Waldo325mvfd
Member
does any one know what actually would happen if a eam was passed off scedual? and what are the frequencies? 8)
EAM
- Thread starter Waldo325mvfd
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If it was what?
ka3jjz
Wiki Admin Emeritus
Waldo325mvfd said:
The answer to the first question is no, I'm sure; if we did, we wouldn't be able to say
The 2nd question can be answered by looking at the last message in the thread about 8992 khz; it refers to a link on the WUN site.
73s Mike
nexus
Member
ka3jjz
Wiki Admin Emeritus
nexus said:
Some of those freqs are actually used more by ALE signalling than voice, and it's unlikely you will hear many EAMs on them, particularly 9025. The list on the WUN article is a bit better on this....73s Mike
Recommend Alert 1, Recommend Alert 1........ :lol:
message is authentic
message is authentic
Waldo325mvfd
Member
I think i heard a real type one 4 days ago "Sky king, Sky king do not answer." and was repeated 5 or 6 times. I said "oh crap,thats it. were dead." man i tell u info was pooring out for at least .5 hours. :shock:
Waldo325mvfd
Member
oh yea does any one know how to decode them?
nexus
Member
Waldo325mvfd said:
we're not dead
they do that just about every day. it's routine...
and to the other person, no they can't be decoded. you'd have to have access to those sealed cards which are locked in safes that carry the orders.
n4voxgill
Silent Key
sky king messages very common. I have been hearing them for more than 10 years.
KC4ZEX
Member
They have been around for many years. When i started in 1968 they were there. About the biggest change is yrs ago most of the other stations were manned all the time. Now most are remotes controlled from the main console at Andrews.
Anyone know what happened to wunclub.com. I was going to post a link to this question but could not find the site. Here is what I have and may help the subject in question. I had made this an attachment but seemed not to work. Note- this is not my publication.
From "Strategic Command, Control, and Communication - Alternative
Approaches For Modernization"; John J Hare, Richard H. Davison, and Peter
Tarpgaars; Congressional Budget Office (CBO); October 1981; Page 44:
"EAM: Though generally referring to a category of urgent messages from
commanders to deployed forces, EAM is often used as a short-hand
expression for a specially coded nuclear attack directive."
Page 12:
"....Proper coding and formatting of EAMs is of crucial importance,
since nuclear forces are prepared to execute any messages they receive
that meet rigid specifications. In addition to specific instructions
contained in an EAM, proper coding provides the means by which a
commander expresses his authority to release nuclear weapons and an
officer controlling those weapons verifies that authority."
End quotes.
From the May 1995 Monitoring Times; Utility World column by Larry Van
Horn; page 33; section titled "What are EAMs?":
" Several issues ago (Dec 94) we talked about the U.S. military's
Emergency Action Messages (EAM) broadcast. Here is an interesting
explanation, taken from a U.S. Air Force manual, of what an EAM is.
"Joint Chiefs of Staff Emergency Action Messages (EAMs) contain key
instructions or information from high level authority and have
predetermined formats (pro forma). Such messages are transmitted
by various communications systems and normally carry FLASH
precedence. They are vital messages of an extremely time-sensitive
nature, and rapid processing is mandatory to obtain the fast
reaction required by their content. Usage and handling procedures
are of the highest classification and have been issued by the JCS
only to those who have a need to know." (AFM-01-1-18, sub 3;
amended 01 Jan 1990)."
End quotes.
From a shortwave utility hobbyist's standpoint what are they? Park
your HF receiver (set to upper side band mode) on 15016.0 KHz, 13200.0 KHz,
11244.0 KHz, 11175.0 KHz (the most productive for day to day monitoring of
the U.S. military on HF), 8992.0 KHz, 6739.0 Khz (ideal for monitoring
during North American nights), 6712.0 KHz or 4724.0 Khz. Eventually you'll
hear ground stations of the USAF's GHFS (led by ANDREWS or OFFUTT or
MCCLELLAN, identified in the clear since 1992) broadcast one or more EAMs -
a six-character alpha-numeric string (known as the "preamble") read
phonetically, repeated three times, then followed by the same 6-character
string either by itself (as the entire message) or concatenated with
additional alpha-numeric characters to produce alpha-numeric strings that
total 30 characters (the most common length; 26-characters prior to 01 Oct
1998) or 20 characters or strings with character-counts that can extend into
the hundreds of characters (with the available character set universe
consisting of all 26-characters of the English alphabet plus the numerals
two, three, four, five, six and seven - with extremely rare exceptions there
are no zeros, ones, eights or nines heard in these strings). [Eventually
you might discover that this HF EAM activity is also heard on a group of HF
frequencies that are known as the ZULU frequencies utilized by communication
assets (both airborne and ground based) of the JCS and U.S. Strategic
Command (see Graham Tanner's frequency designator column in any recent WUN
newsletter for the known frequencies) and on HF frequencies utilized by the
U.S. Navy]. This activity is heard daily, 7 days a week, 365 days a year,
year after year.
