop the signal...

So they were building the ultimate ANNOY-O-MATIC transmitter that ensured any desired waveform could be emitted at a precise time from anywhere by users so authorised. Sounds like a jamming system. Either intentional or not. Or the ability to insert messages into other stations transmissions. Love the technical information and illustrations of the equipment!

I wonder if that MATIC facility is still active today, in the pictures toward the end it did look a bit defunct and abandoned compared to the aerial photos.

Nice work as always and congratulations on 100,000 subscribers

Nice one Lewis, thanks once again.👍

Cool beans, but darn it was more interesting to see it as transmissions made by a mad cartoon lover in the middle of nowhere somewhere in Arizona.

This is a great follow-up to your previous story. Thanks.

Brilliant I remember my dad listening to it. Can’t wait to let him see your show. He will be over the moon and back. Love your show thanks for your work love it all. Alan from LUTON 💯🇬🇧😱👍

Oop…another dog with bone moment. Oh how I love this channel😂 I anticipate your source was the CEO of BBT a company which was bought by NTS in 2006 and which had numerous commercial and defence contracts at the time. That individual wrote the NTS paper from what I can see so the question on everyone’s lips is who was that customer 😂 Some have eluded to fintech (which is my current background) but given the comments made in the report as to cost effective transportation in a brief case I wager this is possibly a product designed to test, verify and enforce the security of military systems.

The number of answers to mysteries submitted to Wikipedia but deleted shortly afterwards for lack of citations by someone who couldn't be bothered to look for any is probably incredible.

I spent some time in that area, and although I was unaware of this stuff, there are a lot of weird things going on in NM. Great video, thanks for uploading.

Almost at 100K! Congratulations.

I'm just a fixed-wireless and Wi-Fi guy, but I've really enjoyed so many of your videos about radio.

You do these so well.👍

Excellent documentary!

Yosemite Sam and the Dragon. This wins the Nobel prize, the Oscar and the Olympic gold for cartoons.

I spent 25 years as an RF tech in the wireless industry. Interference hunting was my passion and as such, I was given all the tough ones to solve. That said, with a Yagi a map and a SpecAn, the x-mitter could have been located in 10 working minutes (not including drive time) using triangulation. Especially in the open desert. The "why and what for" is a different issue as is getting the offending signals to cease. It always amazed me how defensive people are when you tell them they are x-mitting an Interference signal on a licensed freq and violating the FCC laws

Back in the 70's in the south of essex i used to love to listen to various odd things on the MW band, one repeated 5 second tune used to go on for hours & sounded like a few notes from a trumpet. I'd love to find out more about it now 👍 and possibly use it as a ring tone.

"a very controlled and flexible environment"? Sounds like the Government had something to do with this. Thanks for the video! Your content is always top notch! KG5WXU 73

Thanks for al this content. As an engineer I am following the call of the jungle 20 years after finished university. Good of had a life in the UK 10 years ago and understand your accent and expressions. I win always everytime with each one of your videos. Cheers from Bogota. HJ3VMS. Using EchoLink and 10wBaofengs by now. Will see later on where this takes my budget to. Thanks.

Well done - it was always good for a giggle

I especially enjoy your videos about number stations and ham radio. Thanks,

Great work!

OMG. Almost at 100k subscribers. Totally deserved

I worked for many years with that same equipment. The performance claims are real and I saw it work out this way many times. We even flew simulated aircraft navigation equipment on a single engine plane. The only thing he left out is the ability to transmit multiple signals at the same time, record and playback in RF things like the entire FM Broadcast band.

Regardless of the truth- and I am happy to accept the boring answer-it is clear that someone has a good sense of humor. The use of Yosemite Sam is pretty funny when you think about Bugs Bunny always making a wrong turn near Albuquerque.

Now these are the vids i mostly enjoy nice one lewis..

Good Information --- Thanks

Amazing the things that are in my backyard (60 miles to my Northeast ) Thanks for putting this out there 73s

Exhaustive! Superb!

Thank you, James Clerk Maxwell and Heaviside for sending us down an infinite rabbit hole. Faraday deserves his due as well...amongst others.

“System security and user monitoring are provided in two layers. Standard security measures such as a firewall to the Internet and ***Windows XP*** accounts provide the first layer”. 😳😳😳

I'm no expert but don't those specs sound like the RFP for a fully automated numbers station and receiver?

