VK Logger Ham Radio Forum Archive

VK4WDM wrote:Hi Mike

I would be very careful about reporting this one. You might have a visit from a couple of big guys in dark glasses, trilby hats and trench coats, or if you are very lucky, a young lady in dark glasses, miniskirt and heels, who will persuade you to mind your own business lest you be carted off to 4Z4 land or worse

73

Wayne VK4WDM

Perhaps Wayne you may need to be careful too lest you also get visited for circuitously alleging transmissions are coming from a certain area.

ZL3MF wrote:Just slightly off topic if you go to this: University of Twente, Enschede, NL
http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901/
and select 5,10 or 15Mhz WWV frequencies you may hear something quiet odd (due to propergation you don't hear it all the time) There is music like swan lake etc followed by a string of beeps then a womans voice gives out a string of letters and numbers followed by a quick burst of DATA then back to another song, to me this sounds like a classic "numbers station"
Some days it compleley over rides WWV-

Can not hear this station from my home QTH...

Mike ZL3MF

This is an interesting site with discussion and recordings of the sort of thing you mentioned http://priyom.org/military-stations/russia/m32

As for our singing chanting Indonesian friends I have not heard them these past two mornings. Maybe their throats are dry and they are resting.

Hi Lou

I think you will find that it has been common knowledge for years which countries and their services run those stations. Some SWLs have even sent requests for QSLs but I don't think they have had any luck getting one back.

73

Wayne VK4WDM

As for our singing chanting Indonesian friends I have not heard them these past two mornings. Maybe their throats are dry and they are resting.

Last night I had the opportunity to check out 40M as we had a wide area power outage and all the local noise sources were quiet for a change, I heard a few groups of these guys hard at the shouting at around 9:00PM local time.

I retract the previous suggestion that they may be reciting the quran, it does sound more like my signal is bigger than your signal.

- David

it does sounds more like my signal is bigger than your signal.

So it sounds like a group of DXers trying to work VP8SGI

73

Wayne VK4WDM

VK4WDM wrote: So it sounds like a group of DXers trying to work VP8SGI

So someone can actually HEAR VP8SGI?

No, but I have heard the terrible cat piles that are hearing them.

About three years too late for VK. Back then LP 10M would have been easy.

73

Wayne VK4WDM

Ok last night there was lots of activity with many signals on 6.995, 7, 7.010, 7.022, 7.035, 7.045 and 7.055Mhz lots of shouting, singing and chanting. I strongly believe these are NOT amateur radio operators, at no stage where there callsigns used also note the activity on 6.995Mhz (outside of 40m) Some of you have argued it is a competition who can sing the loudest or chant the longest...so my question is how does one know who is who if no callsigns are given. If the prize is some form of award how do they know who to give it to?
I still believe it is a religious or tribal activity.
The other thing if it was amateur radio based why would you be getting excited working other stations on 40m within your own country it does not make sense!!

Mike ZL3MF

If you had no telecommunications network in your country that consists of several thousand islands, you would probably be quite excited to be able to talk to people in other parts of your own country.

Below 7055 kHz, the phone activity is not amateur. I thought we had established that.

A little more info from a YB station who wishes to remain anonymous:
You are correct - they are non-amateurs. BUT (and this is where it gets weird) - they ARE homebrewers! They are running variants of the Indian BITX low cost transceiver design, followed by individually-designed linear amplifiers based on International Rectifier "IRF" series switching FETS. So, the "biggest rig on the air" challenge obviously goes to the bloke who runs the most combiners/push-pull amps, and owns the gruntiest power supply.
As to how the umpire knows who the winner is, one has to assume he knows them and their voices, personally - or - they really aren't all singing off the same song sheet - it just sounds that way to our non-Bahasa attuned ears!
Stranger than fiction....

Cheers
John VK4TJ

How interesting, John!

On homebrewing, I understand that in Iran, commercial Amateur transceivers are difficult to obtain, so many there are building their radio equipment.

Pooyan, formerly EP3PK was operating his home made transceiver in Tehran, and many here worked him. Pooyan now lives in Australia, and can be heard from time to time as VK8PKH.

73,
Luke VK3HJ

Is this what you guys are on about?

