SDR Console V3 analyser

The shack, finally operational after a few months off.

With the rebuild of my shack complete I’ve been able to start testing out all my radios, new connections etc.

The Mini-Circuits components all come well packaged in anti-static bags

A whole bundle of new cables from Mini-Circuits arrived last of all and have helped tidy up the back of the radio 19″ rack considerably. I’ve previously installed quite a few Mini-Circuits components, including 0.141″ diameter Hand-Flex interconnect cables, and so it was more of these that I opted for. The bonus with these cables is that they are hand formable meaning you can shape and bend them into pretty much any area that you want to. The 141 series (which I use) are capable of a 8mm bend radius, whilst the thinner 086 series can be bent to 6mm.

Being able to manipulate the cables certainly helps in tight spaces, and when you don’t want them to hang down

Previously I used hand-made cables with RG58U coax, but in order to have a 19″ rack that can slide out from under the desk, the cables needed to be longer than actually required. Because of this the cables would drop down into all the others attached to the PC and in some cases cause a little interference. With the Hand-Flex cables I’ve been able to use the same length of coax to allow me to move out the rack, but be able to bend them up and out of the way of the PC cables.

They’re also very good for the radios on the rack, being able to bend them and hold in place around the radios and other cables. They are near lossless too with a quoted insertion loss of 0.01 dB in the HF band to 0.55 dB at 18GHz. I normally run tests of the Mini-Circuit components when I receive them and find that the figures quoted are near spot on. I highly recommend these cables if you’re looking to upgrade your systems, and are available from the Mini-Circuits website, along with lots of other goodies that will tempt you.

Measurement of insertion loss of the Mini-Circuits ZF3RSC-542B-S+ Power Splitter/Combiner I also purchased as part of my plans for satellite communication monitoring. This is connected to the AirSpy SDR and takes feeds from two SatCom connections (currently deactivated) and a WinRadio AX-71C Discone Antenna. Mini-Circuits quote an insertion loss of around 19.5dB at 130 MHz which is confirmed here with a signal generated at -20dB being less than 1dB out at -40.48dB when passed through the combiner.

This image shows how the cables can be held in place without cable ties

The radio setup now includes two new SDR’s – an AirSpy HF+ and a standard AirSpy with the HF+ replacing the Enablia TitanPro. I’ve also reinstated my WinRadio G31DDC which had been in storage for a year or so. I really do like the TitanPro, and have put it into storage for the time being. The recording capabilities in particular are great with it being able to select 40 frequencies at once spread over numerous bandwidths, but I have had issues with the power supply – one being it caused interference. I attempted to make one of my own but it has a 6v(+/-1v)/2.5 Amp current requirement and no matter how many different methods of building my own supply using a 12v feed downgrading to 5, 6 or 7 volts, it just wouldn’t work in a stable manner. In the end it was easier to remove it and slot the G31DDC back in its place.

As it is, I’d forgotten how good the G31DDC is and I don’t really feel like I’m missing much thanks to the ability to use the other SDR’s with SDR Console V3 and it’s SDR Analyser.

The three 19″ racking units from Penn Elcom, along with all the shelves, have been very useful and certainly makes things easier when it comes to changing radios and connections over. I can just disconnect a few things and slide the whole unit out. I also obtained a 19″ Project box from them which I used as my main 12v switch unit. This is connected to two regulated desktop power supplies that act as master switches.

Although the SDR Console website page for the Analyser states it isn’t available yet, this is incorrect and it is downloaded with the latest version of the main programme.

If you’re a current user of V2 or have been in the past then you won’t notice much difference. You can have up to 24 parallel demodulators operating within the SDR’s bandwidth that you have chosen, all of which can run independent of each other in receive and record. You can also run each demodulator through a decoder such as MultiPSK independently and decode these in parallel with each other. This capability has taken that step towards those of the TitanPro, especially when being used with the Elad FDM-S2 that can provide a Maximum DDC bandwidth of 6144kHz’s.

Unfortunately, whilst you can schedule recordings of IQ data, you still can’t do this for individual channel recordings. This is a real shame as it would be a fantastic addition to the capabilities of SDR Console.

Getting back to the analyser though this does, in theory, cancel out the lack of channel recording scheduling.

When you record IQ data it is saved as WAV files, split into multiple ones depending on how long a recording you make . All of these files can be individually played back through the incorporated SDR Console player but even better is the use of the File Analyser.

With this you get a visual “image” of the complete recording, whereby after opening the analyser you get it to combine all the files into one XML file. For the image below I used the FDM-S2 with a selected bandwith of 768kHz centred on 4425kHz, hoping to catch calls to Russian Naval base Severomorsk in CW(RJD99) from ships operating in the region. I set the scheduler up to record from 0000z to 0700z which worked perfectly, giving me 78 files totalling 78GB – obviously, the bigger the bandwidth, the larger the total file size.

After clicking on New in the analyser and browsing to the relevant folder the WAV files are saved in, the analyser finds the first one and gives this as an option to open – it automatically adds the remaining WAV files and starts the process. This can take quite some time to extract, around 45 minutes for the example shown. But you only need to do this once because once it has finished you can save it as an XML file and open it at any time – in this case it was a 28MB XML file.

A note here – do not then delete the WAV files as the analyser still needs them.

As you can see, I was successful in locating calls to RJD99, and I have highlighted some of the others that I took a look at – this is just a screenshot of two hours out of the seven recorded.

All you then need to do is find any signal of interest, and after clicking on select and start in the top ribbon, click on the signal. This will then start playing the file from that location in the main SDR Console window. You don’t need to stay on that frequency, you can use the Console as if you were listening live and move around the frequency range you dictated in the bandwidth of the recording.

And, as it is basically a live screen you can do additional things such as record and use decoding software.

RJI92 calling RJD99 on 4416 kHz during playback of the Analyser

When using the Analyser I run this through a separate PC meaning SDR Console itself can carry on working on the main radio control PC. This is also handy if you’re away but have time to go through the IQ data using a laptop. Just copy over the original WAV files to a portable hard drive/memory stick and carry on as described above.

There are numerous other functions available for you to use with the main part of SDR Console, some I still haven’t had the chance to play with completely. I’m still exploring things such as the Signal History function which can store up to 48 hours of data. Here you can export data in CSV format to third-party programs such as QtiPlot. Signal history can also be used within the Analyser

This is useful as it can give you a quick overview into single frequency use, signal strengths, fading and such like. Definitely something I need to spend more time on.

It’s been a long time coming, but Version 3 of SDR Console has been well worth the wait.

Liman follow-up

Well, it’s a couple of days now since my blog on the Liman incident went live. I’ve had some great feed back on my coverage.

There has however been one individual that has not liked it so much. This is Steffan Watkins, owner of the blog Vessel of Interest. Mr Watkins was one of the unnamed characters I referred to in the Liman blog. He is widely regarded as a conspiracy theorist, and even has to go to the extent of denying it on his own blog. Whether he is or isn’t is irrelevant really.

Interestingly, a recent piece of work I was asked to do for Jane’s Intelligence Review magazine was to analyse an image of Russian navy Vishnya-class AGI Viktor Leonov to try and work out the various intelligence gathering systems that may be on board via all the different antennas visible. The actual article was written by Mr Watkins.

Now, up until this stage I really didn’t pay much attention to anything Mr Watkins wrote, mainly because what he wrote was aiming towards being the aforementioned conspiracy theories. But, he kind of came through with an interesting article – though it was nothing I didn’t know, as a group of us have been following Viktor Leonov for a few years now.