A second group of coded messages heard on the GHFS (and the ones that
produce the most comments from new listeners because of the "SKYKING do not
answer" nature of the broadcasts) are the so-called FOXTROT broadcasts.
These are heard only on the GHFS frequencies listed in the previous
paragraph and take the form of the GHFS operator broadcasting a message that
states "SKYKING, SKYKING. Do not answer. [3-element alpha-numeric group]
[minutestamp] [time dependent two-character authenticator]" and repeated
once. These transmissions appear to be initiated by any of the GHFS ground
stations except ASCENSION and HICKAM, with the initiating ground station
prefacing the broadcast with a codeword that can consist of DECENT (or
DESCENT), ENLIST, FAIRLY, EYESTRAIN (or sounds as), DEFROSTER, "ANY STATION"
and maybe one more codeword recently reported. The codeword appears to
determine which other GHFS ground stations are to "echo" the transmission.
As an example the DECENT transmission appears to apply only to CONUS
stations while all the others appear to apply (with an occasional exception)
to non-CONUS stations that fall outside an arc from Guam to Japan to Alaska
to Greenland to the UK to the Azores. These coded messages are said to be
*only* for the positive control of ACC/AMC airborne forces detailed to the
U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM). These messages appear to have higher
priority on the GHFS voice circuits than do the EAM transmissions as an EAM
transmission will be terminated in midstring in order to immediately
transmit these "SKYKING" DNA broadcasts.
Further detailed information can be found from the following sources:
Hobby sources:
1. Ary Boender's "Numbers & Oddities" column in the July 1995 (FOXTROT
broadcasts) and August 1995 ("EAMs") WUN Newsletters (both newsletters
are now "archived" at the WUN web site to save drive space -
wunv1n7.zip and wunv1n8.zip) - a short overview of how these broadcasts
0manifest themselves on various HF frequencies.
2. The December 1994 issue of Monitoring Times containing the "Utility
World" column of Larry Van Horn, titled "US Air Force Global High
Frequency (HF) System." A concise overview of the GHFS, and the
traffic contained on the GHFS.
The September 1995 issue of Monitoring Times containing the "Utility
World" column of Larry Van Horn, titled "What's the meaning behind the
messages." An overview of the "message" traffic heard on the GHFS and
the NIGHTWATCH net.
3. "The Aeronautical Communications Handbook - HF Edition" by Robert E.
Evans; 1989 (and out of print, I believe); pages 7.11-7.13. Written
while the Strategic Air Command was still in existence, so most of the
information is out of date in it's details, but apparently not in it's
overview of the EAMs.
"Academic" sources:
There are no known public sources for detailed descriptions of these
strings, but there are a number of books and papers published that cover
this topic in broad strokes (and, which I suspect are in many ways greatly
out of date - I've found nothing that covers the post 1992 strategic world
in a way that is as detailed as they cover the pre 1992 world. It may be
too early to do so, as it is probably still in transition). Some examples
follow:
1. "The Logic of Accidental Nuclear War" by Bruce G. Blair; The Brookings
Institution; 1993 (still in print); ISBN 0-8157-0983-8 (paper). There
are numerous additional sources listed within the extensive "notes"
section of this book. The notes section also contains detailed
information that covers the uses of these messages.
2. "Strategic Command and Control - Redefining the Nuclear Threat by
Bruce G. Blair; The Brookings Institution; 1985 (still in print as of
the middle of 1996); ISBN 0-8157-0982-X (hardbound). Much of this
information covers what is now the foundation for today's strategic
world, but I suspect that many of the specific details covered in the
book are now greatly altered, maybe beyond recognition (such as the
integration of the USN into much of the then SAC-centric activity in
his book.)
3. "Global Zero Alert for Nuclear Forces" by Bruce G. Blair; The
Brookings Institution; 1995 (May or so, and still in print); ISBN
0-8157-0941-2. The only "book" (it's actually an "occasional paper"
of 108 pages) in this group that can be said to be up-to-date in the
post 1992 strategic world. On EAMs, in particular see pages 59-60.
