Wobbulator? interference to WFDnet 1-28-10 3733KHz

[W3RSW]

Frank , Dave, et.al. are wondering what's generating this lovely QRM.
They're moving down 1kc so we'll see if it follows.

Oh, meant to say AM, SAM, USB or LSB didn't demodulate anything but swishing static.  FM though... 
 Note the wide swing in freq's.
The boyz talked through it. 
PW, doncha' know.

[W3RSW]

For comparison here's the unmolested WFDnet.
Guys moved down 1kc but they're spread out pretty well anyway

[k4kyv]

I have heard QRM that sounded  like white noise (DRM or digitaL slow-scan) in several spots across 75/80m.  Don't know if this is intended as jamming, or if it is some digital crap arriving from Europe.

[K1JJ]

I just checked it at 7:10 PM east coast time on 3733. It's there and wobbulating.

It's definately coming from Europe. It is PW to the west and south.  On the low dipole (NE/SW) it is moderate strength.  But on the high loops beaming NE it is LOUD.  So I know it is NE and at least 3000 miles away, not Canada.

The acid test wud be to see if it dies at about 3-4AM East coast time during their daylight. If so, then you know it's Eur.

T

[K1JJ]

BTW, 95% +  of those hash-noise sounding signals are from European commercial or military sources.

If you have a good antenna listening Northeast, listen on 3712, 3822, 3847, 3858 or 3865.   They are ALL hash signals coming from Eur and have been on there for many years now. I use them as beacons.

There's also Euro RTTY on 3815 and 3782... The 3782 RTTY has been there for at least 20 years now.


The new wobbling one on 3733 is probably just temporary and will be gone in a day or so based on experience.

T

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

I've heard that noise and some other commercial sounding stuff, including the hash-noise thingie on 3733 many times over the past few years. I've also heard what sounded like scrambled or multiplexed SSB too. I think Ralphie could hear that one.

I'm hearing the hash-noise lately on 1877 kHz. Below is a recording from the other night. It's definitely coming from Europe based on signal strength comparisons with the Beverage, directional loop and dipole.

[WA1GFZ]

Whatever it is wants to be locked to the carrier to decode it

[N3DRB The Derb]

i

s probably just temporary and will be gone in a day or so based on experience.

nah, the WFDN was deemed to be subversive and worthy of being jammed. 

[Ed/KB1HYS]

i

s probably just temporary and will be gone in a day or so based on experience.

nah, the WFDN was deemed to be subversive and worthy of being jammed. 

Hhmm well, we talk about SBE transmitters here, and it's an open forum.  Maybe Some Sl0p-buckets are attempting countermeasures with an AAM (anti-A M) transmitter...   

[The Slab Bacon]

I've heard that noise and some other commercial sounding stuff, including the hash-noise thingie on 3733 many times over the past few years. I've also heard what sounded like scrambled or multiplexed SSB too. I think Ralphie could hear that one.

The digital hash doesnt really seem to be that much of a problem in here. what is rather loud and takes a pretty good signal to squash it is some kind of voice charactoristic transmission.

It sounds like a cross between terribly overdriven SSB and overdriven FM. It is definately some kind of jamming signal. You can hear the speech pattern in it, and it starts up and shuts down with our usage of the frequency. Sometimes you can actually tell what they are saying.

they are not strong enough to wipe us out, just enough to be an annoying background.
(They could not cover up the Apeman runing barefoot)

                                                                the Slab Bacon

[ve6pg]

..i think you guys are wrong...as some of you know, my viker is giving me problems...ok, well, i was testing on a dummy load,on 3725, and listening on a receiver, which was attenuated so as i would not overload it. i tuned up to 3733, and heard that noise. thinking it was me, i turned off the tx, and opened up the receiver. this "thing" was 40/9 here. there was no fading, as such. i think it is deliberate qwarm. my location is 44* north, and 81* west. hanover, ontario is 30 miles east of lake huron, about 40 miles south of owen sound. it was wiping-out all stations on the wfd net...i myself had not heard this before. i switched antennas, 75m dipole, 160m loop, and 75m vertical. very little difference here, on receive...food for thought...

 ....tim..

..sk..

