I Found Shortwave Radio's Biggest Unsolved Mysteries!

I'm sure you'll agree that we love a shortwave mystery at ringway Manchester so today I've dug through the Enigma archives to bring you a handful of long lost unidentified signals these were spotted on the airwaves during the number station craze back in the 1980s up until the 2000s this was a time when numerous listeners spent hours scanning the bands looking for cataloging and trying to make sense of the many weird and wonderful Oddities that presented themselves from The Ether like eal entities and disappeared sometimes as fast as they came this is x-ray FOX also known as faders XF is the Enigma code given to this unidentified signal that appeared to fade away and then return according to listeners these signals were logged on over 40 frequencies across the HF broadcast aeronautical Maritime and amateur bands and were noticed in the 1970s according to listener logs the faders had a constant pulsed pitch and each burst lasted for 7.5 seconds after which one of three things happened it would either continue for 7.5 seconds at full power with a slight break between bursts and you can hear it if you listen carefully it would continue for another 7.5 seconds it reduced power or stop completely faders appear to be synchronized with standard time and monitors noted that Transmissions would start exactly on the minute when compared with a radio controled clock or telephone Speaking Clock 7.5 second burst were often sent every 15 minutes on the hour at quarter past half past and quarter 2 indicating that faders was always operational even when not transmitting any TR traffic signal bearing readings by UK listeners indicated that some of the examples of faders may have been emanating from the US Air Force Base at ARF milon Hall in suffk it was believed that the strong signals logged in the UK were some form of secure digital mode that was being sent from milen Hall and that the weaker signals were reciprocal transmitters at other locations sending a response another belief at the time was that it could have been part of the NATO secure data Communication System known know as lowc or linked operational intelligence centers lowc is a system that provides us and NATO forces and other National allied military organizations with near real time correlated situation and order of battle information it supports threat analysis Target recommendations indications and warning and queuing of collection assets and it was rolled out at hundreds of locations faders was never definitively identified and it disappeared in 2001 no confirmed intercepts have been logged since do you remember it did you hear it next up is x-ray Echo also known as Echo this was a shortlived and extremely elusive signal that appeared on the HF bands during the late [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] 1990s Transmissions can consisted of a single beep every 4 seconds Echo Was Heard On One frequency at a time and was logged on at least five while it would disappear for months on end only to reappear again Echo was never heard on more than one frequency at any one time this led to the assumption that there may have only been one transmitter involved but location readings were never taken so the whereabouts of the mystery signal remains unknown Echo hasn't been logged publicly since late 1999 and its purpose will remain a mystery next we come to x-ray Charlie an odity that's remembered for frequently causing interference to Shannon Air Radio an air traffic control service on 5505 khz although it was named a crackle many listeners likened it to the sound of tin cans being dragged along the ground [Applause] it moved frequently and didn't appear to follow much of a schedule often disappearing for weeks or months at a time first logged in the mid 2000s during its peak where it appeared relatively active the crackle seemed to grow increasingly elusive only being logged a handful of times in later years it was most active during the night across Europe although it was logged in the USA on numerous occasions but there have been very few loggings since around 201 14 the crackle was logged on 20 frequencies but tended to frequent 55 or 5505 khz the most while the location of the crackle was never revealed and no explanation as to its purpose ever put forward it regularly appeared on frequencies used by the Russian military for MOS code Communications it was noted that when the crackle stopped MOS code would sometimes resume and vice versa leading to speculation that it may have been some sort of Russian digital mode or a simple Channel mark the Russian military are known for using experimental digital modes of which very little information is known to this day the crackle remains a mystery odity now we come to an odity known as the 20 minute idler a signal first reported in January of 1998 transmitting a carrier for exactly 20 minutes every hour on the hour 24 hours a day originally nicknamed the blank carrier it was a modulated signal that consisted of two tones peaking 250 HZ AP part indicating a simple two frequency FSK or frequency shift keying system The Idler would also appear on multiple frequencies sometimes three at once and transmit for 20 40 and 60 Minutes respectively it was logged on nine frequencies in total it would sometimes stop for brief periods perhaps for operational or maintenance purposes but would soon reappear until November of 2010 when it disappeared until January of 2014 the only difference on its return was that not all transmissions were 20 minutes in length with some lasting only 5 minutes or more no directional readings were ever made public and the signal was heard across Europe in multiple locations with the strongest signals logged in Eastern Europe no public loggings have surfaced since 2014 and the 20-minute idler remains a mystery let me know if you've heard it and finally our last odity in this deep dive The Irregular Dash this was first logged on January the 5th 2014 when us listeners reported hearing some irregular beeps during the night on 547 khz the same day the signal was noted in the UK at a reasonable signal strength monitors intercepted the signal in the UK the following day but this time on 545 khz on this occasion the dashes were interrupted and interspersed with data bursts further monitoring by UK listeners revealed the the station was sending 10 seconds of data every 3 minutes exactly by January the 7th the signal had moved from 545 khz to 5105 khz and had gone back to sending just The Irregular dashes without the data bursts no locational bearings were ever made public and nobody offered up an explanation as to the purpose of the irregular Dash aity it would appear that it may have been a channel marker but it hasn't been logged publicly since 2014 let me know if you've heard it [Music] [Music] oh [Music] you

Channel: Ringway Manchester

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Length: 9min 33sec (573 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 15 2024