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CONTENTS

VoI.17, No.ll November1998 Making the Best ofApartment Monitoring 10

By Dave CaWley

By Rimantas Pleikys

On November 29 , 1988. the Soviet Union cea sedjamming foreign radio sta tions fo r the first time in 40years. Th is look hack at the equipment and the stationsinvo lved in that effo rt is written in dedication of the10th anniversary of its end .

A growing number of globe- trotting indi -viduals are joining the rank s of ships, rov ingrepor ters, and intern ationa l businessmen whoconduct their business on Inm arsat. It is we llwort h the slightly extra effort req uired to pu llthese signals into yo ur scanner to moni torthese global co mmunicat ions!

By Steve Doug lass

I had spent the last five years ge tting themon itoring post just the way I wanted and now Ihad to tea r it all apart. But all's we ll that endswell. No one would know that a miniature inter-cept station is operating in the nondescri pt apart-ment next to them , and reception is almost as good as before the move.

New! Inmarsats and How to Hear Them 22

Jamming Wall 16

COl'er StolT

Inside Italy's RAIBy Jim Frimmel

On a recen t trip to Italy,MTs programming man agerhad the opportunity to meet thefrie ndly staff at Radio Roma,RA l lnte rnational. Come alongon a rare, qu ick tour behind thegates at RAJ. The stationbroadcasts in 24 languages fromits transm itter site at PratoSmcraldo . Story on page 8.

OUf cover pic ture is of avert ical curtai n anten na north-east of Mosco w, similar tomany of the antenna arrays usedto jam broadcasts from theWest. (Photo by BerndTrutenau)

Reviews:"Tank-to ugh " is how Magnc categorizes a

new DSP SW tab le-top from Germany. theKnc iser + Doer ing KWZ 30 (p. 90). Parn ass isequally impressed with the sturdiness of the new

Alinco [)J -X l OT sca nner (p.n). Last mon thCatalano installed the WR ISOllc software ra-dio ; this month he waxes poet ic over its perfor-mance (p .94) and also plays with an Ir[)Amou se from Selecte ch. Kiwa has producedits first "natural radio" detector , Ea r thSounds , put to the test by LF co lumnistKevin Carey (p .96) .

EDITORIAL STAFF Correspondence tocolumni~ls maybe moiledc/o f'/Ion ltoringTimes; any request for a replyshould Indude an SASE.

[email protected]

Outer limits 77WBCO: Pirate Slolion Goes Legil

Below 500 kHz 78Tips From our Readers

KIS Radio 80Heathki/ GR-64 Res/oro/ion

Experimenters Workshop 82Automolic NiCd Cell Discharger

Antenna Topics , 84Why all the Noise abaul Noise?

On the Hom Bonds 86Wish lisl for a Hom's Chrislrnas

And More! 87Radio Shock's Easy FRS Radios

Ask Bob ,..,...,................................. 88The "Power Tip'" Scam

Mogne Tests 90Kneisner+ Doering KWZ 30

Scanning Equipment ............................ 92Alinco DJ-XlOT

Computers& Radio............................. 94WinRadia WR 1500. ; AirDalo Mouse

Review "" , 96Kiwa Eorth Monitor

What's New"." "". ,." " """".." " 97Letters """ .......................... 101Stock Exchange "", 102Advertisers Index 102Closing Comments 104

The Frequency Lisl and Ihe Groin 015011

Freq uency Ma nager Gayle Von HamFrequency Mon itors David Dctkc , Ma rk J. FineProgram Man age r . Jim Frimmel frimmel@storte leg rom.camAmerican Band scan Doug Smith. W9WI [email protected] More' . Jock Ell iott KB2GOM Iigh tkeeper@sprin tmo il.comAntenna Topics W. ClemSmall. KR6A demsmo]@bilferrool.netBeginn e r' s Corner T.J. Arey. WB2GHA tjorey@home .comBelow 500 kHz Kevin Carey, W B2QMY [email protected] a nd Ra dio John Catalano [email protected] Digest . Bob Evans revans @totol.netExper imente r' s wkshp Bill Cheek [email protected] .comFedera l f ile . Jo hn Fulford , WA.dVPY JO [email protected]. Radio . Richa rd Arlond . K7SZ k7s z@juno .netMogne Tests . Lawrence MogneMilcom . Larry Von Horn N5FPW larry@grove .ne tOn the Hom Bonds Ike Ker schner . N3 1KOuter Limits ... George Zeller / George .Zelle r@ocdin k.compes Front Line .. ... Don Veenema n do [email protected] Talk . Jea n Boker, KIN9DDProgr a mming Spotlight John Fiqliozzi , KC2BPU jfjg liol @nycap.rr .comPropaga tion Jacques d 'Avignon [email protected] Corner .. Gayle Von Horn goy [email protected] tSatellite Redic Guide Rober t Smothers rob erts@nmia .comScann ing Equipme nt .. . Bob Pcmcss. AJ9SScann ing Rep ort . Richard Barnett '. . 5conMas [email protected] mSW Broadca sting Glenn Hauser .. . ghouser@hotmail. comSW Broad cas t Log s .. . Gayle Von Horn .. . gayle@grove .nelThe Lounch ing Pod . Ken Reitz, K54ZR. . ks4z r@compuse rve.comUtility World . . Hugh Stegma n, NV6H [email protected] from Above Lawrence Ha rris . . lc wrencehw ndi rect.co .vkWa shington Whi sper s Fred Moio, W5YI fmoia@cwixma il.cam

DEPARTMENTS

Washington Whispers 4What's Behind Hom Reslrocluring2

Communications ....................... 6Scanning Report 26

That New Band to ScanU~lityWorld ,................., , 30

NCS: Swords intoSHARESDigitalDigest ,.,..,.._.._ 33

Digital Equipment OverviewGlobol Forum ,., _ 34

WBCO -An Aliemotive SW StationQSL Report _ 38

Adventist WorldRadioEnglish Long SW Guide , 39Prcpcqcticn Conditions 60

Where to Listen on the BandsProgramming Sporlight .._ _ , 61

Tracking Ihe Global EconomyNew! Satellite RadioGuide .....,......... 62New! The launching Pod 66

Learning to Love SatellitesBeginner 's Comer 68

Undersranding Radio WavesNew! View from Above 70

Keeping on Eye on the WeatherMi!com , 72

New USCG Air Stolion OpensPlane Talk , 74

Coming to Terms with Radar-2American Bondscan 76

Beverage Questions

MONI TORING TIMES(ISSN: 0889-5341;( PC IPN Sa les Agree -ment # 1253..4921ispublished month y byGrove Enterprises. lnc.,Brasstown , NorthCc rolioo , USA.

Owne rsBob and Judy Grove

judy@grove_ net

Disclaimer:Wh ile Monitoring Times makes o n effort toens ure the info rmat ion it pub lishe s is ac cu-rate , itcanno t be he ld lia ble for the con tent s.The reader assu mes a ny risk for pe rfo rmingmodi fica tion or construc tion p ro ject s pub -lished in Mo nitoring Times. O pin ion orco nclusions ex pressed are not necessa rilythe view o f Monitoring Times o r G roveEnter pr ise s. Unsolicited ma nus cripts a reaccepted . SASE jf mat eri al is to be returned .

Art Dire ctorBelindo McDona ld

Pu b lis h e rBob Grove, W8 JHDbg rove @grove .ne t

Subscription Rotes: $23 .95 in US; $36.50Canad a; and $55.45 foreign elsewhere , usfunds. l a be l indicat es lost issue of subscrip-tion. Seepage 103for subscription informotion.

Address: p_o_Box 98, 7540H;ghway 64 West.Brasstown, NC28902-0098

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or e-mail: [email protected] e-mail: [email protected]: [email protected]

Copyr ight 1998. Periodica ls postage paid0 1 Bra sstown, Ne, a nd ad ditional ma ilingoffices. Short excerp ts may be reprintedwith a ppropria te credit. Complete arti clesmay not be reprod uced without permissio n.

Ad ve rt is in g Svcs ,Beth Leinbach

18281 389-4007beth@grove_net

Ma na g in g EditorRachel Baughn, KE40PD

mted [email protected]

Postma ster :Send add re ss cha nges to Monitoring Times,P_O_Box 98. Brasstown, NC 28902-0098_

As sistant Edito rLorry Von Horn, N5FPW

2 MONITORI NG TIMES November' 998

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By Fred Maia, WSYIfmaia@cwixma il .com

What's Behind the Amateur Restructuring Proposal?It has been nearly len years since the Ama-

teu r Service has been remodeled. In 1989. theFede ral Co mmunicatio ns Comissio n (b'CC )completely rewrote the Amateur Radio Serv iceRule s. A lot has happ ened in com municationstec hno logy since then . Most everyone agree stha t it is time bring ham radio up to dUIC.

The current campaign be ga n o n two fronts.f irst of a ll, sate llite and au tomatic d igital tech-no logy has developed to the poi nt where analogcom municat ions and manual tele graphy arcbei ng replaced by more reli able modes. Forseve nty years, 500 kHz Morse code was thecornersto ne of lon g distance d ist ress co mm uni-ca tions. Now the CO

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November' 998 MONITORING TIMES 5

COMMUNICATIONS

The test certainly proved that DPRK ca nloft a signifi can t payload, whe ther it' s anupper stage with a peace ful satellite or aweapon with a range of 1.646 km.