[K1JJ]

..i think you guys are wrong...as some of you know, my viker is giving me problems...ok, well, i was testing on a dummy load,on 3725, and listening on a receiver, which was attenuated so as i would not overload it. i tuned up to 3733, and heard that noise. thinking it was me, i turned off the tx, and opened up the receiver. this "thing" was 40/9 here. there was no fading, as such. i think it is deliberate qwarm. my location is 44* north, and 81* west. hanover, ontario is 30 miles east of lake huron, about 40 miles south of owen sound. it was wiping-out all stations on the wfd net...i myself had not heard this before. i switched antennas, 75m dipole, 160m loop, and 75m vertical. very little difference here, on receive...food for thought...

 ....tim..

..sk..

Tim,

That’s very good info and helps a lot.

First of all, it was definitely from the Northeast here as shown by my directional antennas as well as Steve/HUZ’s readings.  However, the distance away is now the question.  I have seen  angles low enough during the winter (like tonight) where stations as close as Maine (NE heading) could be louder on the high loops, etc than the low dipole. Normally this is not the case.  So, thinking more, it could have been as close as VE2-land in Quebec when using your added input. This would put it about 300 miles from you and the perfect skip distance to be very loud at your QTH as well as being loud here and still generally NE of Steve and me.

The QRM station went away right after I took the readings, so I will not see what happens at Euro sunrise to confirm Europe or not.   Another thing that makes me suspicious is the past potential problems on 3733 when the VE Net would usually start up. Maybe someone there is unhappy with AM being there, I dunno.

Anyway, if it continues, we should get some stations in VE1-land to take some readings and go from there. I have plenty of friends in Eu with 4-square verticals who could also tell us if it’s Euro or VE. We shud be able to come very close with some more help.
73,

T

[Ralph W3GL]

You know, perhaps it's time for me to get into this thread... 

I've seen/heard this signal before quite a few times.  Last time it was traced to a 50 or so KW Multiplexed ISB transmitter located at Andrews AFCS Transmitter site (the old GlobeCom HFTX site).

One of the driver stages was going into parasitic mode!

Okay, by Tim Smiths observation and JJ's DFing, possibly placing the generator
up there in NE Canada, why not look at the big RF generators relaying SW broadcasters at that site, you know, the one that sticks the German digital signal from 3990 to 4000 kc (I've forgotten the name of the place, sorry).

Early yesterday afternoon, the signal was up around 3900 kc and slowly drifting down band.  The fact that I observed the signal with significant level around high noon would tend to confirm Tims observations as well.  My low wire was hearing the NE stations  S-3 to 6 at the same time.

So, that's my input, for what it's worth.   

[AJ1G]

Would be interesting to see if this signal is showing up in the European Globaltuners.com receivers....or the online SDR in the Netherlands which has a waterfall display:

http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901/

The SDR at present only tunes specific bands, upper 80 meter limit is 3.800.  Should be able to see this signal in EU on the 3.733 WFDN frequency if its coming from there.

Or this one in Switzerland:

http://212.101.19.86:8901/

which at present is only tuning a small portion of 75 meters, but does cover 3733..  I just heard/saw some sort of digital /data on 3731 on it.

I've commented that they should add an AM mode to these online SDRs  - right now there is none.  You have to zero beat and use SSB detection.

[k3zrf]

Europe huh? That sig was 40+ and 'seemed' local....very little if any QSB. If it is (was) coming from Europe must be a strapping xmtr.

[W2VW]

Coastal Ct.

[W3RSW]

Yeah, it was pretty enormous and did wash out everyone by 'ZRF at my QTH. It's excursions even covered up an adjacent SSB QSO.
I called it PW early on in case someone 'local' would get their rocks off from even being noted.

Note the wide, random sawtooth excursion in freq. swings from 3727 to 3740 kc but with only a 3 to 3.5 kc bandwidth of the superimposed signal generator.
Careful viewing leads me to believe it is a 3kc wide SSB signal, overdriven to spatter and varying in freq over a range by either electronic means (the FM'ing at 1/4 to 1/2 sec. period) or by at least a two cam mechanical actuator of a vfo dial.

 Manual knob swishing of an audio recording wil do this too simulating quasi random shifting. The freq. excursion matches the limits of wrist twisting of a knob, come to think of it. It is definitely at the KW level and is deliberate.

Your typical denu...ed SSB operator's pw equipment can't stand full carrier for decent jamming hence has to resort to swishing his only method of modulation other than CW which is too obvious.

Yeah, definitely needs DF'ing. Go get 'em. 
Wonder if the perp realizes that SDR's from a few locations can pinpoint him?
Heck , even a good analog DF'ing net can locate him to a typical neighborhood. Then they usually stick out  very plainly. 