VK5MTM wrote:Is this what you guys are on about?

That is part of it. Would be interested in what time you where hearing this. The singing and chanting is more at the bottom of 40m, lots of activity last night around 1130pm NZDT

Mike

ZL3MF

as some one that's has been woken up many times by it while in the middle east the call to prayer (adhan ) is being repeated in this radio transmission - one very clear call and then if you listen very carefully you will hear others within the interference.
John

I've been listening to 7070 kHz LSB for some time and have heard three rounds of Lollo. 7078 is also in use this evening.

Partial callsigns are repeated phonetically for about 5 minutes, and then a YL calls "Stand By" and seems to hand out scores.

The full amateur callsigns are then used, and a brief exchange occurs between each participant (sounds like several). Station location is mentioned and a signal report is given by the "control" station. Language is clearly Bahasa Indonesia.

The next round is now in progress at 1250 UTC. If my Indonesian was a little better, I might jump in and surprise them!

BUT (and this is where it gets weird) - they ARE homebrewers! They are running variants of the Indian BITX low cost transceiver design, followed by individually-designed linear amplifiers based on International Rectifier "IRF" series switching FETS. So, the "biggest rig on the air" challenge obviously goes to the bloke...

The Bitx explanation sounds logical and reasonable but it doesnt ring entirely solid with me. If there were hundreds of homebrew rigs out there we would hear a variety of modulation levels and modulation/rf problems, rf feedbacks and general more garbage and faulty signal quality unless they were all produced in the same factory and shipped to the users as a cheap "commercial rig". Think about it. Imagine a hundred ZL and VK homebrew hams all build a Bitx and make their own linear amps out of old TO220 FETs. Then they all meet on air. It would take weeks of fiddling and sorting tech issues till they were all good readability and even mod levels.
These signals we are hearing could all be exact clone radios with the only difference being the voice of the OP.

Also they are almost all in 5Khz steps. I have only seen two mentions of one on 7022 otherwise all 5Khz steps. Is this a characteristic of BITX? I thought they were synth VFO devices in which case they would be literally "everywhere".

My thoughts as a fault finder.

Ken ZL3OZ

Maybe this game is a test of the homebrew rig, and what we are hearing are the ones that are working reasonably well? The faulty ones not being heard here?

ZL3OZ wrote:

BUT (and this is where it gets weird) - they ARE homebrewers! They are running variants of the Indian BITX low cost transceiver design, followed by individually-designed linear amplifiers based on International Rectifier "IRF" series switching FETS. So, the "biggest rig on the air" challenge obviously goes to the bloke...

The Bitx explanation sounds logical and reasonable but it doesnt ring entirely solid with me. If there were hundreds of homebrew rigs out there we would hear a variety of modulation levels and modulation/rf problems, rf feedbacks and general more garbage and faulty signal quality unless they were all produced in the same factory and shipped to the users as a cheap "commercial rig". Think about it. Imagine a hundred ZL and VK homebrew hams all build a Bitx and make their own linear amps out of old TO220 FETs. Then they all meet on air. It would take weeks of fiddling and sorting tech issues till they were all good readability and even mod levels.
These signals we are hearing could all be exact clone radios with the only difference being the voice of the OP.

Also they are almost all in 5Khz steps. I have only seen two mentions of one on 7022 otherwise all 5Khz steps. Is this a characteristic of BITX? I thought they were synth VFO devices in which case they would be literally "everywhere".

My thoughts as a fault finder.

Ken ZL3OZ

Quiet agree Ken does not sit right with me either. The last few nights the bottom end of 40m has been chocker with these signals but believe most if not all of these stations are not licensed operators and on the frequencies where most of the singing and chanting occurs there are NO callsigns at all and there are hundreds of them...

Mike ZL3MF

From what I have heard on air and read here what we are hearing is simply a "cb radio of the Indonesian islands" and little more.

Given that the rule of law so to speak does not exist much in such places don't know what will happen. Believe representations via the appropriate channels have been already made with little or no result.

On QRZ a similar activity has been noted this time in the Philippine islands except on 20M

https://forums.qrz.com/index.php?thread ... ll.511196/

Apologies to QRZ for grabbing one their threads, hope they won't mind.

More activity tonight!!!