There' s also little doubt that the test hasincreased tensions in a region already close toarmed confl ict. South Korea is now talk ingopenly about accele rating its own domesticrocket tech nology development. and Japan istalking abo ut fundin g its ow n spy satellites.

In a country \vhere a significant port ion ofthe population is starving. it has caused theworld to wonder about North Korean priori-ties.

Even if yo u believe all of North Korea 'sclaims. it did launch a rocket over Japaneseterri tory without prior notifi cat ion and didnot properly apply for a license for its trans-min ing frequ ency - hardl y indica tions of apeaceful scientific satellite.

For a "nostalgic" taste of Cold War rheto-ric. see the Korean Central News Agencywebsite at http://www.kcna .eo.jp/

- by Philip Chien, Earth News

Nov 16 -18: Boston, MASurveill ance Expo '98 will take place at theHynes Convention Center in conjunctionwith Northeastern University' s CriminalJustice Co nference, Seminars. exhibits.panel discussions. Contact Securi ty andInvestigations Group, POB 20254. Wash-ington . DC 20041 or Jim Ross at 800-US-DEBUG. [email protected]

[email protected]. For hamfest det ailssee WTARC webpage: hltp:llnonprolit.apex2000.net/ha mfestl

Nov 7: Odessa, TXWest Texas ARC hamfest; Contact Robe rtJordan N5 RKN, 9 15-335 -7980 or

November 2: DX TestKLER-1300. Orofino.Idaho, will conductDX tests betw een 0200 and 02 I5 EST,comprised of tones and Morse Code IDs,using 5 kW non -directional. Reception re-portsmay be sentto: Mr. Jeff Jones. Owner,KLER-AM. P.O. Box 32. Orofino. ID83544-0032. (Arranged by Bill Hale forthe NRC CPC.)

TASS cla imed that Russian mili-tary officials had tracked the sat-ellit e. it ga ve the identical figuresas in the KCNA announ cement .leaving out the same missing pa-rameters. Identical parameters al-most guarantee that the numberstrace back to the same source.

More importantly. nobody elsehas any indication that a satelliteex isted. It was invisible to all ofthe radar and visual tracking sta-tions around the wor ld. and nobroadcasts were hea rd by any lis-tcner s. The USS PAC ECOM offi- .clt 's a bird, it's a plan e, it 's pure propaganda !cial press release (del ayed due tothc Labor Day holiday). stated." US Space Command has not been able tocon fir m North Korean assertions that itlaunched a small satellite onAugust Sf. 1998."

Some weste rn offici als said they were toldthat the satellite d id reach orbit but it wasn' tfunct ion ing. Thi s seems high ly doubtful co n-s ide r ing th e capabili t ie s of th eUSSPA CECOM track ing network . It' s hard10 bel ieve that a sa tellite - and its muchlarger third stage - could be missed forseveral we eks . On the other hand . KCNAclaimed on Septemb er 141h that the satellitehad fini shed its IOOth orbit around the Earth .and eve n claimed that the satellite was largeenough to be visible 10 the naked eye !

So what was it? Portions of the NorthKorean statements may be correct; it co n-ce ivably could have been an attempted satel-lite launch. However, there's litt le do ubt thatther e is no satellite in orbit. lfit was a launchattempt then there was a failure during thethird stage bum and North Korea' s still trying10 delu de itself into believing that it has asatellite in orb it - functional or not.

North Korea's Phantom SatelliteFor years North Korea (DPRK) has sold

Scud-class missiles to Iran and Pak istan . sowestern ana lysts were e xpecting the launch ofa more sophisticated Nodong 3 two-stagemed ium range ve rsion. On Augu st 3 1st at3:07 UTe a missile was tracked . What wasstrange was the flight pa th - du e cast, taki ngit d irectly over Japan.

T he fir st stage fell in Ihe Sea of Ja panbetween Korea and Japan. and the secondstage lan ded in the Pacific Ocea n to the cast o fJapan. Japan was understandably upset thatthe missile new over its territory without an yprior notifi cation or perm ission. Human itar-ian aid to North Korea was quickly cui off.

On Septembe r 2nd the Korean Centra lNew s Agency (KCN A) sa id. "H igh-ran kingofficials and other politicians of Japan aremakin g pro voca tive rem ar ks aga inst theDPRK over a missile launchin g test that theysay was carried out by the DPRK . The y de-scribe the test as something ' regrettable' and'dangerous' and claim that the test made itdifficult to improve relations with the DPR K.,.. Japan' s behavior is ridiculous, indeed, invie w of the fact that Japan is zealously deve l-oping long-distance vehicles and other up-Io-date weapon s and paving the way for over-seas aggressio n. having worked out 'guide-lines for Japan -U.S.defence cooperation: ..,\Vc warn Japan to face up to rea lity. act withd iscretion and renounce its anachronistic hos-tile policy toward the DPRK at once:'

... NOI exactly polite things to say to aneighbo r. especially the one which can helpyou the most.

On September -lth KCNA claimed that itwasn't a military missile. it was a launchvehicle for a satellite, saying. " I t will co ntrib-ute to promot ing scie ntific research for peace-I'll I usc of outer space, " T hey saidKwangmyongson g No. I "s orbit had a peri-gee of 2 1S.X2km. and apogee of 697R.2 kill."The satellite is now transm itt ing the melodyof the immortal revolutionary hymn s Song 1?J'Grnerul Kim II Sung and Song of GeneralKim l ong II and the Morse signals 'JuchcKorea ' in 27 MHz,"

Yes. 27 Ml-lz - Ci tizens Band!As a member of the International Tele-

commu nications Unio n (ITU) the DPRK isrequired to file an application before a trans-miller is put on the ai r which can interfe rewith other transmissions. especially space-craft. The ITU has no filing from the DPRKfor any satellite allocutions. and 27 MHz iscertainly not a hand allocated for satellitecomm unica tions.

Although the Russia n news agency ITAR-

6 MONITORINGTIMES November 1998

November Nightmares in theClarke Belt

Sarcllitc opcnuors wil lbreathe much easierwhe n mid -November has co me and gone -at least, until nex t yea r. Aro und Novembe r17th of 1998 and 1999 the Earth makes itsclo sest pass in a 33 year cycle thro ugh debrisfrom the tail o f co rnet Tempel-Tuttle. Themeteor shower. know n as the Leonids. waslast experie nced at its height in 1966 at anes timated rate of 150.000 meteors per hour !But in 1966. sa te lli tes were sca rcely of con-cern.

However . "we might expect five to 10func tiona l satellites to behit by Leonid mete-oroids durin g a storm," say the four co-au-thors of a repon [ 0 be found on the Internet athltp:llicroy.cc.urcgina.ca/%7EastroILeo nids/Lco_2.htm l.

Although some outage s may be experi-enced while engineers take precautions byrepositi onin g sate llites in the end it' s a crap-shoot GE Am eric an hopes to incre ase itsodds of an impac t to one in 100.000 byreposition ing. bUI at 150.000 meteors perhour, that Illay not be too reassuring,

COMMUNICATIONS

C h uck J\..l c C ull uughabo ut the: contraptionwh ich sudde nlyappea redon the groundsof'thc Pen-tagon .

Stan Sulak poi nted usto an arti cle in the Julyemail editionofDOEThisMomll . Th e bizarre look -ing struc ture is an ar rayof mirrors wh ich concentra tes the sun' s en-ergy ont o a receiver/e ngine to generate elec-tric power. Sulak say s. "The unit insta lled atthe Pentagon is design ed to pro vide 25 ki lo-wa tts o f po wer - eno ugh to supply electric-ity to an ent ire village in a remote area witho utgenerat ing ;'lIl Y a ir po llution:"

Aftcr spend ing six mont hs on di sp luy out-side the Pentagon . the structure wi llbeshippedto its "real joh'' pro ducing elect rici ty in Ari -zona.

Bosnian Station Needs SupportBosnia and Herzcgovnia' s largest inde-

pendent radio network is FERN (Free inter -

Ethnic Radi n Ne twork). funded by the Orga-nizat ion for Security and Cooperation in Eu-rop c (OSCE) and the Swi ss Government. Intwo years it bus gn)\vn from a temporary, twomonth "election s rad io" to a complete 24-hou r national news. public information. andentertainment operation .

However. funding commitmentscease at-rer the Septernber 1998 elections . It is see kingcommercial inve stments. partnership ag ree-ments with ot her medi a. advert ising. programspo nsors hip. and vol untary co ntributions. Formore informat ion . see www.oscebih.org

"Communica tions" is compiled byRachel Ba ughn from clippings submitted byour readers. T hanks to those who sen t incl ipp ings this month: Anonymous, NY; BrandonArtman,PA;David Borger, NY;Philip Chien, F~Mike EI" ilin,CA; Brion Calhcart, f~ IhcmcsFalkl, PA; Wm. Hearty, OH;Ala nHenney,email;JeffreyHeyman, email; DavidHaword,PA;Chorlel Johnl,ME;Maryanne Kehoe,GA;Kevin Klein,WI;Ed Lenlz, emoil;MikeModlen. I~AlonMOIygo.MN; Ira Paul,MI;GlennRichler,email;DougRobemun,CA;MichoelSuxlon,CA; AriSchwartz,emoil;LorryondGoyleVon Horn. NC;BrionWebb, email.