So, why hasn’t he enjoyed my blog? Well, I suggest you read it and see what he has come up with, and then come back here where I’ll answer his “questions”.

Hopefully, then you have read his blog on Liman now.

Firstly, lets talk about the “expert” part. He seems to think that I am condescending towards others from my comments. I am fully open to ideas and theories if there is evidence to back these ideas up and people also listen to what is being presented to them. In this case he did neither. And my references to things such as the Heather Sea evidence is clear – the ship wasn’t involved, it never was and yet people were still saying it was (not Mr Watkins I hasten to add, he hadn’t looked into anything outside the bubble of Liman). It was a quick and easy search through AIS history to see that it wasn’t, and yet people weren’t doing this. My reference to not being an expert is correct. I have no qualifications in the field of Radio Communications, I do not have an amateur radio licence and such like. I do not have a degree or a masters or any other diploma in the theories of radio – therefore I am not an expert. In ATC we have engineers that are experts in that – I wouldn’t dare tell them their job, just like they wouldn’t tell me how to keep aircraft apart. This is the reference I am making to being an expert.

He also mentions banter on twitter. There was no such thing, certainly not in my eyes. I’ve been around banter for decades – in the forces you need to be able to take it, and give it – and it is actually worse in the world of ATC. I can recognise banter when I see it. He also mentions an exchange of ideas. Yes there were exchanges of ideas, but he really wasn’t coming up with anything of substance. Instead, from his comments, he gave a picture that there was a conspiracy behind the incident – there had to be something because of the nature of the ship involved – an Intelligence Gatherer.

He actually says this in his blog:
Any ship could have an accident while at sea, in the fog, early in the morning. But, this wasn’t “any” ship; just by being a Russian Navy AGI (a “Spy Ship”) it makes me +1 suspicious. There is no good rational basis for that suspicion, except it’s a Russian Navy AGI, it definitely has sensitive gear aboard, and having it sink leaves a gap in whatever task it was doing, on the deployment it was on.

Why does this receive an extra degree of suspicion? Oh, that’s right, there’s no rational explanation, it’s just suspicious.

I wonder what Mr Watkins reactions were to the collision between a French Navy SSBN and a Royal Navy SSBN in the middle of the Atlantic in 2009. Holy shit, the French are at it again, trying to sink our navy 🙂

He refers to the fact that surely the Youzar Sif. H must have been able to have seen the Liman on radar:
The Liman was not a “stealth” ship, and as far as I understand, should have shown up on the navigational radar of the Youzarsif H; isn’t that why navigational radar exists?
Well, if two of the most expensive vessels in the sea, with some of the most sophisticated sonar and listening equipment ever made managed to thump into each other in the wide open Atlantic, then it is perfectly feasible for two ships to hit each other in thick fog in one of the busiest shipping lanes on the planet.

And it doesn’t even have to be in thick fog or underwater – ships hit each other. His Canadian navy had such an incident in 2013 in perfectly good weather when they were approaching each other.

Or there’s the Turkish Coast guard patrol boat that was hit in broad daylight, in the middle of the Bosporus, by a 158ft long Bulk carrier in August last year

Further about the radar he stated:
They were in thick fog, only navigating by instruments, and didn’t see a ship directly in front of them on radar?
Isn’t that weird?
I don’t think it reflects well on the Youzarsif H’s crew, unless the operations of the Liman were causing issues for the radar of the Youzarsif H. Yes, that’s wild speculation, because it makes no sense how a ship doesn’t notice a giant hulk of floating steel in front of it on radar. Make up your own crazy theory! It’s better than what we have now, which is nothing.

None of us know what radar system Youzar Sif. H has in place. I’ve been on quite a few ships in my time, civil and military – and of course I work with radar all the time. You get plenty of radar returns or “primaries” which you don’t know what they are, and you do your best to avoid them if you are not sure, but you have to make an assessment as what you think is a ship/aircraft and what is just weather (or a wind farm in a lot of ATC cases these days). The image here shows just a basic ships radar image, a modern one at that, so actually could be much better than the one on Youzar Sif. H – we won’t ever know I expect. Other radars are available of course, with more detail, but if Mr Watkins can work out what is what in this image then well done.

The next statement he produces is:
There have been no reports regarding who ran into who; or if it was a mutual effort. The news media is making it sound like they were both moving and collided in the fog. I’m not sure that’s correct.
He produces a list of things that could have happened – yes all obvious – but then doesn’t actual state why he thinks the news media are incorrect?? So why do you think this Mr Watkins?

He then mentions jamming of the AIS frequencies, but thankfully seems to have realised that this wasn’t the case. At the time of the “banter” he wasn’t stating that though:
See, there you go down the rabbit hole again. I’m wondering if the AGI screwed itself by engaging in EW in the same frequency range as AIS. 161.975/162.025 MHz range, within the usual Marine VHF band, right? Might explain the sketchy AIS coverage immediately prior.
Firstly, I’m still not sure what he’s referring to with EW. Early Warning?? Electronic Warfare?? Neither of which Liman is equipped for. And, secondly I went into great depths, the best I could at the time (see later) to try to explain the likely reason for the sketchy AIS coverage – all of which he kind of brushed aside for his more extreme likelihoods. Here, again he gives the air of being a conspiracy theorist.

We now get on to my favourite part of his blog:
•The Youzarsif H’s AIS signal was being received by terrestrial based AIS receivers, which Mr Roper described in his blog post with excruciating detail. The signal was very spotty before the collision, and crystal clear after the collision. This is the thing that really draws my eye and triggers my curiosity; it is the basis for much of my suspicion regarding this event. On the day Mr. Roper and I were discussing this he specifically dismissed my speculation that the issue could be related to the sender and insisted the gap in reception must be related to the receiver, or environmental conditions.
“This totally depends on the receiver not the sender! The receiver may have been off.”
-Tony Roper, 6:29 PM EST, May 4 2017
I tried to convey that my interest was less with the gap before the collision, and more with the immediate change to the signal quality (seemingly crystal clear reception) instantaneously after the collision, which Mr Roper had no explanation for at the time. It seems after reflection, he now theorizes the sender, may have had their antenna(s) facing away (blocked by the ship’s superstructure?) from the shore-based receiver when travelling Southbound (toward the Liman) and immediately after the collision turned around and faced their AIS antenna(s) toward the shore-based AIS-T receiver. This is fantastic speculation, and would explain how the signal went from terrible, to perfect, immediately, while other ships in the area had AIS-T signal all along.

Firstly, by excruciating detail I’m guessing Mr Watkins didn’t understand it. You must forgive me for trying to explain how something works instead of just giving less than half information on how something works. If he thinks my information was excruciating then maybe he should read the Propagation pages in the ARRL handbook which is spread over 30 pages. Or maybe he should go to websites such as:
Make more miles on VHF
HF Propagation tools
Or one of the many pages by Tomas Hood on propagation
It is obviously a fault of mine to make something interesting for the reader, that will hopefully teach them something.

I said above that at the time I did my best to try to explain to Mr Watkins what may have happened. This he seems to have thrown back in my face, alluding that I may have changed my mind on my original thoughts. I didn’t dismiss his thoughts but pointed out that there may have been a break in coverage. The interesting thing is the quote he has used, taken at 6:29PM EST. This was actually 23:59PM UK time, I was in a hotel room, 450 miles away from my computers and AIS systems. Maybe Mr Watkins has presumed that the rest of the planet is running at the same time as Canada, and that we were all glued to our PC’s? I made the best assessment at the time – and you know what, I wasn’t far wrong in the theory of coverage, as I proved in the blog.