Well there ya go who'd have thought it Great detective work Lewis Mystery solved 👍

All the fun went out of it when the reality hit.

The truth is always way more interesting than the wildest conspiracy theories, sweet video!

Nice summary.

At least they didn't use "Porky Pig"...

Don't know if it's your live video. Or just your interesting content, but i really can't get enough of your wonderful stuff, Lewis. Gratitude from your Scottish fans. ❤

NI and LabVIEW and radio, I'm in heaven all the things I love. NI and LabVIEW can do so much and is an amazing development and programming system. It is perfect for this kind of thing.

Great video.

Superb analysis, I wonder what kind of power they were putting out? LabVIEW and the associated hardware is incredible and very versatile, it's a shame more people don't use it to help improve their products and stop so many poor designs spewing out interference, surprised they would use copyrighted audio samples for test purposes in a professional scenario though 🤔

LabVIEW - where you truly can have spaghetti code. Nice find!

Very cool!

That tone sounds like a DMR or P25 digital Motorola signal I wonder if you could get the ID in that Usually they transmit the network and the talkgroup and channel

Wow, great work, Lewis! It certainly took some time to happen, but I'm glad the longstanding mystery has been put to bed. But I suppose this begs the question: What kinds of end-purposes do you think such a system would be used for? Cheers!

5:16 first time i seen one of these in use - just built one for leo satelite use - i think the idea is omnidirectional circular polarisation... Kevin..

I kept waiting to hear this part of the report. The [pentametric fan] consisted simply of six hydrocoptic marzelvances, so fitted to the ambifacient lunar waneshaft that side fumbling was effectively prevented

I naively thought Yosemite Sam was a strictly American thing. Looney Toons forever!

Great story, Lewis! I didn't ever copy this signal but was aware of it of course! Mystery solved! 73

I might be missing something, but why didn't this draw the attention of the FCC? Was transmitter licensed?

Very interesting!

i remember when i was first getting into shortwave listing in these days, i heard this broadcast at times. i totally forgot about it over the years. back when it first appeared, nobody knew how to make sense of it. the prevailing theory was that it was just a jammer or troll since it would appear on amateur radio (ham) bands but they also didn't make perfect sense since it wasn't really on frequencies commonly used. of course, we also made up all kinds of obviously nonsense conspiracy theories (back when those were fun...rather than schizo political insanity) about it being a numbers station, with the audio clip specifically chosen to imply the US might get nuked or all sorts of amusing ideas. once everyone kinda figured out that it was just from some sort of research, it lost its mystery although it always remained a fun memory for people who were into radio in those days. this update video about it makes it even funnier now that the guy said he didn't even bother to consider whether anyone would hear it or care. well, now he knows just how far radio hobbyists - especially the hams - will go to when it comes to radio, especially something that was so unusual at the time :'p

I READ THE WIKIPEDIA PAGE WHEN THIS WAS EDITED BUT DID NOT BELIEVE IT WAS REAL.

Hey bud! Will you please do a video on the Stock Bros trading wanting to use a portion of the HF Ham bands? Thanks

We used Agilent HPLCs in our chemical lab at BP Chemicals.

This is really interesting, as a former programmer with a passing radio interest.

Wouldn't have been quite as interesting if Yosemite Sam wasn't somehow involved. 😆

Our very own Poirot! 👍😁

I believe this indirectly solves the operation of modern numbers stations mystery, which might provide more insight on how to “decode” them. Just my own personal theory.

AMAZING

Well done.

glad to know after internet is done, we will have memes and new forms of shitposting!

I'm happy to live and see the day thsat this has finally been solved

this yosemite sound 🔥

And he had no idea that the signal was even getting out or that anyone was listening.

Wow, Imagine being able to blast out garbage onto the airwaves with no push back whatsoever.

Does England use the 26.965 - 27.405 AM +SSB class D CB radio service along with their FM band?

Awesome

I wonder what the customer used it for when it went into operation - and not doing mere test signals

This used to be my ringtone

Had a quick look online at the price of one of the units used 😮

Engineer Ambitiously, Lewis!

12:37 my brain hurts 😂

I watched the first video… i still don’t understand half of the words you’re saying in this. I’m probably just dumb, but i still enjoyed it. 🍿 I think the only initialism you used that i actually knew was gps…

Im no shortwave or electronics expert but that's the sort of thing that makes shortwave so much fun for me. It's kind of a letdown knowing the reality. I was really hoping it was some random hermit.