ALicense to JamTh is month' s fea ture story on jamming

ce lebra tes the cessation o f sovict jamming ona major sca le , but a new phe nome non hasemerg ed in Japan tha t could be ca lled"m icrojamming." On ly. the target of this jam-mer is not fore ign broadcast ing. but the omni-prese nt ring of thc ce llular phon e.

Restaurants. concert hal ls, mo vie theaters.and hospit al s arc all venu es with very goodrea son s for banning cel lphon cs altogeth er.Plaste ring warn ing posters un every wall orsubjec ting the clientele to sea rch and seizuredocs nothing for good customer re lations.however. Thus the attraction of new jammerssuch as Medic' s "\Vave \Vall: '

Wave W:.IIJ sends out strung s ignals o n thesame frequencies as the ce llphoncs them-sel ves and effective ly jams both incomingand outgo ing cal ls. $~SO wo uldn' t have pa idthe ele ctric bil l for a even mo nth u f Cold \Varjamming. but it doe sn' t see m unreasonabl efor creating a 20 -foot rad ius of qu iet

Japa n is just beginning to add ress con -cerns ever poten tial misuse. blocki ng emer-gency calls to doc tors and others. or interfe r-cnce to other de vices such as pacemak ers.

AlienPods at the Pentagon?" Is thi s so me sor t of high powered visible

light communications antenna?" won de red

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November 1998 MONITORING TIMES 7

Inside Italy's

bu t there is also programming in English .French . Span ish . Portu gesc. German . Swed-ish . Dani sh . Ukrainian. Rom an ian. Slovene,Croatian . Turkish, Bulgari an. Czech. Slovak .Poli sh . Serbian, Hungarian. Russian. Arab ic.Am haric. So mali and Esperan to, for a total of24 langu ages. No orienta l languages arc used .

In North America, mo st shor twave listen-ers arc fam iliar with Rad io Roma' s daily 20minute English broadcast fro m 0050-0 I IUUTe. The broadcast actually beg ins at 2230hours in Ita lian, switches to English

Many RA J news reports and fea ture programs are readied for broadcast f rom thesebanks of lope recorders.

Jim Frimmel is editor of SelectedProgra mming in MT a nd owner of DXComputing , radio sol1wore for theMacintosh.

present transmitt ers.RAI has a twice-yearly publica tion culled

QUINAI, available free of charge from RAIIntern at ional ; Largo Villy De Luca. 5; 001 88Rom a. Italy. More info rmation about RAI isalso uvuilnble off the internet at www.raiinlernational, rui.it

Since Alfa Romeo and Fiat have ceasedexporting autos to the U.S., it wasenjoyable to see all the Italian cars 0 11the streets and autostradas. Sorry M 110picture of the new Alfa /56, but here isa shot of the popu lar new Ford Ka,which parks easily 011 the streets ofRome.

Looking to the Futu re

When origin ally co nstruc ted in 193 J. thePrato Smeraldo site was considered far enoug haway from Rome to be interference-free tocity commerce. Now. sixty-seven years later,Rome has spread out to the extent that thetran smitter site is in need of relocat ion , Untilsuch a mov e is mad e. RAI International islimited to the lower power outputs of the

rebroadcasts on AM and FM in Australia,Canada. and the USA.

RAI"s sho rtwave transmitting ce nter isseparately Iocuted at Prat o Smeraldo in theoutskirts ofRom e. All major transrnitters weredestroyed dur ing World War II and were laterrep laced in 1948.

Prat o Smeraldo Center presentl y broad-casts RAJ 's signals with six transmitters usin g30 antenna sys tems.

Transmitte rs are al l 100 kW Brown Bovenwith a Marconi 100 kW used as backup. TheBoveri transm itters use Thomsonwater-coo ledoutp ut tubes . The AM modulatio n is digitallycontrolled.

Twe lve of the towers use dip oles and IRuse dapple d ipoles with reflectors. Th ere arealso num erou s vertica l dip oles mad e withlong wires stretching from tower masts to thegrou nd.

The Transmitter Site

Radio Roma's main program in the AMbroadcast band is an Italian program calledNotturnoItaliano, which is also broadcast onshortwave and via sate llite. It mainly co nsistsof six hours of ligh t music , opera and sym-phoni c music , operettas, and jazz, with new severy hour in Italian. English, French andGe rman. It is heard in Europe from 2200-0400 UTe on both mediumw ave andlongwave.

A view of the Praia Smeraldatransmitter site on the outskirts ofRome. (Photo by Andrea Borgnino)

RAI International Satelradio offers 24 hoursof the top programs of the three nat ional radiochannels as well as RAJ International. Pro-gramming consists of music , entertainment,news and information . Transmi ssion s are viaHot Bird 1 to Europe. Asiasa t 2 to Asia. Or ion2 to North and Ce ntra l America , Panamsat 3to the Atlantic coast, Ga laxy LA to LatinAmerica , and to Austra lia via subcarri er ofRAJ' s TV channel. There are also sate llite

One other English transm ission that is of-ten heard in North America is actually in-tended for the British Isles. The Englis h por-tion of that broadcast is from 1935- 1955 UTCon 5970 . 7 145 and 9760 kHz (until October25th). and is best hea rd in North America onthe Eas t Coast.

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Mal{ing the Best ofApartment Monitoring

By Steve Douglass

I knew it could happen - my land lord had already wa rned me.Yet, when I opened up the e nvelo pe a nd the letter sa id that thehou se we we re ren ting had bee n so ld. it was a shock . I immedi -ately began to contemp late the massive a mo unt o f work ahead . T helea st o f whi c h was di sm antling my mo nitori ng po st.

\Vc had bee n livin g in the comfortable ranch-style ho me for fiveyears. Th e rent was inc redi b ly cheap for the spac ious three-bedroo mhouse so my vvife and I felt very lucky to rind it. Since my family onlynumbers three, on ly two bedrooms were used . Th e other one becamemy office .., and . yes. my mon itor ing post.

In short ord er the roof o f the ho use beca me an an tenna farm and the"offi ce" was stocked with wal l-to- wal l radios. To visitor s it rese mbleda miniatu re ver sion of NORAD. especia lly at nigh t wi th all the LEDreadouts bl inking, com puters fl ashing und huge map s of the wo rldadorni ng the wa lls, I mu st sa y, it was pretty coo l.

I snaggcd a lot of sig nals from that roo m, Bomber s on mission s inthe Gu lf War. Hurricane Andrew slas hing thc co as t. J immy Carte rtryin g his best to negotiate a peace ful se ttleme nt w ith the dictato r ofHait i, and eve n the fall o r the Sovie t Un ion, a ll fro m my monitoringpost in southwes t A ma rillo .

Was it a ll a bout to end? W hat if I co uldn' t lin d an oth er such a n idealplace to monitor? Good hou ses we re at a prem ium in Amarillo; could1 luc k into suc h a find ag ain?

T he answer was rev ea led to us in short ord er. Ren tal rates inAm ari llo had skyroc keted and we co uldn' t begin to afford a co mpa-rable place. W ith the deadline for moving out fast approaching, we hadto opt for a deci sion that I had S\ \!Ofl1 we would ne ve r ma ke . \Ve hat!to mo ve into an apartment,

DownsizingA week before our mo ving date we fi nall y located an apartme nt that

semi -suited our needs. It wo uld be quite a chore to compress 2700square fee t of furniture and acc um ulated stuff to fit into 1200 squarefeet o f apartme nt space. Half wa y through the mo ve we reali zed thatit just wo uldn 't work. Most of our st uff. including the bul k of mymon ito ring post, would ha ve to be put in temporary sto rage ,

As a free-lance press str inger for the local televis ion prc ss it wasimport an t that I st ill have some se mblance of a monito ring post. After

all , it was my job. I had even de ve loped areputat ion of sorts as the local "johnny on thespot" when it came to stories of news interest. Ifit was happen ing and was of interest to the

- public , ch an ces ar e I knew ab out it. The localpres s de pended on me to be the ir safe ty net andrep ort the important news that their overworkedreporters would m iss. Would my job suffer

beca use of the mo ve '! I ass ured my cl ients it wouldn 't .I staked out a sma ll corner of the kitchen/di ning room as my

mon ito rin g roo m and offi ce . There wasn' t mu ch space, only a eight bytell foot square area that would have to hold eig ht scanning rad ios, myco mputer sys te m, th ree desk s and a filing cabine t.

A lso c ra mmed into the postage-stamp -sized spo t would have to beno less the n three tel evi sion sets that I used to monitor the three loca lTV networ k affili ates. One ofmy dailyservices fo r the local medi a was tomonit or a ll three six-o ' clock ne ws-cas ts at once , pre pare a report on whatsto ries we re covered by eac h, and faxthat report to the stations,

Th e hard pari wou ldn' t he ge tti nga ll the gear to lit in my Reader'sDigest condensed ve rsion of an of-fice ,T he problem wou ld be (0 ge t it al l

10 MONITORING TIMES November 1998

A KEYNOTE SPEAKEfrom Grove!