He says I have “reflected” and changed my mind. No, I haven’t Mr Watkins. It’s a combination of both sender and receiver. I didn’t reflect. What I did was, on getting home, do some further analysis. Something Mr Watkins has quite clearly not done. He can only produce the same data on the what Youzar Sif. H did both before and after the incident. He still hasn’t come up with anything else – yet he has the nerve to criticise my analysis.

Come on Mr Watkins, show us some workings out. Do some actual analysis.

Here’s something for you. Data taken today from the same region.

The image below shows the tracks for various ships and their plots as received on AISLive

Holy crap – how do we explain all those gaps in the plots especially the ones on the rough route Youzar Sif. H took?? How the hell does the furthest ship away from any receivers have the best plot history?? Hmmmm, please do tell Mr Watkins. Maybe the Russians are jamming the area from outer space? Maybe there’s another AGI there?? Or maybe there’s just a poor area of reception.

The picture below shows the same area, at the very same time, but this time taken from MarineTraffic.

I’ve purposefully highlighted Reina as it is also highlighted in the AISLive image. The red ship to at the bottom is also on the AISLive image as the fully tracked ship. But what is that? MSC Eleonora is showing here, but isn’t on AISLive – what the hell?? How does that happen?? Please explain with all your worldly knowledge Mr Watkins.

Here’s some extra data for you, just so that you realise that AIS receivers aren’t on all the time (mine was off whilst 450 miles away for the weekend by the way). The three receiver examples that I used for the blog have the following averages for receiver availability over the last two months:
Istanbul = 93.3%
Burgas = 98.9%
Elena = 97.95%
So, not available all the time then.

He ends the large waffle with:
Can we prove this theory with the available data? Well, it’s certainly not as clear as I would like it to be. It is still crystal clear that immediately after the collision the AIS transmissions went from random times between successful transmissions to a steady stream at 3-4 minutes

The following day, still in the hotel 450 miles away from all my gear, I sent Mr Watkins roughly the same as the above showing a plot of another ship with the same loss of coverage. That obviously wasn’t enough evidence to make it “crystal clear”. I then produced my blog with further evidence – including an example of Youzar Sif. H with a loss of 14 hours of coverage – which again obviously wasn’t “crystal clear”, but was in fact excruciatingly full of too much detail for Mr Watkins. I have now produced the above which explains – yet again – that there are gaps in the coverage, yet other ships somehow have a better plot history. I suspect though, that all this will be far too foggy for Mr Watkins and he still will not be able to see anything clearly – except for a conspiracy.

Full analysis of the sinking of Liman

With it being a month this weekend since the Russian navy Moma-class AGI Liman was hit by another ship resulting in its sinking in the Black Sea, I thought I’d publish my full analysis on the incident.

Originally this work was created for Jane’s Intelligence Review, but due to space limitations in the magazine, it was condensed into a half page report. This blog includes all the imagery and extra text that was left out, but also some further analysis that I’ve been able to do in the mean-time. Because of this, I must state that the analysis published here has nothing to do with any IHS publication, and that any views (unless otherwise stated) are all my own.

Liman, taken in November 2015 by Yörük Işık

A brief account of what happened

On the morning of Thursday 27th April 2017, at approximately 0830z, reports on social network starting coming in that Moma-class Intelligence gathering ship Liman of the Russian navy had collided with a livestock ship in the Black Sea at a position approximately 30nm to the North of the entrance of the Bosporus Strait. There was thick fog in the area at the time of the incident.

Early information from the Russian Defence Ministry stated that Liman had collided with a ship named Ashot-7 but a search through ship registries quickly showed that this ship did not exist. From AIS analysis however, a ship identified as Youzar Sif.H had departed the port of Midia in Romania for Aqaba in Jordon at approximately 1645z on the 26th April heading for the entrance of the Bosporus Strait. The ship was carrying livestock, reportedly sheep. From the AIS data it was noted that Youzar Sif.H was cruising at a speed of 11 knots for most of the journey across the Black Sea until at 0845z on the 27th April the ship came to a sudden stop. It is here that the two ships collided.

Liman was operating without any form of AIS at the time, despite being in thick fog – it is likely not to have had the system installed. To this date, the Russian Defence Ministry, has not reported what tasks Liman was carrying out but it is known that it wasn’t due to pass through the Bosporus Strait.

The collision holed Liman below the waterline which led the ship to starting to sink. Though most of the [up to] 85 crew members evacuated, it is known that some remained on board to, in the words of the Russian Defence Ministry, [remove] all special equipment, documentation, weapons and ammunition. [The] ship’s crew were evacuated to life-saving appliances, and then safely transported to the base of the Black Sea Fleet in the Crimea.

Almost immediately following the reports of the incident, new Project 22870 Ocean-going Rescue Tug SB-739 was sent to the scene from the Black sea navy base in Sevastopol. SB-739 does carry AIS equipment and analysis of this shows that the ship departed at approximately 1030z on the 27th, arriving 20 hours later. SB-739 carries the latest ROV to be deployed to the Russian navy, the Marlin-350 made by Tetis-Pro. This ROV can operate up to depths of 350 metres, with charts of the incident area showing depths of between 50 and 100 metres.

It was noted at the time of the incident that a Russian flagged Civilian Survey ship Хезер Си (Heather Sea) had commenced operations approximately 20nm to the NW of the collision site. The final position where Liman supposedly sank has been reported on social media at 41.50N 28.95E, the area where Heather Sea was operating, but this is a long way for the Liman to have drifted prior to sinking. A good friend of mine intercepted a navigational warning sent out by the Turkish authorities on Navigational Telex (NAVTEX) stating the final sinking position as 41.30 24 N 028.57E and it is here that SB-739 positioned itself on arrival.

Youzar Sif.H rescued some of the Liman crew members, and it is believed that another Russian flagged cargo ship, Ulus Star, also took part in rescuing crew as AIS analysis shows the ship deviating from its course to the incident area, before continuing on through the Bosporus later on in the day. At one stage it rendezvoused with both Youzar Sif.H and a Turkish government tug, Kutarma-3, which was one of the Turkish SAR ships sent to the area.

AIS data combined into one image
1 – Youzar Sif.H cruising at 11kts at 0813 UTC 27 Apr 2017
2 – Youzar Sif.H technical stop/malfunction at 1854z having started to return to Midia
3 – SB-123 arrives at the incident site at 0615 UTC 28 Apr 2017
4 – Heather Sea stays on task throughout incident

Youzar Sif.H returned to Midia, whilst SB-739 remained on site. Another Russian research vessel, Project 11982 AGOR Seliger, broadcasting as a “Law Enforcement” vessel on AIS, joined SB-739 at the area where Liman sank on the 1st of May . Seliger carries a submersible vehicle which was used to examine the wreck of Liman. Further reports of two other ships arriving around the 10/11th of May were given. These were KIL-158, a Kashtan-class buoy tender that has lifting equipment capable to take weights of up to 130 tonnes and Epron, a Prut-class rescue tug which is used for diver operations.

With the arrival of KIL-158 and Epron, it is highly likely that the Russian reports that all equipment was evacuated before the sinking were false and that these ships were here to recover those items still left on board. In particular, recent images of Liman show it with a large SATCOM dome towards the stern. This will almost certainly have contained a dish used for a SATCOM system given a NATO codename “Punch Bowl”. This communicates with store and dump type satellites such as Strela, Raduga and Rodnik. Information is collated and stored within the system and transmitted when a satellite passes within range. The satellite stores the information and “dumps” the data once in range of an appropriate ground-station. It would not have been possible to remove this system from the deck quickly and it is likely it went down with the ship.

