8935 encryption oddity

[brandon]

I monitored some odd sounding beeps/scrambled voice on 8935 kHz in LSB mode this evening.
Following the encoded message, a male voice could be heard reading letters phonetically.

Audio: http://bit.ly/brT5Oc

 

[brandon]

FYI this net is active again 0602z

 

[SCPD]

Sounds like a Sitor-A marker... I don't think it's encryption.

 

[Fast1eddie]

Interesting! Thank you for the clip, although I'll have to listen to it again it appears the male's voice has a Hispanic tone to it. Phonetics sound somewhat similar to EAM traffic, but the message length is way too short to qualify as a EAM. Admittedly, it has been years since my military service; perhaps things have changed some.

Am sitting on this now, will give it 24 hours or so and see what I hear. FYI, just bought a MFJ amplified speaker, really makes a huge difference on HF. Went so many years without one...

Good DX,

Ed

 

[brandon]

Tonight I will upload a better quality audio clip that is easier to hear the scrambled voice.
I have been told this is possibly a tuna fleet in the Pacific.

 

[Hooligan]

I heard what might be SITOR, then I did hear the secure voice. Very weak & hard to make out but my initial thought was it sounds like the old Rockwell-Collins VP-100 or maybe even old PARKHILL-class encryptors. I'm looking forward to hearing a stronger sample.

 

[brandon]

Okay as promised here is another sample.
Unfortunately there was a little QRM from another station, but it should be easier to hear the scrambled speech in this clip.
8935_Voice_Scrambler.mp3

 

[ridgescan]

I listen to Military nets on 4405,4007,4574,4026.90etc and they will break into this encryption in the midst of voice comms then come back to free the net. Same?

 

[SCPD]

I think what may be confusing it that you have two signals there. I think the SITOR traffic is separate from the voice traffic.

 

[SCPD]

I heard something just now @ 0210z (8/13) and it sounded like a similar transmission. It sounds like someone is transmitting off freq but it's not...

It was very weak here... perhaps S2-S3.

 

[brandon]

I setup on this freq again and around 0600z they were active. This tends to be the time to monitor. The recording has been updated and contains a good sample of encoded speech and clear comms at the end. Based on the subject matter of their communications I think we can eliminate them as being military

 

[Hooligan]

I setup on this freq again and around 0600z they were active. This tends to be the time to monitor. The recording has been updated and contains a good sample of encoded speech and clear comms at the end. Based on the subject matter of their communications I think we can eliminate them as being military

Oh my... Yeah, I think we can eliminate that as being any sort of officially-sanctioned net. The BS'ing & the use of "OK" instead of "Over" do make me think it's a fishermen net, but "talk to you tomorrow" makes it seem like they're not some 24/7 fishing fleet.

It's a little strange how they drop out of secure-voice & finish up the conversation in the clear.

 

[SCPD]

Very interesting....Are we thinking that the encryption is on the individual transmissions or is it being generated from some sort of a re-brodcasting station. The data like bursts seem to have the same modulation level from one transmission to the other almost like it is being generated from a single source.