Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Can You ID This Digital Transmission?

Kurt, KD7JYK, recently posted this to the Milcom listserv:

"Four years ago I heard an unusual data signal on 222.000 MHz FM. I was in the basement of a stucco house using an HT with 5" whip (Marantz Japan (Standard) C-228a 220 MHz HT, which defaulted to 220 MHz after years of storage), and due to my location and fading of the signal assumed it was a satellite. I asked on a satellite list at the time and provided a recording to a few people, none could ID it. A friend provided a nearly identical recording this morning with the following note:

"The attached sounds were recorded from a scanner radio, monitoring milair frequencies, during an air exercise near Rachel, Nevada. It's not PSK and I've never heard anything like it before. Can you tell me what it is? Message content, perhaps?"

The signal is a rapid series of tone all over the audio spectrum. In my recording, the tones were slower and static could be heard between them, in my friends recording, they are much faster with little time between them. I would describe it as old video game sound effects."

Kurt has forwarded a digital audio recording (click here) the digital transmission he recorded on 222 MHz and I have posted it to my audio boo account, link above and in the audio reference section of this blog.

Kurt further wrote in his email to me: "OK, lots of speculation here from UFOs to Jamming to data/telemetry, to a form of encryption created by Harris. The "data rate" changes, some recordings have fast tones, some slow. Two frequencies I found are 238.550 and 317.500 MHz near Rachel Nevada."

So readers, anyone want to take a stab at what Kurt and friend has heard? Email to the address in the masthead.