With the final result of this incident being a lost ship, luckily with no loss of life , it highlights why the requirement of AIS on all shipping, even military, should be mandatory, especially in areas of high intensity traffic such as the Bosporus Strait.

What happened next….

There quickly followed a media frenzy of accusations and denials.

Russian media accused the Turkish government of sending divers to the wreck within an hour of Liman sinking and stealing all the equipment left on board – this is despite publishing on the same day how all the equipment had been recovered by the heroic crew of Liman. It is totally unlikely that the Turks had managed such a feat. Apart from the fact that it is dangerous to be diving on a wreck that soon after it has sunk, as shown by the ships needed by the Russians to do the actual task of recovery, the Turks sent nothing of the sort to the area. In fact, they did a great job of assisting a ship in distress.

Close-up of Youzar Sif.H’s track following the collision. The grey ship is Kutarma-3, which stayed to assist the sinking Liman.

The Russians then accused the crew of Youzar Sif.H of operating their ship dangerously in conditions that were unsuitable for a speed of 11 knots, including suggestions that the crew were drunk. Of course, they said nothing of the fact that their own ship was operating clandestinely (be it in open sea and legally) without the safety net of AIS equipment. The Russian navy is currently trying to sue the operating company of Youzar Sif.H for the loss of Liman.

Also of note was an interesting statement by Captain Vladimir Tryapichnikov, the head of naval shipbuilding, at the recent launch of the second Project 18280 AGI Ivan Khurs on May 16th. He alluded to the fact that Ivan Khurs would replace Liman in the Black Sea fleet, and that there would be a further two ships of the class built. His actual words were:
Let’s give the fleet the second ship, and then talk about the next two. Defence plans indicate that the Navy will receive them before 2025

This is almost likely to be false – on both counts. There has never been four ships planned and the replacement of Liman with Ivan Khurs would be a ridiculous waste of money. The Russian navy has a terrible funding problem, with not even enough projected funds available to build new Destroyers they have planned. They are also desperate for a new Aircraft carrier, but funding makes this highly unlikely; and they are seemingly already having problems funding the refit of Kuznetsov(orel)-class Aircraft Carrier Admiral Kuznetsov which is about to begin. With this in mind, and other on-going funding problems with frontline ships and submarines, it is very unlikely they will put aside any cash for two more AGI’s.

Further more, the Project 18280 AGI’s are not designed for operations in areas such as the Black Sea, but more for in areas further from Russian shores such as off the East coast of the USA – for example, those tasks carried out by Project 864 Vishnya-class AGI Viktor Leonov which is often operating near to Cape Canaveral and the USN Naval Submarine base at Kings Bay, Georgia. If Liman were to be replaced by anything it is more likely to be by one of the remaining Project 861 Moma-class AGS Survey/Research ships that the AGI versions were converted from. This makes even more sense if equipment was rescued before the ship sank as it would be an easy fit. My analysis of Liman makes me think it wasn’t a fully converted AGI as it still retained the crane on the forward deck, which other AGI’s had removed and that the AGS’s retain. This to me shows that not much structural work would be needed to get a quick replacement available – and at not much cost.

Liman, taken again by Yörük Işık, but this time in October 2016. Now the ship has the “Punch Bowl” SATCOM dome at the stern.

The statement by Tryapichnikov was more than likely a face saving one following the sinking of Liman and I totally expect Ivan Khurs to eventually end up with the Pacific fleet as planned. It may, however, first make a trip to the Black sea/Mediterranean to prove some sort of point.

Ironically, exactly one month later, Youzar Sif.H anchored to North West of the Bosporus awaiting its turn to transit through, having left Midia on the 26th May. It did so on the 28th, it’s destination this time is Misrata.

Whilst then, the dust has settled on the actual incident itself, it did highlight some other points.

Social media and its self-professed experts

Now, we all kind of love Social media and the internet – we do, there’s no denying it. After all, I wouldn’t be here doing this, I wouldn’t have access to endless amounts of information, data and history at the click of a button. But, what I ALWAYS do is check, check and check my facts.

I know my stuff, but am I an expert? No, I would say I’m not. It would be a dishonour saying I am to those that are actually experts. For instance, despite being quoted as a Jane’s Fighting Ships correspondent in IHS publications, I still quite often ask for advice from the yearbooks editor. He is after all an ex Commander of Royal navy ships, NATO and the MOD – totalling over 30 years in the Royal navy. I’m, in reality, an Air Traffic Controller that has a high interest in the Russian navy because of my “hobby” of monitoring their ship HF frequencies. One thing, has effectively led to another.

What this incident has very much highlighted is just how quickly false information is put out to the World without any actual analysis before doing so.

Take the operations of Heather Sea. Many social media “experts” stated that Heather Sea was sent to the aid of Liman when in fact, from simple analysis of AIS information, it was obvious that the ship had departed Varna in Bulgaria at approximately 2030z on the 26th April – some 12 hours before the collision reportedly took place! Very clever of the Russians to know that the collision was going to happen and send a ship there, ready for it to take place! Moreover, Heather Sea remained on its task site for over a week, 20 to 30nm from the position of the collision – having arrived there at 1500z on 27th April, some 8 hours after the reports of the collision started to filter through. It is fitted with modern ROV’s and so would have been ideal to carry out rescue/recovery, but it didn’t. It had nothing to do with the rescue of the Liman and the “experts” had given out incorrect data and positions.

Other experts suggested, even betted, that the arrival of KIL-158 and Epron was so that Liman could be raised from the sea bed and taken back to base. This just shows sheer stupidity rather than any knowledge.

Epron taken by Yörük Işık

And then there are the “There is something highly suspicious about this incident” people of social media. They deny it, but they are similar to conspiracy theorists. And I say this because unless they carry out full analysis on what happened and look into every possibility, what they are stating as fact, is actually incomplete and cannot be relied upon. Their ignorance and stubbornness of just basic principles again shows them as being a theorist – and yet, they say they are an “expert” even when they are shown strong evidence that shows their thoughts as being wrong. Even worse is the fact that some get a social-media following that believes everything they say and that they are an expert – this leads them to believe even more so that what they are saying is correct, when it isn’t.

One ridiculous suggestion was that Liman was jamming the AIS frequencies with its operations. Firstly, why would it have only hampered Youzar Sif.H, as every other ship in the area at the time was perfectly ok; and secondly, it would be a very clever ship to be able to carry on its frequency jamming from the depths of the Black Sea as other ships, including Youzar Sif.H on its revisit this weekend, have been lost from AIS receivers – as shown later on.

Let’s get back to Liman then, and the events leading up to the collision.

There are people out there that have stated that Youzar Sif.H had drifted off-course or wasn’t on the standard route and had even switched off their AIS equipment to hide this. Firstly, there isn’t a set course for getting from Midia to the Bosporus – the ships can get there in whatever route they want to. The fact is though, that they are on a schedule and want to get there the quickest and cheapest way possible and so they will go direct.

The social media experts have concluded that Youzar Sif.H was off-course because they ran a quick look at the traffic density data available on MarineTraffic. Now this data is all well and good, but it has it’s faults. The main one is that the data is basic. It draws a line from one point to another, taken from position reports from AIS data – and if the there’s a gap of 100nm it will draw a line still between these points. In areas of no AIS receiver coverage these lines will still be drawn, but there’s no proof that the ship actually travelled this course. The same principle occurs with all other basic online AIS software providers, including AISLive provided by IHSMarkit.