Grove's improved SI'200B Sound Enha nceris really six products in one. Just look at itsmany features and capabilities:

Top qu ality speaker : a lso includes headphon e jack

Hand-crafted hardwood cabi net

Adjustable not ch/peak filter (.111 dB , 11.3-6 kHz)

Recorder acti vator

Audio a m plifier (2.5 W @ 10 % T IB>. 8 ohms)

Audio act in.ted squelch

Noise limiter

SP-20 0SOUND ENHANCER

IIOl!!'I,,'d in a stylish. solid oak cabinet hand crafted ill themountains of North Carol ina. the Grov e SP200 is vurc 10enha nce any listening po".. Th...' co ntrol panel. co nstruc ted of... turdy. black alumi num. has been de ... ipned for o ptimum ca ...eund convc nicncc when luning and refining ,i gna l....

Th e: S), 200 combine .. ;1 powerfu l audio am plifier. top -of-t he-line speaker, and an adj u..table fihc r SYSle l1l10 cTeale the mo ...1vcr...mile and prec i....c li -,tcning environment available toli... tcncr.... Th e uniq ue pcuk/norc h filter cy- rcui uud noi-,c lim iterallow the listener 10 pu ll clear and d i.... tinc t .... igna l-,o ut of thehate \ } I' inter feren ce ami background noi ....e . while the adj u..tableh,l.... .... and treble pro vide the lk, ihility to cre ate j u..t IIK ..oundy O Il \\,IIl( . voice. music. CW oami data are enhanced \\ hi ll:"interfe ren ce and e lec trical noise are red uced or eve n eliminatedhy the

to work . Noisy , Rf-spewingcomputers next to sensitiveradio gear, and three televi-sions that produced more in-terference than a conventionof radio pirates all had to beplaced within inches of eachother. Plus, I had to havesome kind of antenna farm ,Puny telescopic whips wouldnot do. I had to have an an-tenn a system that not onlywould be effic ient enough topull in most area-wi de signalsbut would also not alarm theneighbors or my landlord.

With this impossible taskin hand, I grabbed a pad oflegal paper and began design-ing my new monitoring post.

After a few weeks of experimenting, hairpulling,dozens ofcable ties and ten trips to thelocal electron ics outlet, I finally got the newmonitoring post situated. It took a bitof tweak-ing, but it works. In fact it works very well.

Although I don' t quite have the receptionca pabilities that I had at the old place, on thewhole, I can hear just as much. HF receptionis a bit deg raded but still much better than Ianticipated. Area-wide police, fire and emer-gency communications corne in loud and clearand I can hear about eighty percent of what Iused to receive on the UHF military bands.

The coo l thing is, none of my neighbors arethe wiser. Only those who know me are awa rethat a miniature commu nications interceptstation is ope rating in the nondescript apart-ment next door.

So, fellow apartment dwelling monitors,take heart. You, too, can monitor the airwavesalmostas well as your home-owning brethren.Read on for some leads you can follow to findyour own apartment solutions.

FoilingInterference

The more distance youcan put between your an-tennas and any interferingappliances the better, but ifspace is at a premium. tryshielding both your equip-

ment and the source of the noise. When Iencountered interference, 1lessened it by care-fully lining the inside of my receivers withaluminum foil. Using doubl e-stick adhesivetape to mount the foil, I was able to reducemost computer interference by about eightypercent.

It also helps LOline the inside of nonmetal-lic computer monitors and television caseswith foil , but a word to the wise - be VERYcareful about doing this. The foil could shortout your computer or shock you if you are notvery careful in your placementof the foil! Anycontact with electronic components could fryit or you .*

As I would discover , not all interferencecould be elimin ated by shielding the equip-ment. A particularly annoying cyc lic buzzcould be heard corning over my DX-440.After a few days of turnin g off all electroniccomponents one at a time in order to isolatethe noise, I was able to deduce that it wasn' tcaused by anything in my apartment but pos-

sibly due to some type ofheavy machin ery used inthe complex. Quit e possi-bly it emana ted from thelaundry room and wasbleed ing into the radiothrou gh the power lines.

A digital signal pro-cessing(DSP) filterhelpedcut down the noise, but

didn 't eliminate it entirely.The solution came about byacci dent. After buying a newradio , I ran out of outlets toplug it into, I switched theDX-440 ' s power supply fromthe wall to my APC 650 BackUpsPro, a backup battery usedfor my computer. I had for-gotten that th is au tom at icemergency battery supply alsohad built-in AC line noise fil-ters. Miraculously the linenoise all but disappeared!

Other no ise red uc tionsteps to improve reception in-cluded using high grade coaxcable runs to the antennas andreplacingthe aging,l eakytele-vision cable that ran through

the apartment with a new and better grade ofcoax.**

Secret AntennasThere arc no less than five an-

tennas connected to my monitor-ing system 'and yet all are totallydiscreet. One is for shortwave re-ception. three for genera l VHFIUHF monitoring, and one is cutspecifica lly for the 225-400 MH zmilitary UHF band.

Logistically, the only place tomount the antennas was on theapartment's back balcony. Sometenants grow mini-gardens on theirterraces; Ichose antennas masquer-ading as two large fake palm trees.From a distance they can' t be seen.

For shortwave coverage I ex-perimented with several antennasuntil I found one that would giveme adequate reception and yet bediscreet. I tried runnin g an almostinvisible thin strand of wire to anearby tree, but often it broke andonce a bird landed on it, giving itspresence awa y. I'll never forget thelawn man ' sexpression as he caughtsight of the sparrow perched, preening hisfeathers seemingly in midair.

Since a long wire was out of the picture, I

* Editor 's Note: We recommend u~e ofan adhesive which will 1I0t be affec ted by heat, and caution that, should the foil come in contactwith internal components it could result in damage to your equipment and could be a fi re hazard. ,1. ."

J;:'i*! Tile AR~L Radio Frequency Interference Handbook (availablefrom Grov e) contains more theory, troubleshooting tips and solutionsfi RFl ' ."'J"' . . ,or . r: ... \ ." :'" :..

12 MONITORtNG TIMES November ' 998

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LOADEDWITHFEATURES: AM/FM StereotSW Pl L Dual Conversion Receiver 306 Memories 28 SW Pages Programmed at factory42 World City Times Preprogrammed Full RDS Reception 5 Tuning Methods Auto Tuning Methods AutoSW Search ATS Automatically Presets Memories Manual Editing USB/LSBSingle Side Band Select RF Gain Con trol 3 IndividualTimers Adjustable Sleep Timer Dual Time System Selectable TuneSteps Priority Key Wide/NarrowFilter Battery Strength Indicator Signal Strength Meter Mono/Stereo Switch LCD Display Light Auto Daylight SavingsTimeButton Lock Switch Reset Switch Audio Record Output 9KHZ/10KHZSwitch Casselle Record jack Tone Control Includes ACAdapter IncludesANT-60Antenna Includes Carrying Case 81/4" x5,0" x 11/?"

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decid ed to go another route . Mounted hori-zontally along the wooden rail of my balco nyis a Citize ns Band 27 MH z stee l whip antenna.To make up for the rather short antenn a lengthI ran the coax to a Radio Shack shortwaveantenna amp lifier. Igrounded the anten na to ametal plumbing pipe with a short run of cop-per wire.

Althoug h the antenna can' t compare to agood longwire dipole, recept ion isn' t bad andonly really falls off at lower freque ncies. Ihave no problem receiving shortwave powe r-house broad cas ters or even relatively weakmilitary sideband communications, which iswhat I listen to most of the time anyway.

I mounted one of the VHF/U HF disconean tennas on a photographer' s light stand thatI picked up at a garage sale for a few bucks .Another home-brew discone was mountedusing nylon cable ties righ t on the trunk ofoneof the fake palm trees. The antenna elementsblended in with the faux fronds making itnearly impossible to spot.


Tornado TransmissionsDuring severe weat her season I can be

usua lly be found chasing twisters in the TexasPanhandle. However, there are times when Iju st can't pull myself away from work but stillwant to help coordinate with local weatherspotters and dispatch the press into the areawhere severe weather is occurring. For thispurpose Iobtained and licensed two program-mable VHF FM transmitters. One is mountedin my chase vehicle and the other is used as abase station for communicat ing with fellowstorm spotters in the field.

When I can't go out into the field what Iusually do is monitor the severe weather ontelevision, connect to local weather radars viathe Internet, and monitor police li re and emer-gency cha nnels for reports of severe weather.If the spotters are not in the local area I relayinformation via ce llphone. but if they areclose by I use the VHF two-way radio. Thelatter posed a rea l problem since I no longerhad a roof on which to mount a transmittingantc nna.

The solution'? I attached

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Ir.

By Rimantas Pleikys

On the evening of November 29 . 1988.: 11 2100UTe. the Sov iet Union ceased to jam allforeign rad io stations. Th e jammi ng ses sio nthat lasted for 40 years was over. This articleis wr itten in dedi cation of the 10th ann iver-sary of its end.

