ENIGMA 2000 NEWSLETTER http://enigma2000group.org Imagery courtesy of ‘Stained Glass’ ISSUE 99 March 2017 http://www.enigma2000.org.uk © All items within this newsletter remain the property of ENIGMA 2000 and are copyright. See last page also. 1 The Number Station scene continues to be lively in 2017. There is always the thought as the year ends that some long-established schedules might not survive into the New Year, as has been the case in the past, but everything still seems to be going strong. That said, there does not appear to be much that is new; there still seems to be only two S06 Russian Man schedules running and the Thursday and Friday E06 and G06 schedules have continued to send the same message of fifty-two 5F groups which have been used since November of last year. The Thursday E07, 2110 UTC start, continues to grace the airwaves with two minutes of, “000” - “no message”, as has been the case for some time. Of the whole E07 / E07a set-up, the schedule which sends the most “full message” transmissions is the Monday + Wednesday 2000 UTC start schedule which made the move from AM to SSB in the early summer of last year. On a positive note, the HM01 Mixed Mode Spanish language station from Cuba has been appearing with signals which have been stronger than for some time in the UK morning. Not a number station in the usual meaning, but interesting nevertheless:- A Russian Language station using SSB on 11,297 kHz, appears to be weather information, female voice - and only stays on the air for five minutes at a time. First noticed in the second week of February, thought it was a number station at first – because the content includes lots of numbers which sound like those we are familiar with from the S06 number station. Seems to be start up at five minutes before the hour and goes off exactly on the hour, and again at twenty-five minutes past the hour and stops precisely on the half hour, heard many times in the UK daylight hours during February. Words which can be recognised other than the numbers include something like “temperature”, “minus” and “millimetre”, so the best guess is that this is airfield weather information in the standard format of wind speed and direction, temperature, dew-point and barometric pressure, perhaps in both millimetres of mercury and millibars – or hectopascals as we are supposed to say these daysfor the altimeter setting. Strange that it only stays on for five minutes. Morse Stations All frequencies listed in kHz. Freqs are generally +- 1k This is a representative sample of the logs received, giving an indication of station behaviour and the range of times/freqs heard. These need to be read in conjunction with any other articles/charts/comments appended to this issue. Morse - Number Stations UNID CW X2M (Unidentified Chinese Station) Possibly Diplomatic Now designated UM03 - (Numbers & Oddities) Following on from our last newsletter Jean-Paul (JPL) has continued to monitor this unidentified Chinese station, although this often hampered by a weak signal. He reports that the 5-character code is very unusual & may possibly be diplomatic traffic. Schedule appears to start at 0830z JPL has also noted that X2M always ceases transmissions at 0945z - even though this is normally in the middle of transmitting a message. Although attempts were made to monitor the station on Sunday 22 January, nothing was heard, so it may be that there is no schedule on transmission on Sundays. Below are truncated examples of logs of the transmissions monitored by JPL showing message headers along with an example of traffic heard. This station has now been designated as UM03 & future logs & information will appear in the 'Numbers & Oddities' newsletters 7920//8250//8410 0931 - 0944z 12 Jan X2M Messages in 5-character code (Remote tuner New Zealand) JPL THU 01 01 CK 100 CK 100 TIME 1631 TIME 1631 DATE 1201 DATE 1201 BT 03 03 CK 100 CK 100 TIME 1637 TIME 1637 DATE 1201 DATE 1201 BT 05 05 CK 100 CK 100 TIME 1643 TIME 1643 DATE 1201 DATE 1201 BT 7920//8250//8410 0918 - 0945z 17 Jan X2M Messages in 5-character code (Remote tuner New Zealand) JPL TUE 17 17 CK 100 CK 100 TIME 1618 TIME 1618 DATE 1701 DATE 1701 BT 19 19 CK 100 CK 100 TIME 1624 TIME 1624 