Youzar Sif.H was tracked pretty well after departure and did deviate from the route shown on the traffic density maps, but only just. A few hours before the collision took place Youzar Sif.H was no longer tracked by any MarineTraffic or AISLive feed, until at 0813UTC when it appeared again. Not long after, the collision took place.

Because the ship was tracked fully after the collision it has been alluded to by some that the AIS system on Youzar Sif.H was switched off for a while, and was only put on again just before the collision. Now why would a ship carrying sheep do such a thing, especially in dangerous conditions such as fog? The ship had nothing to hide, and the likelihood of switching off the one thing that would help them from hitting another ship in such conditions is certainly unlikely. AIS is only useful if all ships carry it, and here Liman didn’t. No doubt there would have been a basic primary return on the radar of Youzar Sif.H but it may well have been too late by then. The cause was that Liman was operating in fog with no anti-collision system in place. To further add to the conspiracy theory, Youzar Sif.H was able to be tracked most of the way back to Midia.

Youzar Sif.H transiting the Bosporus on the 28th May 2017 taken by Alper Boler

I go back again to me saying that I’m not an expert, but I’ve listened to radio since I was around 13, especially Air Traffic Control. This led to my 28 year career in the RAF and Civil ATC. From this I’ve learnt about how radio waves travel. But am I an expert in this principle? No, I’m not. There are guys and girls out there that know a hell of a lot more about it than I do. Here’s the thing though. I know the basic principles.

A very basic and simple fact is that Very High Frequency (VHF) radio transmissions travel with a line of sight principle called the Radio Horizon. In other words, two antennas need to be “in sight” of each other to receive that which the other is sending. No, you don’t actually have to see the other one, but in theory you need to be able to – in most cases. There are other principles and phenomenon such as VHF Tropospheric Ducting which allows for radio waves to travel hundreds of miles, but even then they can skip the hundred miles in-between leaving a null zone.

Take ATC again. The higher an aircraft is, the more likely it is to receive a signal from the ground as the “line of sight” is better, though it does also rely on the power of the transmitter. The curvature of the Earth can stop this and does. As an example, at work we have difficulties sometimes with USAF C-130 Hercules aircraft that are operating at the furthest range of one of our transmitters when they are cruising at FL230/FL240 – the Earths curvature, along with where the antenna is placed on the airframe gets in the way. Two or three thousand feet higher and they would receive us. If flying towards the transmitter then this isn’t a problem as the aircraft will come over the horizon and within “sight” of the transmitter, but going away means that sometimes a relay is required from another aircraft.

The same goes for things such as Mode-S receivers widely available for tracking aircraft. They only have an optimal range before the amateur can no longer pick up traffic – actually, this applies to physical radars too hence why many countries have a large amount of them to cover the whole country, and further. Stick a mountain, or even just a small hill somewhere and the reception range will be reduced for aircraft “below the horizon”. There’s a reason why military aircraft fly at lowlevel.

A great page for showing the principle of VHF reception is on Neal Arundale’s AIS page where it has a graph showing the principle.

My Mode-S antenna is on the roof of the house and I get a range of about 250 miles for aircraft that are at a high altitude. Out to the east of me, less than a mile away, is a hill of around 300ft which means I tend to lose aircraft descending into Edinburgh for instance when they go through around 15000ft – yet 200 miles away I’m picking up traffic over the North Sea.

My AIS antenna is lower than this. And it is in the loft. I have great reception to the North/Northwest, yet to the Southwest it is dead for me. Why? Well, because the signal from any ships has to not only pass through three houses, it also has to get through the three foot thick, sandstone walls of the house. The signal is wiped out.

My AIS coverage taken from MarineTraffic. Very strong to the North, but poor to the SW

Add to that that I am only a few metres above sea level and it makes my Radio Horizon not very good. You see, taking into consideration Neals data, I quite often struggle to get a small fishing boat which is between me and a large oil tanker that is further away that I am receiving. This is because, more often than not, ships radio masts are at the tallest point on a ship and an oil tankers one will be near on 60 metres above the sea, whilst a fishing boat around 10m. An oil tanker is also likely to have a more powerful transmitter as the ships size means it can carry bigger equipment.

So, where am I going here with relation to the Liman incident?

As previously stated, it has been suggested that Youzar Sif.H had switched off its AIS system. But a simple look at coverage information available on MarineTraffic would show that the Black Sea has some patches that are not covered very well by AIS receivers. I always say this about things like AIS or Mode-S feeds – they are only as good as the information that is fed to them.

The image here shows the coverage from the two main receivers for the area approaching the Bosporus from the Black Sea from this afternoon – 29th May. The receiver to the NW is on a 90m high block of flats and the one at Istanbul is on a two storey building on a hill. They have a great range because of this height. But, nearly the entire area SE of Varna is blank. These receivers do not pick up anything. Now, these coverage maps, like the density ones, can be a little false because they only work because they’ve picked something up, so the darker areas that show a dense level of traffic here, could be lighter at another time due to a quieter day – and vice-versa. But I’ve been looking at these areas frequently since the incident to see if my conclusions are correct, and they have remained pretty much the same. Further north are a few more receivers, but except for one they rarely stretch far into the Black sea – in other words there is a reception black hole for the receivers that feed MarineTraffic and AISLive. It just so happens that Youzar Sif.H travelled through the black-hole on the day of the collision.

This image shows the coverage from the Elena Station in Bulgaria which has fantastic coverage of the Black Sea in this region, but even this has reception black holes, particularly on the Youzar Sif.H route.

The image below shows the reception plots of Youzar Sif.H on the 26/27th of April on AISLive

Whilst the image here shows the reception on the 26/27th of May. This one is in fact worse than the day of the collision! It went near 14 hours without being picked up by any AIS receiver that fed AISLive.

Not only does this happen to Youzar Sif.H, it happens to many other ships that travel the same route.

This is the reason why Youzar Sif.H was not picked up until just before the collision and not because of stupid reasons such as it had switched off its AIS or been jammed by the operations of Liman. In fact, it had its AIS on at all times and other ships within its Radio Horizon would have picked it up, just as it would have picked up the other ships.

Now, the conspiracy theorists will be saying ” Well, hang on, Youzar Sif.H was tracked very well following the incident”. Well yes it was, but there’s a couple of good reasons why. Firstly, the main antennas on Youzar Sif.H are at the back of the ship but it also appears that there is one at the front on the mast. Is this the AIS antenna? Whilst it is hard to see which one it would be, if it is the one at the front this would explain a lot. The average reception distances for the stations is interesting for the day of the incident. The Elena station showed an average of 112nm which actually nearly corresponds to the site of the collision, so this station was covering out to that area. The signal from Youzar Sif.H would fade as it travelled away from the receiver. But after the accident and it was heading back to Midia, the front of the ship would have been facing the receiver which could mean a better signal getting through. The fact that on its journey back to the area this weekend produced the same tracking results, if not worse, than the incident ones shows that Youzar Sif.H has problems with being tracked in certain areas.

The station on the flats at Burgas had an average range of 26nm and would have possibly covered the early part of the voyage too.

And the Istanbul receiver only had an average of 10nm – but again this is roughly where the collision took place, and of course, Youzar Sif.H was head on to the receiver.