The Cold War between Russia and theUnited Sta tes was more than a conflictof powerful armies and nuclear mis-siles in silos . It was also .1 baitIe of wordsplayed ou t on a globa l scale via shortwaveradio. Internation al broadcasters such as theVoice of America and Radio Moscow. usingpowerful transmitte rs and multip le frequ en -cies. broadcast their respect ive messages tumillions across the planet. T he forme r USSRdidn 't want the mess age of democracy to getthrough 10 its people and pUI up an elec tro nicbarr ier using powerful transm itters thatjammed signals from the West.

Fourteen of the 16 Radio Free Europe!Radio Libert y language se rvices werejammed.and 12of the 2 1lang uages 0 11 Voice ofAmerica(VOA) . Deut sche We lle was jammed in fiveof its I I East Europe an and USS R langu ages.


The BHe was jammed in two of its 12 Easternlan g uages.The effectivenes s of jammingranged from a minor annoya nce to tota l block-age.

On December 16.l lJXS. Czechos lovakiastopped the jamming (which had bee n go ing(1I1 for 37 years) nf Radio Free Europe 's broad-casts to that country. and on December 23rdBulgar ia followed suit. By the end of yea r19X9. about 3.000 jamming tran smitter s weres\....'itched off. fro m Pragu e to Kamchatka. in

So viet made communications receiver" R399." 1-32 MHz synthesizer steps JIJ(Jliz. used i ll shortwave communica-tions, surveillance, and jammi IIgsystems. (Photo by Rimantas Pleikys)

some 200 to 220 jamming sires.Shortwave jammers (high frequency or

HF) were of two types: short range. alsoknown as "gro undwave," low power faci litiesintended for covering big ci ties. and longrangejammers (ionospheric, or skYW

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November 1998 MONiTORING TiMES 17

Typical gro undwav e jammingequipm ent: communications transmitter" l'ia: -M2-0 1'," 5 klV; 3-30 ,11Hz atPane vezys (Lithuania} site. (Photo byRimontas P/eikys)

ca l jamming transmiuers ranged in powe rfrom I to 20 kw. typic ally 5 kw. with anaverage of 15 transmi tters per station. If theneed occurred. several ja mmers. most ofte npositioned in different locations. were en-gaged to hlock a frequency of an enemy radiostation. The antennas for long range jammersusually were vertical curtain arrays of 2/4 or4/4 configurations. Local ja mming faci litieshad widcband, mult i-wire dipoles. suspendedvertica lly or at 45 degree angles.

According to some InternationalTelecom -munications Union (lTU) directio n find ingtriangulat ions. clu sters of ja mming sourceswere ge nerally found in the more popu louswestern regions of the USSR ncar Moscow.Leningrad (St. Petershurg) and Kiev ; in thesouthern republic of Kazakhstan : and in theea stern part of the Russian Fede ration nearNo.vosibirsk and Khabarovsk. Some expertsestimate that the USS R alone might havebeen spending at least USD XOO million annu-ally for ja mming foreign radio stations.

The roar of jam mers smothered Radio

18 MONrTORING TIMES Novembe, 1998

Libe rty. Rad io Free Europe. Kol Yisrael,Deutsche Welle. Radio Free Afghani stan,Voice of America. Radio Beij ing. RadioT irana. BBC and some other stations beforemid-seventies. Several times, when the politi-cal climate became warmer. the USS R wouldstop jam ming governme nt stat ions from Lon-don. Washington and Cologne. But the jam-ming returned with a powerful howl afte r theCzechoslovak and Polish crises of 1968 and1980. In add ition. the USSR jammed Polish.Czech/Slovak, Bulgarian. Hungaria n and Ro-manian programs of the Radio Free Europe. aswell as Rad io Free Afghanistan .

A Look Behind th e Jamming WallThe Soviets were far more advanced than

ma ny other countr ies in the number of short-wave radio centers (44 in all ). HF broadcasttransmitters (about300).antennas(over 1.(00),and in transmitter power (up to 1.00012.000kw). plus nearly 3.000 j amming units.

Jamming Contro l and Correc tion Posts(CCPs) used to be installed at some distancefrom the transmitt ing sites : from 3 to 10 km inthe case of local jamming stations and up toseveral thousands of kilometers in the case ofionospheric wave systems. The CCP opera-tors. mostly women. monitored the HF broad-cast bands in order to identify the stations to beja mmed. They also checked the "quality" ofja mming and issued orders to the techniciansat the transmi tting faci lities. among whomwere a lot of elderly people and heavy drink-ers .

The jamming mana ger/senior engineer re-ce ived a salary of 165 rubles per month. Mr.Vytautas Liatukas, the supervisor of Kaunascity local jammer in Cen tral Lithuania. com-pla ined in an institutional paper " Kaunoradistas" back in 1975 about their station "be-

A semi-profes sional tape deck " Tembr-2M," used in Vilnius (Lithuania) andother jamming CCPs [or playback oJspeech-typej amming signals. (Photo byRima ntas Pleikys)

ing in continuous shortage of filament s forrad io tubes GU -50. transmitter measuring de-vices , cabling, as well as about the poo r co n-dition of the roof of the j ammer building andante nnas: ' Some of the KV-5 type transmi t-ters were said to bein operation for as much as20 yea rs with no major overhaul and were indan ger of fall ing apart at any time.

Si nce th e tran smitter feeders wereunshielded. V. Liatukas, who had to work inan environment of 150 MV for more than 30years . eventually developed cataracts and waslater reassigned to the safe r CCP.

In order to save tubes, sometimes transmit-ters were put at less power. Detailed ja mmin grecords - frequencies, times. station names.languages and audibility - were entered inshiftjournals.Thejam med radio stations werecalled "communications correspondents: '

Some skywave jamming transmitters werelocat ed at normal broadcasting or fixed com -mun icat ions radiocem ers. In some cases whenHF broadc ast transmitters were off duty. theywere assigned jamm ing duty.

"The classic jamming pattern still found( 1965) in the case of RFE Czech/Slovak andBulgarian services, and uscd against all RFElanguages prior to November 1956. is that ofextensive coverage of a country with low ormedium intensity interference from long rangejam mers located in the Soviet Union or inother satellites , plus reinforce ment in high lypop ulated areas by large number of loca ljam mers" (from RFEJRL archive docu mentdated October 17. 1965). For exa mple. sev-era l HF radio stations near Len ingrad. Kiev.M oscow. Sve rdlovsk (Yeka ter rnburg).Kuibyshev (Samaraj .Tas hkent and Almatywere invo lved to guarantee theeffective short-wave jamming of RFE Polish language ser-vice.

Czechos lovakia and Bulgaria most likelypaid the Soviets for its export jamm ing. Itwould be interesting to know how much theyhad to pay. Or whether there was a barterarrangement: Czech shoes and Bulgarian fruitsfor Sov iet rad io defense?

According to an old Soviet standard. mastsof the ja mmers were painted in ye llow andblack unt il 1975. to prevent enemy aircra ftfrom ident ifying them in the natural back-ground. From about 1975 onwa rd. all theradioand TV towers. includingjammers. werepainted in white and red. Thev have been

i ~lumi nated at night with red non-blin kinglight s.

Jamming TechniquesEvery short range jammer used the same

Originally published in the October 1986issue of Monitoring Times byBob Grove

TABLE ONE: MORSE CODEJAMMERS AS IDENTIFIED BY

THE FCC IN 1986

ide ntificat ion code. or ca ll sign. fo r a ll itstran smitte rs, usually made up of two letters.T he mo re power ful skywav e jamm ing tran s-mine rs may per hap s hav e had their own IDsig na ls. Th e call letters o f the jamm er we resent from eac h transmitter cu rrently in op era-tion two time s per minut e. and twi ce eachtim e. Th e Morse signa l was produced by asimp le de vice: a di sk, driven by an e lectricmotor which co nnected particula r contac tsinto a short circ uit cvery 30 seconds. T hej ammer per son nel called it by the Russianword "mashinka." (See Table I and the Oct'8 6 AIT article, " FCC Relea ses Rusian Ja m-mer Loca tions")

Th e IDs wer e assi gned in order to enablethe CCP monito rs to identify each indi vidualjam ming station. eve n d istant ones. T he fina ldecision concerning the jammi ng target wasadopted by the rele vant fie ld CCP: it de-pended on the actual audibility of the station10 be jammed . CCP operators issued orders bydedicated ph one lines to the transmitter pe r-sonnel to IUll C u part icul ar transmitter 10 aparticu lar frequency. Th e jammers eng inee rsnev er had a chance to listen to what theyjamm ed. Aft er thc unit was tuned in. its radiofrequency stagc was swi tched on and off re-

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X. During the 1960... the Sovie t Union usedan es pec ia lly w ild jamming type : mediumwave transmitter s. usually by nigh t, were tun edall 46 5 kHz inte rmediate freq uency. Suchemiss io ns paralyzed nearly all o f the neigh -bo rin g rad io recei ver s. blocking out eve ry-thin g !