DATE 1701 DATE 1701 BT 21 21 CK 100 CK 100 TIME 1631 TIME 1631 DATE 1701 DATE 1701 BT 23 23 CK 100 CK 100 TIME 1637 TIME 1637 DATE 1701 DATE 1701 BT 25 25 CK 100 CK 100 TIME 1643 TIME 1643 DATE 1701 DATE 1701 BT 7920//8250//8410 0916 - 0944z 08 Feb X2M Messages in 5-character code (Remote tuner New Zealand) JPL WED 17 17 CK 100 CK 100 TIME 1617 TIME 1617 DATE 0802 DATE 0802 BT 19 19 CK 100 CK 100 TIME 1625 TIME 1625 DATE 0802 DATE 0802 BT 01 01 CK 100 CK 100 TIME 1630 TIME 1630 DATE 0802 DATE 0802 BT 03 03 CK 100 CK 100 TIME 1636 TIME 1636 DATE 0802 DATE 0802 BT 05 05 CK 100 CK 100 TIME 1642 TIME 1642 DATE 0802 DATE 0802 BT 7920//8250//8410 0916 - 0945z 14 Feb X2M Messages in 5-character code (Remote tuner Hong Kong) JPL TUE 17 17 CK 100 CK 100 TIME 1. 18 TIME 1618 DATE 1402 DATE 1402 BT 19 19 CK 100 CK 100 TIME 1624 TIME 1624 DATE 1402 DATE 1402 BT 01 01 CK 100 CK 100 TIME 1632 TIME 1632 DATE 1402 DATE 1402 BT 03 03 CK 100 CK 100 TIME 1638 TIME 1638 DATE 1402 DATE 1402 BT 05 05 CK 100 CK 100 TIME 1644 TIME 1644 DATE 1402 DATE 1402 BT 2 7920//8250//8410 0856 (IP) - 0945z 15 Feb X2M Messages in 5-character code (Remote tuner New Zealand) JPL WED 71 71 CK 100 CK 100 TIME 1601 TIME 1601 DATE 1502 DATE 1502 BT 73 73 CK 100 CK 100 TIME 1607 TIME 1607 DATE 1502 DATE 1502 BT 75 75 CK 100 CK 100 TIME 1612 TIME 1612 DATE 1502 DATE 1502 BT 77 77 CK 100 CK 100 TIME 1618 TIME 1618 DATE 1502 DATE 1502 BT 61 61 CK 100 CK 100 TIME 1629 TIME 1629 DATE 1502 DATE 1502 BT 63 63 CK 100 CK 100 TIME 1635 TIME 1635 DATE 1502 DATE 1502 BT 65 65 CK 100 CK 100 TIME 1641 TIME 1641 DATE 1502 DATE 1502 BT UNID 7920//8250//8410kHz 0916z 08 Feb 2017 X2M Messages in 5-character code UN5T6 7U43N D5TUA 4U5A3 (IP – Cont’d – Machine sent – 0916z) AR 17 17 CK 100 CK 100 TIME 1617 TIME 1617 DATE 0802 DATE 0802 BT NT6U4 3NT6U (Cont’d – 0918z) AR 19 19 CK 100 CK 100 TIME 1625 TIME 1625 DATE 0802 DATE 0802 BT 73A4T 3A4TN (Cont’d – 0924z) AR CQ (x3) DE X2M (x2) VVV (x 3) (0930z) MSG MSG ENG ENG CQ (x3) DE X2M (x2) VVV (x 3) (0930z) MSG MSG ENG ENG 01 01 CK 100 CK 100 TIME 1630 TIME 1630 DATE 0802 DATE 0802 BT 546UN 6UNT7 (Cont’d – 0932z) AR 03 03 CK 100 CK 100 TIME 1636 TIME 1636 DATE 0802 DATE 0802 BT ..5A6 T6A7U 6U73N (Cont’d – 0937z) AR 05 05 CK 100 CK 100 TIME 1642 TIME 1642 DATE 0802 DATE 0802 BT T6734 73NT6 (Cont’d – 0943z) (Silent in middle of the message – 0944z) Courtesy JPL UNID Chinese 3299.5 1424z 19 Feb Unknown Chinese CW Via SDR Japan F5JBR SUN LV PTS de GEI (x2) 1234AAA1234 VVV LV PTH de GEI 1234 AAA 1234 QTC QTC NR NR 21 WU 20 06 19 2300 WTT 118 159 347 545 697 250 = WV 12340 21950 21032 72049 43947 06314 12348 82049 28034 35714 60254 08643 04234 45890 084636 09540 K M01/ 1 XIV MCW, hand (197 sched for Nov - Feb). Will change to M01/2 sched ID 463 for Mar - Apr. January 2017: 5320 1800z 03 Jan '197' 514 30 = = 23419... ...LG 03891 = = Fair-Strong. Part copy with heavy QRM BR/CB TUE 1800z 05 Jan '197' 121 30 = = 94552... ...LG 26607 = = Strong, fast. Numerous errors from grp24 CB THU 1800z 10 Jan '197' 645 30 = = 56888... ...LG 90481 = = Strong, slow. Pause between figs. No errors BR TUE 1800z 12 Jan '197' 467 30 = = 32540... ...LG 12213 = = Strong, fast. Corrections & continuous grps CB THU 1800z 17 Jan '197' 850 30 = = 93356... ...LG 10503 = = Fair, slow with pauses between figs BR/CB TUE 1800z 19 Jan '197' 272 30 = = 10524... ...LG 48460 = Weak, fast. Number of errors noted CB THU 1800z 24 Jan '197' 876 30 = = 11049... ...LG 28162 = = Fair, med-fast. Two corrected errors BR TUE 1800z 26 Jan NRH Strong XJT signal on frequency BR THU 1800z 31 Jan '197' 273 30 = = 12033... ...LG 36654 = = Good dropping to weak after grp03. Fast BR TUE 4490 2000z 03 Jan '197' 702 30 = = 84763... ...LG . = = Strong, fast. Solid to grp25 then heavy QRN CB TUE 2000z 05 Jan '197' 151 30 = = 63785... ...LG 24196 = = Fair/ Fast. QRM present. No noted errors BR THU 2000z 10 Jan '197' 745 30 = = 64260... ...LG 93765 = = Strong, slow. Pause between figs. No errors BR TUE 2000z 12 Jan '197' 897 30 = = 56548... ...LG 34346 = = Fair, fast. Many errors. Poor copy at times CB THU 2000z 17 Jan '197' 517 30 = = 01447... ...LG 24644 = = Strong, slow with pauses between figs CB TUE 2000z 19 Jan '197' 418 30 = = 95518..