At the end of the day, I doubt we’ll ever find out for sure what happened. But I can honestly say that I believe it was a pure accident, and the fact that no AIS data was received from Youzar Sif.H was down to the pure science of a lack of radio reception at the AIS receivers covering the area, rather than the switching off of the systems on the ship.

One thing is for sure though. Those people that insist on churning out information, data and theories need to be sure to get their facts right first; and they need to do some basic research on things that they are commenting on. Otherwise they just make themselves look like complete idiots.

Mini-Circuits and Stamps

I recently received a global email from Mini-Circuits CEO, Harvey Kaylie, informing me of a Holiday Season discount. A copy of the email is below:

To our valued friends and customers,

To say thank you for making 2016 a successful year, we’re pleased to announce a special Holiday Season Discount:
All purchases of any quantity of Mini-Circuits catalog models ordered and shipped from our webstore on minicircuits.com from December 1st through December 31st will receive a 10% discount!

The discount will appear for items in your shopping cart on our webstore checkout page at the time of purchase. Please see our website for terms and conditions. This offer expires on December 31st, so don’t miss out!

From all the members of the Mini-Circuits family to all of you, our customers, we wish you a very happy, healthy holiday season!
Warm regards,

Harvey Kaylie
Founder and CEO
Mini-Circuits

I have checked with the UK supplier and I can confirm that the discount is available outside of the USA. Just order what you want as normal through the Mini-Circuits website.

Some of the components I have bought from Mini-Circuits this year

I bought some leads and components a few months ago and have been impressed with the quality of each item. The service from the UK supplier was excellent, especially as I had to change the order part way through the processing. All the components came from the USA, but the delay was minimal.

If you need some new components then get in there quick for the 10% discount.

 

Stamps of Radio Stations by Continents and Countries

At the end of November the SWLing blog had a post about collecting postage stamps with a connection to radio.

I’m by no means a proper stamp collector but the reason I found the blog of interest was because in August I had actually bought some First Day Covers and a Mint set of stamps commemorating 50 years of the BBC on Ascension Island. I had been stationed on Ascension in the 90’s whilst in the RAF and I spent quite a lot of my days off at English Bay beach which is right next to the transmitter site. Plenty of good memories.

The SWLing blog was about a Word document created by Lennart Weirell of Sweden. He has been able to collate a list of all the stamps that has a connection with Broadcast Radio and turn it into a twenty-four page document. It lists the 125 countries that have produced such stamps and the information includes date of issue, the Michael number, value (at issue) and name of the stamp. There are also tick boxes so that you can mark off whether you have these stamps in your collection.

It doesn’t say this in the document but you can however go one step further than the tick boxes. If you have a scanner, just scan your stamps into a picture folder and then create a link to each relevant picture in the Word document. It’s as simple as highlighting the stamp name for example and then clicking on the Hyperlink button in the Insert tab group of Word (you can also use the Control-K shortcut). Just find the picture folder and the scanned image and link them up. As long as you don’t change the image location, each time you go to the Word document, clicking on the link will open it up.

The Word document is €4, but contact Lennart by email first so that he can send you a PayPal invoice. His email address and further information about the document is available on the image above.

The 50 years of the BBC stamps are available from the Ascension Island Post Office website.

A scan of my First Day Cover “50 years of the BBC on Ascension Island” stamps

TitanSDR Pro demonstration

After receiving quite a few requests on information about the Enablia TitanSDR and it’s capabilities, I decided it would be good a good idea to create a demonstration video that would hopefully show just how good an SDR it is. The video is at the end of this blog.

I think that a lot of people can’t understand just why the two versions are the price they are, especially when it seems that a new dongle SDR is being evolved every day at a ridiculously cheap price. Yes, they are expensive but when you compare the price of these SDR’s to a top end desktop receiver, such as the Icom IC-R8500 for example, then it is fairly comparable.

But you must consider the fact that the Titan is really more than one receiver. The Pro version is 40 receivers, the standard is eight. You can’t record independently using the Icom, you need some additional software or a digital voice recorder plugged in to the receiver; and even then you can only record the one frequency – the Pro can record 40 frequencies, the standard can record eight.

The TitanSDR Pro can monitor up to 40 frequencies at the same time. Here, 10 frequencies are being monitored, mainly Oceanic ones.

Then, you can’t really record any bandwidth to play back using the Icom, but both versions of the Titan can record up to three separate bandwidths. These can then be played back, either through the SDR itself, or on another PC using the supplied USB dongle that carries a second version of the software – and if you did this you could be listening to, or recording, further frequencies or bandwidths. And all these separate bandwidth recordings can, of course, be played back multiple times, with multiple recordings being made within them; or data can be decoded; or signals analysed – what ever you require from an SDR.

This image shows the Titan monitoring 12 frequencies, 6 of which are decoding ALE using PC-ALE. This can take place in the background, while listening to the other frequencies on the SDR.

But, of course, this is just standard for any SDR isn’t it?? But is it?? Can you think of another SDR that has the capability to monitor/record 40 frequencies at once? I can’t.

The nearest SDR I found to the Titan in quality of not only recording capabilities but in quality of filters etc. meant that I would need to buy around 13 SDR’s of this model and spend over €30,000. Yet, just one of this model costs pretty much the same price as the Titan. Now, with that knowledge, the price of the TitanSDR’s really doesn’t seem that bad after all.

Don’t forget, the TitanSDR is a Military spec. SDR, designed originally for agencies to monitor multiple frequencies for analysis and data collecting. It already has top specifications but Enablia are still willing to listen to the users and add requested features if they can. They have already done this with quite a few ideas that myself and other users have suggested.

You’d think that the Titan would be a CPU guzzler wouldn’t you? Well it isn’t. Here the SDR is running 31 frequencies, whilst making multiple decodings using MultiPSK and PC-ALE. The CPU is running at only 27%, and that was it’s max reading.

 

Roland Proesch Radio Monitoring books 2015

Roland Proesch has recently updated his books on Radio monitoring.

Published in the last month or so, the four books are great additions to your bookshelves and priced at 49Euros each plus postage. He does do bundle offers if you’re thinking of buying more than one of the titles.

The titles are:
Technical Handbook for Radio Monitoring HF
Technical Handbook for Radio Monitoring VHF/UHF
Signal Analysis for Radio Monitoring
Frequency Handbook for Radio Monitoring HF

I reviewed the 2013 edition of Radio Monitoring HF in March 2014.

Roland provided me with a PDF of the changes and additions to the books which you can find here:
New in Technical Handbooks

For more information on prices and examples from the books head over to Roland’s website

I will hopefully be reviewing three other radio monitoring books by three different authors in the next month:
Professioneller Kurzwellenfunk by Nils Schiffhauer
Spezial-Frequenzliste 2015/16 by Michael Marten
International Call Sign Handbook by Larry Van Horn

PlaneBaseNG

I promised the owners of PlaneBaseNG that I’d add something about their aviation database to my blog about a year and a half ago, but due to personal issues and renovating my house I never got round to it. As it is though, I’m glad I didn’t because the database has changed so much since then I’d have had to have done blog updates practically every month since.

But, as it’s nearing the two year anniversary of it’s conception I thought now would be the right time.

So what is PlaneBaseNG? In the words of its owners “PlaneBaseNG is a fully featured product that manages all your aircraft sighting logging and reporting needs” and I’m not going to say otherwise. It is a great aircraft database, much better than any others around at the moment. It is simple to use, the search features are great and it has the easiest logging features I’ve seen. And most importantly it’s free – though you can donate money to help with its development if you wish, it’s totally optional.