9. The "De mo cra tic Republic" of Ge r-many a ired its dome stic radio programs viaMW tran smi tters tu ned to approximate ly 800

4/4 configuration vertical curtain typereversible /IF antennas at theradiocenter No. /1-/, Ilear Lesnoy,northeast of IW OSCOW: At least some ofskyway jammers of the USSR used thissame Iype ofantenna. (Photo by BerndTrutenau)

merely fro m the Cont rol and Correctio n Post.There were at least ten typesof radi o broad-

cas t jammin g methods :I. To block out the "most anti-Soviet"

stati ons. a wide spectrum. ele ctroni catl y-ge n-cra ted white noise signa l was used . RFE/RL.Kol Yisrac l. and Radi o Ti ra na wo uld ex pc ri-CIl l:C this type of jamming.

2. On A ugust 3. 1964. one more so urce ofinterfer en ce was inven ted : Radio Ma yak (Ra-dio Beacon ) used its dist orted program 10jamsome "grey propaganda" stations suc h as VO A.BBC, Deut sch e Well e. and Rad io Be ijin g.

3. Around 1978. So vie ts started 10 usc thespee ch type, or speech resemb ling signa l. Itsadv antage was that it conforme d to the timbreof the huma n voice. T his jam ming sound.whic h used to be played hack from open reeltape s . was compose d of two vo ices of malean d fema le Ru ssian announce rs of the AllUn ion Radio.

4. T he re were sev eral occasions reportedwhe n jammi ng mad e use of a non -m odu latedcarr ier wave. Th is technique was ineffect ive .

5. An ot he r di ffic ult to identi fy jammingmethod is whe n a jamm er started broadcast-ing a regu lar domest ic or foreign se rvice pro-gram on the frequenc ies or the tar get station.

6. A unique case was the Po lish service ofthe Radi o Free Europe: from 1971 un til 1980onl y tap es w ith recordings of light instr um en -tal m usic we re employed to jam it, bo thnondisrortcd and overmod ulatc d .

7. J ust befo re the end of the jam ming eraone morc insid iou s trick wa s invent ed . Bymeans of a directional HF an ten na . thc pro -gram of the jam med station was recc ived. T heaud io was fed by cable to the c irc ui t whichcha nge d its phase hy ISOdegrees. and se nt itback to the jamming tran smi tter. blocking thetarg et station.

"Slleg-Al " /IF transmitters (19 xlOOkW), mostly us ed ill pairs toprovide 400 k W, very com mon forsky wave jamming at radiocenters No.11-1/2 near Popouka, southeast ofSt.Petersburg. (Photographer tIItk, fOWII )

CounhyUSSRUSSRUSSRCzechoslovokicUSSRUSSRUSSRUSSRUSSRUSSRUSSRUSSRUSSRUSSRUSSRBulgariaCzechcslcvckioUSSRUSSRUSSRCzechoslovakiaUSSRUSSRUSSRRomaniaChinoUSSR

Location58-47N 029-31 E38-28N 066-09E64-42N 175-30E50-30N 015-30E52-39N 032-48E54-21N021-00E54-30N 034-29E56-18N 032-04E49-54N 131-56E48-45N 135-16E49-13N 135-29E48-32N 134-20E49-00N 023-00E41-50N 064-46E47-27N 030-30E43-17N 027-07E49-05N 016-36E40-56N 067-41E55-18N 037-17E48-39N 135-47E49-09N 018-41E47-04N 134-30E49-32N 027-54E55-43N 034-40EM -03N 024-39.27-59N 11 7-24E55-43N 034-40E

10lG4FAW818DDRDUGIGMGRIGKBMPMUNSR6S5TKTVUAU7UDUSWIZl

November /9 98 MONITORING TIMES 19

April 28, 1988: Demolition of the 88.5 meter tower of the Vilnius (Lithuania) localjammer ("Object No. 6(JO") (PIIlJ /(J by Sigitas Zilionis)HI. outside of the freq ue nc ies of the We stBerlin bused RIAS (Radio In the AmericanSector) .

10 . The Sov ie t Uni on never used the"wobble jammers" - the swing ing carrierj ammers. which we still hear from Cuba andfrom some Middle Eas t countries . Someso urces re fer them to as being o f Fre nch origin("!).

The signals emitted by powerful jammingtransmitters , which we re usuall y based indowntown areas . were even picked up by thecircui ts of do mestic tape and casse tte ma-chines and record players and TV sets. Insteadof a music or news one had to listen to amixtu re of ug ly "odd noises."

Penetrating the WallT hose \\'110 used to mo nitor the dial and

were pat ient enough. could ofte n li nd "ho les"in the jamming wall. T wilight immunity wason e of sev era l technical me thods used form.U1y years by the We stern broadcasters toreduce jammi ng. Twilight imm unity in cs-scnce mak es usc of broad casting to the targetarea on a certa in frequency on whi ch theskyw ave jammer. placed a few thou sand kilo-meters 10 the East. could not be effecti ve for agive n area because o f its lower maximumus able frequen cy (M UF) at that time.

So me of the broadcasters liked to bcdecep-tlvc: Radio Beijing used to ch ungc its frequen-cie s s lightly during the broadcas t (freque ncyagi lity method }, leaving the hoar se cho ir ofSoviet jamme rs as ide . T here were seve ra l

20 MONITORING TIMES November / 998

occasion s recorded when Rad io Be ijing playedits Russian programs hackwa rds. an d theseparticular frequenc ies were not jumrned !T hereare LW t ) ve rs ions of this trick. Acc ording tothefirst. a spec ia l sec ret ag ree me nt was made byMoscow an d Beij ing authorities ,v'here theUSSR did not inte rfe re with the Russian ser-vice o f Rad io Beij ing on the frequencie (s) thatwere audible backwards. Moscow mon itor swould make tap e reco rdin gs. play them back -wa rds to make transcripts. and submit thescripts to the KGB and Com mun ist partybosses.

Accordi ng to the second theory. the Chi -nese were j ust play ing with Russ ians : theyex pected regular "dear Soviet radio listeners"to tap e the progra ms and later to play them inreve rse mode. Pe rsonally. I favor the firstex pla nation as the more like ly .

In the mid -e ight ies the Un ited States Infor-mation Age ncy (USIA ) made the deci sion tolocate its new HF sites for RFEJRL and VOArela y stations in Israel and Sri Lan ka (Ccylon).These projects we re not imp lemented due toso me environmenta l. fina ncial and po liticalproblems. However , the Soviets started pre-paring for the constru cti on of high powershortwave countermeasure jamme rs in Syriaand probably Vietnam as soon

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By Dave Cawley

ImnarSill is a svstcm o f co mmunica tionsatellites 111,,1 allows people to ta lk andexchange data ea sily from almost everyplace in the wor ld. Co mpris ing fo ur geos ta-tionary sa te llite s. the system was started in1979. l1carly 20 years ago. Using simpleequip-ment and a topend scan ner. monitors callhea rteleph one truffle and witness import ant dec i-sions being mad e 'III over the wor ld. rightnow, i ll real time.

Inmarsut. sho rt for Internation a l MaritimeSate llite. was crcured so that ships at sou co uldcommunicate reliably. HF radio (high tre-qu cncy or shortw ave) is so metimes d ifficu lt10 usc and is ofte n unre liable .The militar y had

Once a maritime communicationssystem, Inmarsat is increasingly used bynews reporters, relief agencies,businessmen, and other world travelers.

rea lized this and alrea dy had the ir own satel -lite sys tems in ope ration. But what about thelong haul ships. the cru ise liners. ~U1d othervesse ls out of normal communication range ?

It was Arthur C. Clarke who. in OctoberIlJ45. published his paper "E xtra-TerrestrialRel ays." suggesting thaij ust three gcos union-ury satel lites could cove r the wor ld ' s surface.In fac t. his title for the art icle was or igina lly"The Future of World Communic ations" and.as we all kno w. he was right - as shown bythese ope ning remark s:

"Although it is possible, by 0suitoble choice of frequencies ondroutes, to provide telephony circuitsbetween a ny two po ints or reg ionsof the eorth for 0 lorge port of thetime, long-d istan ce communica tionisgreo~y hompered by the pecu-liorities of the ionosphere, and therea re even occosions when it may beimpossible. A true broodcastservice, givingconstant field strengthat all times aver the whale globewould be invaluable, nat to sayindispensable, in a world society."

T hese wor ds must have rung true in theco nsort ium of 47 count ries who agreed in1979 to build u tru ly worldwide communica -tion sys te m. Not limi ted by po litica l or physi-ca l bou ndaries and free for a ll to usc , prov id-ing safety and co ntinuity wh ere ot hers hadfailed . lnmursat beca me the only se rvice tousc.

ArthurC. Clarke had suggested three sate l-lites would covcr the wo rld. but to have over-lapping coverage four we re eventua lly used .lnmarsat A has the "c onstant fie ld strength"that Clarke sugges ted. which means that for aslong as the sate llite is visible its strength is

C"""".,ylnmo,,,,'

constant. T here arc few sa te llites that provi desuc h big "footpri nts." ot her than perhapswea ther sate llite s.

Who uses Inmarsat ?Who ma kes usc of the lnm arsut service?

