Russian number station UVB-76 went active last night.

Texperado
Ok lets try this again. So the woodpecker signal has gone active again ? Remember the last time this happened? It was the summer of 77 and after the signal died New York went dark and then to make sure we got the message San Antonio went dark. If u have to ask why San Antonio think 7 military bases. Im including Medina given its proximity to Lackland and Kelly AFB's and Camp Bullis. Not to forget Brooks and Randolph and Ft. Sam. And in case u forgot the Bell Island Incident in Canada be reminded the Russian Bear still has all its claws and fangs.

This Russian Woodpecker? It hasn't broadcast since 1989. Anyone got the frequency for whatever "new" Woodpecker is out there? I wouldn't mind a listen.

Also, to the person who heard Morse Code, a lot of Russian channel markers are in Morse, just a letter repeated over & over. When the Twente chatbox was active, a number of people use to hunt down & share the frequencies for amateurs broadcasting in Morse for the fun of it, too.

4625 also working here, first time I hear this creepy sound..
Every few seconds there's this like alarming sound like in a movie at a military base, if something is triggered and it's a code red lol. That's what it reminds me of.. Before I tuned in to 4625 I heard something that sounded like chatter, dunno what bandwich though...

Sounds even creepier if you switch it to AM instead of USB... That's just a wierd sound for someone to be transmitting!

Dragoon01

Cuervo

kako187

Cuervo
reply to post by SkepticOverlord

 

Would it be possible to broadcast a broken message on more than one frequency that would then require a person tuning into those frequencies simultaneously in order to hear the actual message?

What you are describing is called "Broadband"

Yeah but a manual broadband. Like you would broadcast several sequential bits of audio on different frequencies and I would listen to all of them, collecting the information. Meanwhile, maybe you would also flood about 100 other frequencies with noise during that broadcast so I would have to know exactly which combinations of frequencies to listen to in order to even understand the message.

Just a thought. This has been going on since the 70's so I'm just trying to think of ways a pioneer in the field may have been clever. That one piece of word I got while listening is what made me think of it in the first place.

Mrs Lamar got there way ahead of you. What your talking about actually is what is called Spread-spectrum or Frequency hopping. Although you are describing a manual version of it. Most modern military radios and many civilian radios task a processor with the jumping from one frequency to another following a complex pattern to prevent simple evesdropping on a signal. Combined with encryption it's very diffcult to break. Even civilian radios using a digital signal but non-encrypted are difficult for civilians to pick up and monitor.

So... do you think that's what this is?

The original Russian Woodpecker wasn't really a Numbers Station. It was an oddity for sure, but now it is thought to have been an early version of a Russian over-the-horizon early warning system similar to over-the-horizon radar.

Ah there it goes:

"BZZZZZZZZZ"

...
...
...

"BZZZZZZZ"

...
...
...

"SQUEEEWEEWEEWEE"

...
...
...

"BBBBZZZZZZZZZZZ"

(And I swear I hear a diesel engine running in the background, no?)

And this thing is usually just this buzzing sound I'm hearing, but within the past few days there have been voices in Russian speaking names and numbers?

Flyingclaydisk
The original Russian Woodpecker wasn't really a Numbers Station. It was an oddity for sure, but now it is thought to have been an early version of a Russian over-the-horizon early warning system similar to over-the-horizon radar.

it was actually confirmed after the fall of the soviet union that the "russian woodpecker" was in fact interference from the Duga-3 OTH system....

awesome stuff, this....cool OP as well..

reply to post by Nyiah


Exactly that sound. Reminds me of "Demon Attack" video game on atari back in the day lol.

Wow this is amazing that you found this.

I've been listening to UVB-76/the Buzzer for a while now, but missed out on this recent one.

Deciphering the message is tricky because idk if the names are military to spell out something (ie Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, etc) or the names themselves are code.

I need to do a relisten again here in a bit

Wasn't the story (or legend) that it'd a dead mans switch? In times of crisis it puts off the signal. If it's putting out the signal it's for someone to receive. If that person/system no longer receives the signal, it means retaliate. So the story goes...

Tones changing downstep again. I suspect another data burst momentarily.