PlaneBaseNG (or PB from now on) was developed after a few people got fed up with other databases out there. In particular, there was one that hadn’t changed for quite some time. I used this (unnamed) database and can vouch that it was good at first but very quickly went out of date in its development and style. Not only that, despite saying they would listen to their customers and add features where possible, this just never happened. In my opinion, though not proven, I think that the owners of the (unnamed) database used the funds from the subscribers to travel the world planespotting. The initial purchase wasn’t cheap (currently £130), and there were yearly subscription fees for the weekly updates – I mean, they even charged the poor data inputters the yearly subscription fees despite having to spend hours updating the data. Yep, I know this because I was a data inputter for them for a (very) short while. Handily enough all the fixed “books” for trips, created from search features, happened to be of the favourite trip locations of the owners. Requests for user created “books” fell on deaf ears.

I soon realised they weren’t for listening to anyone when I gave them some advice on making the data input easier. There were countless errors in Operator names, or should I say countless different versions of names for the same Operator – Delta Airlines/Delta Air Lines etc. This was because each editor had a crib sheet instead of having a much more useful sub-database containing the definitive list of Operators that could be chosen from a drop down list. It was easy to implement but it wasn’t and I got frustrated – as a user, searches were a nightmare as the data was quite often wrong. So I left editing but carried on with the database as there were no other options out there – except creating your own (which I had done and it was much better than this (unnamed) database, but as a single data-inputter going through Aviation Letter each month was very time consuming and so I had had to give up).

I was pleased to hear, about two years ago, that there was a new database coming out; and I was lucky enough to be one of the early users as I knew a few of the guys involved, some of which had also left the other database. PB changed very quickly in the early days, with almost daily updates to the actual software and features. This has slowed down now but that is because it is features packed, and I don’t know if there’s anything else PB can produce or think of that’s needed. Just some of the features included are:
Search facilities for Reg, Manufacturer, Type, Operator, Mode-S hexcodes, SelCal, Base, ICAO Operator codes
Multiple User creatable Reports
Wordbook (to create a handy needlist when travelling)
Adding photos to records
Flight logs

And much more – full information of all the features are on their website and in the extensive manual (something else the (unnamed) database fell short with, being four to five years out of date when I last saw it).

The database isn’t just for “spotters”, it can be used by anyone that is interested in aviation. For instance the SelCal search is useful to those that listen to HF regularly and need to check on what they’ve possibly heard. The same goes for checking details on Operators or Squadron details – the searches are endless really. Updates to the database occur twice a week, with a full update on a Tuesday and an additional Airliner/Execs update on Fridays. The database itself contains well over a million entries in categories of Airliners, Executive Jets and Propliners, Military (fighter/transports/Helis etc), Helicopters, Russians and GA types – you name it, they’re in there – even gliders. And if there’s something that’s not in there, a quick email and I’m sure it wouldn’t be long before it was.

Now on to PB’s sidekick – PBLink. This feature is for those that use either SBS or PlanePlotter virtual radars. It is a separate download that adds a background link to PB so that when you get an unknown Hexcode appearing on your radar a check is made with the main database and the details filled out in the SQB file for the radar. Before hand I had to use the Gatwick Aviation Societies (GAS) data, but that required access to the internet. The great thing about PBLink is that an on-line connection isn’t needed, making it possible to go fully mobile with your SBS. I tried it out last year at LAX, from the back of my hire-car and it worked perfectly, along with being able to log what I saw. There’s even the possibility to download a fully populated SQB file (overwriting your current one) which means you don’t need PB installed at all. I don’t bother with that as there’s no real point if you use PB as well (plus I use specific flags and file names for these which would get wiped out I think). As it’s linked to your database it also shows whether you’ve seen the aircraft before and if so, where and when.

Again, there’s plenty more details on the website and in the PBLink manual. It’s pointless me saying anymore, I’d only repeat what is in it and probably in not as much detail.

Finally, the last manifestation of PB is PBLite. This is designed for Windows based tablets and is an almost exact copy of the full PB database. One thing that’s great about this software is that if you use the full version on your PC or laptop, you can copy across your logs/sightings to the tablet. And just to add, this also possible if you have a desktop and a laptop – your loggings can be copied between the two as and when.

I like PlaneBaseNG a lot, I use it daily and not just for the spotting side of things. I use it for radio monitoring, and I use it to confirm information when I’m writing my blogs and magazine articles. With over 1000 users already, I’m obviously not the only one that thinks it is a great product.

All I’ll say is, go and take a look at the website for PlaneBaseNG and you’ll see many more features – some I haven’t even tried yet. Meanwhile, over at the (unnamed) database, despite a nice new glitzy website – it’s still the same old database by the look of the screenshots.

NAVTEX

Canon 5D update

Before going any further, just a quick update on the repair to my 5D that I carried out in my last blog

Unfortunately, it only lasted about another 200 shots before the mirror became unstuck. So I decided to purchase a new 5D mk III, but before I did I looked in to how much it would cost to get the current one repaired to either then consider selling on or to give to my girlfriend who is just starting out in photography. I decide to search locally, choosing Glasgow as the nearest biggest place to start. Straight away I found a company called A.J. Johnstone & Co. so I gave them a ring to find out the bad news.

Well, it turns out, all that information I’d previously reported about the cost of repairs was total rubbish. As it’s a known Canon fault the repair is free!! The only cost was for the postage. Well, this was great, no new camera needed. I sent it off the next day by courier adding a note asking to give the sensor a clean; and one of their team rang me the day after that to confirm I’d pay the £38 for the sensor clean plus £10 postage.

Not only did they do the repair and sensor clean, they also replaced the focus screen, updated the firmware and gave the camera a good clean externally. I highly recommend using them if you need to service your camera. The sensor cleaning service is same day with no prior booking required if you’re able to go to their premises. I was without my camera for about 6 days in total, including the postage days.

Their website can be accessed by clicking on the image above.

NAVTEX

With the recent Joint Warrior exercise having taken place here in the UK I thought I’d mention the NAVTEX decoder I use for getting information on where some of the action may be taking place. Why use NAVTEX? Well the Royal Navy, in conjunction with the Queens Harbour Master (Clyde), produce a twice daily warning on Submarine activity off the west coast of Scotland. This is due to a fatal incident in 1990 involving a fishing boat trawler and a dived submarine which unfortunately got snagged up in the trailing net. SUBFACTS, as it is called, is broadcast twice daily on the NAVTEX frequency of 518kHz at 0620 and 1820 UTC and it gives the approximate location of any submarines that are operating within the next 24 hour period. Also included in the broadcast is information on any live firing that is taking place in the danger areas on the coasts and at sea off western Scotland – this is known as GUNFACTS. Further information can be found here

Anyway, back to the software I’ve been using recently. This is the Frisnit NAVTEX Decoder created by Mark Longstaff-Tyrrell and it’s totally free. Not only does it decode NAVTEX messages, if you register the decoder (still free) it means you can upload your receptions to the frisnit server giving them access to anyone. The main aim of this is to provide people at sea with the ability to check NAVTEX messages without the need of having an actual decoder on board. As long as you have access to the internet you can access any uploaded messages. And you don’t need to upload messages yourself either, the messages are freely available to anyone, even if you don’t have the software yourself.

A SUBFACTS message as decoded with frisnit NAVTEX

As you can see from the image above, as well as a raw data view, there’s also a messages view. All the completed messages are stored on your hard-drive giving you the ability to go back through all the messages you have received.