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

I've been telling you guys for several years to use a different frequency. This is just the RF gods way of punishing you for not listening to me.

[W3RSW]

Ah, s p r e a d spectrum Steve?

"You Guys"...? Cawmaon.

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

OK, "you girls."

[DMOD]

I always thought it was a NOAA or DEA, or NSA version of the OTHR. I had heard that NOAA modified it for nearly all HF bands.

In 1991, NOAA recognized the potential of these military relics of the cold war for environmental monitoring and asked the Air Force's permission to look at the part of the radar echo that the Air Force throws away -- the ocean clutter. NOAA's tests showed that this clutter can be processed to extract ocean surface wind direction over huge, data-sparse ocean areas -- vital information that affects climate and the ocean's circulation. Tropical storms and hurricanes were tracked, and a system for delivering radar-derived winds to the National Hurricane Center was developed. The combined coverage of the six OTH-B radars is about 90 million square kilometers of open ocean where few weather instruments exist. Recent tests have also demonstrated OTH radars ability to map ocean currents.
Specifications
Operator  U.S. Air Force, Air Combat Command, Newport News, VA / Lockheed Martin Co.
Radar Type  FM/CW Bistatic Doppler
Antenna Types  Horizontal Linear Phased Arrays
Maximum CW Radiated Power  1,000,000 W (12 transmitters)
Effective Radiated Power  80 dBW (100 MW)
Transmit Array Design  Canted Dipoles, Vertical Backscreen
Transmit Frequency  5-28 MHz in 6 Bands
Transmit Array Elements  12 per band
Subarray Apertures  304, 224,167,123, 92, 68 m
Transmit Azimuth Beamwidth (3 dB)  7.5 deg
Transmit Elevation Beam (3-dB points)  8-33 deg @ 5 MHz, 5-15 deg @ 28 MHZ
Transmit Azimuth Beam Steer ±30 deg  
Receive Array Design  246 5.4-m Vertical Elements with 20-m Backscreen
Receive Frequency  5-28 MHz in 3 Bands
Receive Array Aperture  1519, 1013, 506 m
Number of Active Receive Elements  82
Receive Azimuth Beamwidth (3 dB)  1.25 deg (no weighting), 2.5 deg (raised-cosine weighting)
Receive Elevation Beam (3-dB points)  8-33 deg @ 5 MHz, 5-15 deg @ 28 MHZ
Receive Azimuth Beam Steer  ±30 deg
ECRS Receive Location  44.79 N, 67.79 W
ECRS Azimuth Limits (modified)  31.5-91.5-151.5-211.5 deg East of North
ECRS Transmitter-Receiver Separation  160 km
ECRS Operations Center  Bangor ANGB, ME
WCRS Receive Location  41.70 N, 121.18 W
WCRS Azimuth Limits (3 segments)  160-220-280-340 deg East of North
WCRS Transmitter-Receiver Separation  160 km
WCRS Operations Center  Mountain Home AFB, ID
Waveform Repetition Frequency  10-60 Hz
Waveform (chirp) Bandwidth  5-40 kHz
Coherent Integration Time  0.7-20.5 s  

 

[K1JJ]

Right now, at  4:42 East coast time, about an hour before sunset, there is a wobbler that sounds like the one I heard last night on 3730. It's only about S9 on the high NE loops and coming from Europe. Very PW on the dipole at 90'.

Maybe the wobbler that was QRMing you guys and the one I hear now (and last night) is a different one.


There's a few guys on there (WA3JYU, W3GL, W1AEX and AA2EZ and  Frank/AHE ) chatting now and they haven't mentioned it like it's not there.  Did you guys hear it or just ignored it?

T

[W1AEX]

Hi Tom,

It is very light into my location, about S-6. My antenna for 75 meters is pretty much a cloud burner. It sounds very much like the digital mode Olivia. There's a nice collection of digital mode sound samples at the links below:

http://www.kb9ukd.com/digital/

http://www.nonstopsystems.com/radio/radio-sounds.html

http://members.cox.net/w1aex.fn31/radio-olivia.mp3     <-- That's what I am hearing.

Rob

[DMOD]

I am hearing one on 3.761 now at 4:06 cst in the midwest. But this one sounds like a raspy, scrambled message sound.

There is an SSB comm going on at 3.760 and they seem oblivious to it.

Phil - AC0OB

[W1AEX]

Ah, Burt JYU just played what he's hearing. I'm not hearing anything at all like what he's hearing! That's really bizarre!!!!!!!