Atlantican
Tones changing downstep again. I suspect another data burst momentarily.

Yeah, it definitely sounds like its being mic'd, not a direct line in... every now and again you can hear acoustic fluctuation as if someone is moving the mic around.... maybe I'm just ignorant to way it works.

Calm down everyone. Whatever is being transmitted is beyond our ability to understand. Take a moment to commemorate the technology that made the Normandy Invasion possible.

Hr2burn
Wasn't the story (or legend) that it'd a dead mans switch? In times of crisis it puts off the signal. If it's putting out the signal it's for someone to receive. If that person/system no longer receives the signal, it means retaliate. So the story goes...

I had never heard that but that is an amazing theory....how freaky if that were true haha. Reminds me of Lost where the guy has to keep pushing the button...like what if they didnt push the button!

Anyone else just hear some metal/scraping sound? almost like tin scraping on something :S

I'd also like to thank everyone posting their information and opinions. Interesting to say the least, i always love a good mystery, even if it is nearly impossible to be solved.

Anishnaabe
Anyone else just hear some metal/scraping sound? almost like tin scraping on something :S

Yes, but it sounds like some kind of frequency warble... whatever that is... I just made it up.

But I'm imagining that this is coming from a dish that's revolving like you'll see sometimes on towers. The scraping sound is very very repetitive, not quite natural sounding.

I wonder if as it rotates the signal can be distorted in certain spots, and that's what we're hearing?

Nice Read,

droxs
this is scary stuff

Exactly. Isn't that the whole point?

Be afraid of the big bad Russian bear. There is no other point in using such an antiquated system.

We do it too.

shadow watcher
After spending too much time scanning (again) I recorded what appears to be morse code. Does anyone have a program recommendation for converting audio code to text? I think that would be most helpful.
If not here, I guess I can start searching for one.

At one point I had to just walk away. It really sucks me in. I managed to work on my motorcycle for a couple of hours to balance out the day though.

I think you could have heard what I heard. Was this on 4625?
There were a few things going on around that frequency when I was actively listening this afternoon, like weather fax (stopped on that freq for a bit and grabbed myself a weather map while I was at it) and what I believe was RTTY but I didn't happen by the frequency just saw the waterfall signature.

The thing I noticed and couldn't quite capture was for a few seconds there would be some form of digital transmission kinda sounding like PSK or RTTY or something slightly overlapping the signal and very faintly but could be seen and heard on the waterfall.

I can translate morse for you if you can send me a link to the audio file, I am very curious to know what you found and if it was what I heard.

Aqualung2012

Atlantican
Tones changing downstep again. I suspect another data burst momentarily.

Yeah, it definitely sounds like its being mic'd, not a direct line in... every now and again you can hear acoustic fluctuation as if someone is moving the mic around.... maybe I'm just ignorant to way it works.

It's being mic'd. There is a room somewhere with a microphone. That is the most bizarre part. Where is this room? Why has a microphone been sitting there for decades picking up tones, voices, strange sounds?
Once on shortwave I heard what sounded like someone playing Yars Revenge on Atari. Strange things.

en.wikipedia.org...

The purpose of the station has not been confirmed by government or broadcast officials. However, the former Minister of Communications and Informatics of the Republic of Lithuania has written that the purpose of the voice messages is to confirm that operators at receiving stations are alert.[5][22][23] Other claims are[24] that the broadcast is constantly being listened to by military commissariats. Another theory concerns an article published in the Russian Journal of Earth Sciences which describes an observatory measuring changes in the ionosphere by broadcasting a signal at 4625 kHz, the same as the Buzzer.[25] However, this would not explain the voice messages.

It is likely that voice messages are some sort of Russian military communications, and that the buzzing sound is merely a "channel marker", used to keep the frequency occupied by making it unattractive for other potential users.[1] This is reinforced by the existence of two other Russian stations that follow a similar format, nicknamed "The Pip" and "The Squeaky Wheel". Like the Buzzer, these stations transmit a signature sound that is repeated constantly, but is occasionally interrupted to relay coded voice messages.[1]

The cold war was NEVER over it just slowed down.......it has now kicked into full gear once again.......