As well as using NAVTEX for getting the submarine information, it’s also a very useful tool for getting accurate weather forecasts, especially if you live right on the coast as I do, and doubly especially if there’s storms brewing out over the Atlantic.

There’s other features available on the frisnit website, so if you’re interested in NAVTEX take a look, and even try the software. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

The Spectrum Monitor article

I’ve recently had another article published in The Spectrum Monitor. The subject of the article is monitoring the Russian Air Force Strategic Bomber networks on CW and USB. It was good fun to write, but also quite complicated as it’s one of those subjects that can be hard to explain. Anyway, I think it has been received well.

The “magazine” is available as a single edition for $3 or why not subscribe for a year for $24 – that’s $2 a month for around 100 pages of great articles. There isn’t another Radio magazine that can offer such great value, especially here in the UK.

DIY Canon EOS 5D Camera fix

Canon Eos5D(mk1) DIY fix

There I was on a harbour tour of Portsmouth, snapping away at the (large) amount of RN ships docked there at the moment, when my 5D made an awful clunking, grating sound and stopped taking images. Looking through the viewfinder gave me nothing but darkness. After a brief panic, I took the lens off and sitting in it was what looked like the shutter mechanism from the camera. Luckily I also had my 50D with me, so I was able to continue with what I was doing, but as soon as the time became available I took another look at the 5D

As it was, it turned out it wasn’t the full mechanism but just the mirror that had come unstuck, so the thought of huge amounts of money flying on to my credit card stopped as I thought it would be a reasonably cheap fix. I did wonder if the previous weeks wet shoot of HMS Duncan may have been the cause. It had been a wet day, but the camera hadn’t got seriously soaked as I protected it. It was, however, also quite humid, so I think the two weather patterns and the clunking process that shutters have to go through combined to unstick the mirror a little. This final shoot was enough to let the mirror lose it’s grip completely

Back home a few days later and I investigated the price of getting the mirror put back on. I was shocked to find that the price for this repair was ridiculous, prices between $250 and $500 were being quoted by people with the same problem in the USA (I couldn’t find a price in the UK). This was crazy, and I seriously thought that at that price I may as well look for another 5D

But then I thought, well I may as well see if a bit of superglue to the back of the mirror will work. So I Googled to see if others had tried this, and they had, and it had worked

So this is this is the process I carried out to make the DIY fix.

1. Obviously, make sure you’re in a clean area, with as little dust as possible

2. On the back of the mirror is a small black piece of thin plastic, take this away. There’s no need to remember or mark what way round it goes as this is obvious by the holes

3. Cut the end off a cotton-bud

Remove the black plastic and cut off the end of a cotton-bud

4. Get the superglue and squeeze some out onto a piece of paper, card or plastic – whatever you have available really. DO NOT squeeze superglue directly onto the small pads on the back of the mirror, we all know that superglue has a mind of its own and is hard to control in small amounts

5. Take the cut end of the cotton-bud, scoop up a small amount of glue and dab it onto one of the small pads on the mirror – you don’t need too much. Repeat this for the other three pads, but do it fairly quickly before the glue can dry

6. Return the black plastic to back of the mirror

7. Look at the shutter mechanism of the 5D and note the correct way round the mirror should go by the position of the indents for the pads

8. Gently place the mirror on the shutter mechanism, applying only a small amount of pressure

Mirror fixed back in place – now let the glue dry followed by a clean

9. Close up the camera with the lens cap and leave it for a few hours to dry properly

10. After a few hours, test to make sure the camera works correctly and the mirror stays in place

11. Give the mirror a clean as its bound to have some fingerprints on it

This took me about 5 minutes, and cost the price of one cotton bud and a tube of superglue – both of which I had already

Cross Country Wireless HF/VHF/UHF Multicoupler

With the total rebuild of the radio-shack looming I’d been investigating on a Multicoupler for my VHF/UHF radios. My homebuilt antenna connected to my Bearcat UBC-800XLT is far better than the bought Vertical Antenna that is connected to my Icom IC-R8500 so I wanted to remove the vertical antenna (using the co-ax for a homebuilt AIS antenna I’ve been testing in a different location) and use the Bearcat antenna on multiple radios

I’d found a few Multicouplers that suited, but after a discussion on MilCom about different ones, and a recommendation on one of my choices, I decided to go for the Cross Country Wireless HF/VHF/UHF Multicoupler

I wasn’t the only one as I know at least one other member of MilCom made the same choice

There was a slight delay in delivery as Chris, the owner of CCW, was away on holiday. But as the units are made to order this wasn’t a problem to me at all

When the Multicoupler arrived I put it to use immediately and was very pleased with the results. It does have to be powered by a 12V adaptor and I had one of these spare, it can go down to 7V I believe, but either way power is required or you’ll get nothing. I ran the Multicoupler with the two radios, and even added my UBC-3500XLT to it too, with no loss at all. Very happy indeed.

However, a problem did arise. For some reason, reception would drop off over time. A quick chat with Chris bought about the probability that it was the power unit as he tests everything before sending out. Using another power supply the problem was fixed – initially. After a few days the same happened again, with great reception at first but then a drop. The power supplies I used were of the same make, so I queried it with Chris and he told me of a supply they have available that doesn’t seem to have any problems at all. So I purchased this too, and a few days later it arrived

Since then I’ve had no problems at all, and I am very pleased with it. I have only used it for VHF/UHF, not HF, so I can’t give any critique on its performance in this area

Temporary placement of the Multicoupler for testing

The HF/VHF/UHF Multicoupler is priced at £119.95 plus shipping (£8 in the UK I believe)
The 12V power supply is £20 including postage to the UK

Further details and specifications are available on the CCW website

The Spectrum Monitor articles and the MilCom Forum

I’m pleased to say that I’ve had two articles published in the July edition of e-Mag The Spectrum Monitor

The first article is about the Joint Warrior exercise that took place in March/April this year, and how and what to listen out for when these exercises take place twice a year in the UK. I wasn’t expecting this article to be published until September so this was an added bonus this month

The second article is about how I got into listening to Air Traffic Control and how this then took me down the road to becoming an Air Traffic Controller, an aviation/military photographer and writer, and into monitoring the radios in general – in particular HF

As well as the articles, there’s about 11 photos of mine included alongside. I also provided the cover image.

The magazine is available either to buy individually at $3 each or by subscription for $24 for one year. Either way the magazine is well worth the money

MilCom Forum

About a month ago now, a new forum was created for the Military Monitoring enthusiast – MilCom

The main aim of the forum is bring together those of us that are interested in monitoring Military Communications, be it VHF/UHF, HF, CW, data, SATCOM etc. The posting of radio logs is actively encouraged. In just a month the membership has passed 110 with posts already at 850+; and this is without any real advertising of the forum. One thing you’ll notice if you head over, is that it isn’t just about Aviation. The forum covers all areas of Military Communications – Aviation, Maritime and Land (Space too if you really want to)

As well as the forum area there is a database section which contains information on Military Callsigns, VHF/UHF frequencies, HF frequencies and other things such as common abbreviations and terms used by the Military. There’s also an interactive map. These databases are updated almost daily by a team of us, and can also have anything missing submitted to the team for addition once confirmed. The databases are continually growing, are more accurate than any printed publication (which is generally out of date the day of printing) and more importantly – FREE

The only proviso to this data being available is that members participate in the forum and do not just “lurk”. The membership is continually monitored by the team and trimmed if necessary. That being said, we are a friendly group so don’t let the rules put you off – instead join up and participate.