Ce rtai nly mo st ocea n-going ships, hut in re-cent years more and more ind ividu a ls arcusing the service.Take the traveling business-man. for exa mple. There is 11 0 worldwidemob il e phone se rvice. so he has to re ly on thehote l phone . often at S12 to S15 per minute.anti freq uent ly in Third \Vor ld co untrie s pos -ses sing little or 110 te lepho ne se rvice at al l.

If he has a small briefcase-sized lnmarsatphone wit h him , it (,:os ts j ust S~ a minu te - ~10argu ment so co mpelling I'm left wo nde ringwhy I do n' t have on e. In fact. despit e o wninga world coverage GSM phon e, I discoveredwh ile in Eg ypt recently, that. !CS.GS~ t wo rksin Egypt. hut no, there is no reciprocal licens-ing ag reem ent. ~hiking import ant ca lls throughthe ant iquated hote l telephone service mannedby onl y Arabic speaking people cost me over5600 in one week!

But there a rc more important nonmarineand noncommercial uses. such as d isa sterrel ief. hel p in inacce ssible and hostil e a reas,scie ntific resea rch, and, of course. fron t linenews report ing .

Types of ServiceImll ~l rsat A

lnmarsat A was the first standard to he usedon the sa tellites . It has a con stant field strengthand is ana log : in fact , it behaves just like agood qua lity te lep ho ne line. Users can con-nec t modern s anti cull the ir office , send andrece ive FAXe s and, of co urse. have a highqu ality telephon e co nve rsation. So me use rscontinue usin g the A sys te m for its analog


...."'; lnmarset I!I~EJlnmarsat carries clear speech telephon e conversations f rom around the world.

AOR-E AOR-~ POR IORA' lO 2.01 Q 134 .BB Q 21 a .14 Q 38 .23 QEl 4 .44 Q 30 .B 3 Q -8.7'1 Q -'17 . 19 QL., a . a OoN o .oaQM O.OOQ N O.OOQNL ong : 15. 50 QUl 54 .00 QtJ 178 . 00 QUl 64 .50 QE

You will find that on each sate ll ite there isa z-rhour rad io st.uion. A"'~ (Am erica n ForcesNe twor k). which can he used to align theant e nna. You simply co nnect the cables a ndusc on e of the supplied ad apt er s to fit yourscanne r. W ith the scanner se t to 1537.0 MHz

Setting up a system

that I can rece ive three. the maxim um pos-si ble.

AOR-\V is the West At lantic Region satcl-lite and cov ers most of Nort h and SouthAme rica and also mo st of Europe. It ha s mu chclear spee ch traffic a ll da y a nd nigh t. Itslocati on is 54 .0 degrees West.

AOR-E is the Ea st Atlantic Regi on sate l-lite and cove rs par ts of North Ame rica. SouthAmerica. Europe and the Middle Eas t. It hasa lo t o f c lear speech tra ffi c in sev eral lun-guagcs as it co vers suc h a large area o f nonEngl ish spe aking people. It is locat ed at 15.5degrees West.

lOR is the Indi a Region sate ll ite a nd co v-c rs the who le of Ind ia. Europe and Weste rnAustra lia. This sat e ll ite has a lot of very inte r-estin g traffi c indeed. mo st of it in Eng lish . asit co ve rs what used to he the main part o f theBri tish Empire. It is located at 64.5 deg reesEas t .

POR is the Pacif ic sate llite and coversJapan. Australia and the West Coast o r No rthAm er ica. This sate llite is out of m y range. butI know that severa l Au str alian reader s aresuc cessfully mo nitori ng it. It is located a t 17Xdegrees \Vest.

There arc four sate ll ites in the se ries . Inmost plac es in the \...-orld yo u wi ll prob abl yrecei ve two ; here in Eng land I a m ve ry luck y

The Satellites

scanne rs. There arc IW O wa ys arou nd this: oneis to pu t up with the s light distort ion on so mesigna ls. and the other is to use a n ou t-boarddemodu lat or . In fact. the tra nsmi ss ions usc acompander that limit s the dynamic range orthe vo ice transm ission a nd expa nds it at therece ive r.

In rea lit y. a standa rd out -of-the-box rc -ccivcr is fin e for cas ua l monito ring of nearlyall sig nals: onl y the Ita lian s sound di sto rted!

W hat if you arc willing to put up with a hitof distor tio n now and again . bu t yo ur di sconcisn 't pick ing up anyt hing at all? T his is such acommon qu estion. I pu t the following. ra the rtechnical an swer on the Intern et.

T he ave rag e scanne r has a sen siti vity ofabout 1.0 uV at 1540 MHz (for 12 dB signal-to-noise). Usi ng a 35 dB gain preamp lifierwith a 0.5 dB no ise figu re increases thi s SCIl -sitivity to j ust O.ORuv . a d ifference of 22 dB .1\ 3 1'001 long. c ircularly po lar ized. heli calantenna c ut for 1540 Ml-lz w ill g ive about 15dB more gain tha n the best d iscone. Addantenna cable loss of about 6.0 dB . A nd youend up with 4 3 dB more sig na l. resu ltin g in arecei vabl e signa l from ln marsat of aboLll 20 +dB signa l-to- noise. So when you try to recei veIn mar sat on yo ur disconc , it will be about 2l->dB be low the no ise : hen ce . you wi ll get ab so-lutcl y noth ing at a ll.

Inmarsat CInm arsat C is a vcry popul ar service C' I-

pable of se nding and rec eivi ng digital datafrom a sim ple omni dir ectional antenna. T heor igina l usc wa s for a Telex typ e system. butthe sta nda rds arc flexible e nough to handl edata for all so rts of uses .

Inmarsal Blnmursnt B is a di gital se rvice that pro vides

low qu ali ty vo ice co mmunica tion and me-dium spee d da ta capability. O nce popular. it isprobably a dying mode now .

Inmarsat MInmursa t M is a high er -power ed sys te m

usi ng spot beams. In fact. the spot beamscover mo st o f the civilized world . and formost trave le rs it is quite sufficient. T he sy s-tem uses di gi tal speec h and low cost. small.light briefcase-t ype terminal s. So popu lar isthe M sys te m tha t you will lind ad verti ser s inth is magazine sc ll ing syste ms.

A lot of scanners and nearly all top e ndrecei ve rs now cove r the lnmarsa t frequenciesof 1535.00- 1543.50 M Hz. Th ere arc only twoproble ms. T he first is that your receiver wil lonly receiv e ana log voice transm ission s andtha t restri c ts yo u to the In marsat A se rv ice .T his is no grea t prob lem because it always ha sse vera l telephon e calls at any time to monitor.

T he second problem is that you will need asuitable ant enna and a very low noi se pream-plifier. T here are at least two manufac turersready and wi lling to he lp yo u in this area.

A slight additiona l problem is that thebandwidth of the Inm ar sat A tran sm issions isslig htly wider than tha t provided on mo st

How to receive Inmarsat

Inmarsat 0Inmar sut D does not ye t officia lly exist. but

it will soon. II is conceived as a pa ger and lowrate return syste m. Fo r exa mple. a road ve-hicle carry ing a valuable cargo ca n be po lle dfrom the D se rvice . and it ca n re tu rn its G PSpo sition usin g a low speed di gi tal signal. No lmuch ac tual information wi ll be tran sm ittedor received. bUI for those tha t need th is infor-marion. it w ill be ve ry valuable indeed.

qu alit y whe n othe r se rv ices wou ld be c hea pe r.T here arc a lso a lot of A terminal s in usc .

becau se it was the first se rvice and because ituses the con sta nt fiel d stre ng th ph ilosup hy. Itsuse rs have chose n the A se rvice for thesespec ific qualit ies and are unlikely to swap toan other service - good ne ws to the hobbyi st.since it is this serv ice that is so eas y to hea r.


The auth or call receive three lnmarsat satelliteswith this array at his location ill England.

and the antenna pointed roughly in theright direction. soo n you will hear thebroad cast; it is a simple matte r to adju stthe antenna for maximum clarity.

(Editor's note : It has been reportedthat AFN broadcasts on AOR- \V andlOR have beendiscontinued and replacedwith high powered HF broadcasts in the416/ 12 MHz marine bands.)

Unlike satellite TV, you haw a toler-ance of at least 15 degrees within whichyou can still hear (he satellite. FromChicago. for example. AOR -W is 134degrees, nearly southwest. and 30 de-grees elevatio n. Once you have foundthe satellite, usua lly after only a fewminutes, then it' s time to fix the antennapermanently. although for years I had mine atground level resting on a plast ic box. I have achea p coa x switch that gives me either thediscone or (he Inmarsat antenna .

1 have tried nearly all the rece ivers thatco ver the lnrnarsat frequ encies and they allwork well; you do not need a very expensivescanner. As all the signals arc the same strength.the receiver's per formance is not very critical.and a preamp lifier helps make up for anydeficiencies. However, in my experience , Iwou ld recom mend Icorn and AO R as reliableperform ers.

There is a cho ice of at least two com mer-cia l manufacturers from which to purchasethe antenna and preamplifier . If you decid e tobuild your own. there arc just a couple ofthings yo u need to know. Th e transmissionsare in narrowband FM and received with aright hand . circularly polarized antenna. Yourrece iving sys tem must be able to resolve 0. 1uV or bette r and the anten na needs about 15dB of gain.

There arc other options. too: in Europe it ispossible to modify a TVRO system, remov ethe 4 or 12 GH z sec tion from the LNB. andfeed a two- or three-turn hel ical feed directlyinto the IF amplifier of the LNB . Difficult. butnot impossible: I have even seen what lookedlike nearly complete lnrnarsat systems at theDayton Hamfest!

Details of the Timestep preamplifier

What you will hearThi s is the excit ing part !The people using

lnmarsat systems arc not short of money .w hat they have to say is very interesting . Ihave heard ships being illegally boarded. shipowners instructing their captains abo ut thetime to dock to improve Customs relations.news reporters, dea ls inside large com panies.military communica tions. and lots more that Isimply ca nnot mention. Though you usua lly(hut not always) gel only one side of theconversation. it is gene rally obvious what ishappening.

Those involved in internationul cri me of-tcn use lnmarsat: it works anywh ere. it isthought to be secure. it is though t to be bug andtap free. and you can pay your bill anywherein the world . Monitors have allegedly hearddrug und anns deals. trade embargoes beingbroken. several pirate ships working. and poli-tician s colluding and genera ting cover-ups.

There arc dozens of channels in use at anyone time ; you simply tune up and down anddecid e what to monitor. Nearly everything isthe same signal strength. Com purer softwarecould he left to scan and. using the voicedetection mode. could store hundreds of mes-sages into your computer via its sound card.lnrnursut is perhaps the only wayofusingyourscanner to listen to new and sometimes distantcountries.

At home near Cambridge. England. I havethree antenna s on the end of my house so thatI can listen 10 three out of the four satellitesavailab le. If 1 hear any interesting news onCNN. I immediatel y select the appropriatesatellite and get the rest of the story hoursbefore it breaks! As I write this article.dozensof calls arc in progre ss on AOR E. The Jokerin the pack'? Yes. there is an unknow n. ord i-nary FAX transmissio n in the clear. Wonderwhat would happen if you connected yourreceiver to a FAX decoder?

Inmarsat monitoring is a huge andlargely untapped area. You owe it toyourself to put your scanner to somegood use above 1500 MHz. After all.didn 't you buy it because of its widefrequency coverage? Now is the time tomonitor satellites!

Where you can buyThere arc two sources of ready built

equipment. Timcstep, who provide asystem comprising: helical antenna ,prea mplifier . 65 feet of cable, powerinserter. adapters for your scanner and amanual. Th is Timestcp system. costing$399. requires only a 12 V power sup-ply.

Swager Enterprises provide a 3 foot dish,feed horn coverin g 1500 -1ROO MHz. pream -plifier, power inserte r, power supply andmanual. Th is Swagur sys tem. cos ting $545.requires only cable.

Ti rnestep System (Europe sales)T imestep PO Box 2001NewmarketCB88QAEnglandTe l. +44 1440820040Fax +44 1440 82028 1e-mail [email protected]

Swagur EnterprisesBox 620035MiddletonWI 53562-0035TeVFax 608 592 7409e-mail swagu [email protected] site www.swagur.eom

AcknowledgementsArthur C. Clarke, who so graciously in-

vited me to his horne in Sri Lanca in July 1992and who gave me his scient ific autobiographyand an annotated copy of the "Extra-Terre s-trial Re lay" article .

Mart in Goodrum from British Telecom-mun icat ion s Research Lab oratories whoworked with me on a DGPS project usinglnmarsat. hence giving me the enthusiasm toexplore fun her.

Dove Cawley, G4IUG, is owner of Timestep,which produces weather satellite receivingeq uipment. He wa s formerly a senior des ignengineer for Philips specia lizing in rece iverdesign, ond has been a ham for thirty years.

24 MONITORING TIMES NovembO' 1998

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e-mail : [email protected]: www.grove-en t.com

ew Utility BandARSAT!

ption never hasthis easy!

T his super-wide -coveragerccci vc r ranksamong the bestev er made !

T he A RSOOO PLUSIII ex te nded-frequencycoverage receiver is tu nabl e from 10 kHz thro ugh 2600MHz (less cellular) and offers do uble and sing le sidebandsynchronous detection . 2000 mem ory channels. AM & FMaut om at ic frequency co ntro l. 10 VFOs. 40 search ban ks.and mo re. For the first time. you can hear VLP tim e sig na lsand na val co mm unications. c ivilian and m ilitaryaeronau tical transmi ssion s, VHF/UHF pub lic safety radio ,ham repeater s. mic rowave earth satell ites. and mu ch . muchmore !

This tr iple-con ver sion, luxury recei ver offers out-stand ing se nsi rivity (D.15 microvolt SS B. 0.3 microvoltVHF/ UHF I'M , 0,6 microvolt AM) , rapid SOehanncl pe rsec ond scan/se arch speed. I Hz to I M l-lz pro g rammabletuning steps. all mode receptio n (A M/ FM/ LSB/US B/CW).selectable IF bandwid ths (3/ 611 5/4011 1()/220 kHz), superbfrequ ency stability (+/-1 ppm, ()SO deg. C.), mobile orfixed power ( 12 VDC /120V AC ). and mu ch . mu ch more-all on one radi o ~

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Here is oneof the most popular. wide -frequency coverage ( 100 kHz1999.99 MH z. less ce llular) recei vers. Tune longv..'ave ,sho rtwave, VHF/U HF , all se rv ices and mod es (FM , AM,US B, LSB , CW ) wit h high sensitiv ity, IF shift. se lectableAGC liming, aud io peak filter , buil t-in RS232C and C IVfor direct computer co ntro l, 1000 scannable memorychanne ls , Svme te r. noi se blan ker , and 12 VDCIl 20 VACope ration.

High stability crysta l oscillators combine the automat icfrequency co ntro l circuitry for outsta nding stability.Mul tip le luning speeds optimize signa l hunting.Alphanumeri c di sp lay aids in identifying mem ori zedfrequ encies. Automatic memory stores sea rch-d iscoveredact ive freq uencies. Three antenna connectors providechoices for frequency ranges. optio na l voice synthesizerand rem ote control-an incre d ible array of advancedfeatures !

Abrave new world awaits the radio listener on theInmarsat satellite frequencies, and youcan hear all theaction on the learn R8S00 ana AOR ARSOOOreceivers.Just odd a small portable dish and preamp system (likethe one from Swagur Enterp'rises) and youare set to tunein aeronautical, morine, land mobile, government, andmilitary dear voice communications from22,300 milesabove theearth.

November 1998 MONITORING TIMES 2S

RichardBame"[email protected]

TheWorld Above 30MHz~i----------That New Band to Scan

BAND PLAN

Inlegnltld Voice HlghS_ HlghS_ Inlegnltad Vole.DstalYldeo DatalVldeo& Data Syatems SYltaml Systama Daw 5yllam.(3 MHz) (3 MHz) (3 MHz) (3 MHz)

24 MHZ(100%)

8.8 MHZ(36.7%)

i TOTAL .!SPECTRUM

TVCtl .84(77o..noMHz)

(000-806 MHz)

12 MHZ~240 Cm

4.8 MHZ(96Cm

WIDEBAND(50KHZ BASISCHANNELS)"

are vert ically polari zed whil e televisionbroadcast is hori zontally po larized, and likeissues. While broadcaste rs seek to insure thatno land-mobi le signals will interfere withtheir televi sion tran smi ssion s, public safetydoes not want to be hamstrung with regu la-tion s that make it all but imp ossible to utili zethe new band .

At the tim e of the convention in August,this much was known:

no

Mobile Transmit

Fixed Transmit

7.8 MHZ(1248 CH)

I NARROWBAND

I, (6.25KHZ BASISCHANNELS)'

TVCI'l . 63(784noMHz)

(794800 ~Hz)

USE

TOTAL 'I 12MHZ(l920CmI

SPECTRUM USE DISTRIBUTION

SUBJECT TO 3RD I 3.4 MHZS.4 MHZFNPRM ! (544ern (108Cm

Integ nltectVoice HlghS_ HlghS_ Inttgl1lted YolceOetalVldeo DatllVldeo& Dl ta 5Yltems SYltems SYl lam. & Oata SYlteml(3 MHZ) (3 MHZ) (3 MHZ) (3 MHZ)

,"' .~ -ce.s 80

78.

me mbers and manufacturers, had as theirobjective a desire to ado pt a more aggressivemobileffV shari ng cri teria than tha t used at470 -5 12 M Hz. To max imize spectru m avail-ability for public safety without not iceab leimpact 011 TV broadcasters, it is importantthat the FCC takes into account the propaga-tion diffe rences bet ween 470 M Hz and 750M Hz ; the lower power output of mobil es andportables ; the fact that land mobile signals

In previous issues we 've discussed thepen ding opening of the 746- 806 MH zband for pub lic safely co mmunications.This is the top end o f the UHF TV spec tru mwhich is not full y popul ated by broad castersnationally. The problem is that there are TVbroad casts with in this band seg ment in mostof the major metropolitan regions - theexact areas of the country where the spec-trum is needed most

T he call for add itional frequ encies grewout of t

11 November 1998

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