4. "Guarding the Guardians: Civilian Control of Nuclear Weapons in the
United States" by Peter Douglas Feaver; Cornell University Press; 1992
(out of print unfortunately). Mostly covers PAL (Permissive Action
Link) locks but has an overview on EAMs throughout the book.
6. "Dark Sun - The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb" by Richard Rhodes; Simon
and Schuster; 1995 (still in print); ISBN 0-684-80400-X. Page 573:
"..SAC routinely transmitted DefCon increases as unclassified messages
until 1972." Question: what happened after 1972? - "SAC routinely
transmitted DefCon increases as classified messages"?
5. The 10 May 1976 issue of "Aviation Week and Space Technology", devoted
almost entirely to the Strategic Air Command. Written during the
"Alpha Net" days of OFFUTT/BARKSDALE/WESTOVER/MARCH but has
information that might still apply in some aspects 20 years later
(probably modified.)
6. The Winter 1996 (Volume 27) issue of "World Air Power Journal" devoted
to the B-52H with a long article beginning on page 54 written by Robert
F. Dorr and Brian C. Rogers. See page 89 for a description of the
receipt and authentication of an emergency war order onboard an
airborne B-52H.
Fiction
1. "The Hunt for Red October" by Tom Clancy; Naval Institute Press; 1984
(still in print); ISBN 0-87021-285-0. Pages 65-66 (hardcover) for EAM
information; and page 68 (hardcover) for "traffic analysis" fans.
2. "Arc Light" by Eric L. Harry; Simon and Schuster (his editor was also
Rhodes' editor on "Dark Sun"); 1994 (Aug); ISBN 0-671-88048-9. The
author gets to engage the Midnight Express (see the "Logic..." book)
and run his SIOP, in a probable pre-92 way though.
02 September 1998
Jeff Haverlah
jehaverlah@pdq.net
From "Strategic Command, Control, and Communication - Alternative
Approaches For Modernization"; John J Hare, Richard H. Davison, and Peter
Tarpgaars; Congressional Budget Office (CBO); October 1981; Page 44:
"EAM: Though generally referring to a category of urgent messages from
commanders to deployed forces, EAM is often used as a short-hand
expression for a specially coded nuclear attack directive."
Page 12:
"....Proper coding and formatting of EAMs is of crucial importance,
since nuclear forces are prepared to execute any messages they receive
that meet rigid specifications. In addition to specific instructions
contained in an EAM, proper coding provides the means by which a
commander expresses his authority to release nuclear weapons and an
officer controlling those weapons verifies that authority."
End quotes.
From the May 1995 Monitoring Times; Utility World column by Larry Van
Horn; page 33; section titled "What are EAMs?":
" Several issues ago (Dec 94) we talked about the U.S. military's
Emergency Action Messages (EAM) broadcast. Here is an interesting
explanation, taken from a U.S. Air Force manual, of what an EAM is.
"Joint Chiefs of Staff Emergency Action Messages (EAMs) contain key
instructions or information from high level authority and have
predetermined formats (pro forma). Such messages are transmitted
by various communications systems and normally carry FLASH
precedence. They are vital messages of an extremely time-sensitive
nature, and rapid processing is mandatory to obtain the fast
reaction required by their content. Usage and handling procedures
are of the highest classification and have been issued by the JCS
only to those who have a need to know." (AFM-01-1-18, sub 3;
amended 01 Jan 1990)."
End quotes.
From a shortwave utility hobbyist's standpoint what are they? Park
your HF receiver (set to upper side band mode) on 15016.0 KHz, 13200.0 KHz,
11244.0 KHz, 11175.0 KHz (the most productive for day to day monitoring of
the U.S. military on HF), 8992.0 KHz, 6739.0 Khz (ideal for monitoring
during North American nights), 6712.0 KHz or 4724.0 Khz. Eventually you'll
hear ground stations of the USAF's GHFS (led by ANDREWS or OFFUTT or
MCCLELLAN, identified in the clear since 1992) broadcast one or more EAMs -
a six-character alpha-numeric string (known as the "preamble") read
phonetically, repeated three times, then followed by the same 6-character
string either by itself (as the entire message) or concatenated with
additional alpha-numeric characters to produce alpha-numeric strings that
total 30 characters (the most common length; 26-characters prior to 01 Oct
1998) or 20 characters or strings with character-counts that can extend into
the hundreds of characters (with the available character set universe
consisting of all 26-characters of the English alphabet plus the numerals
two, three, four, five, six and seven - with extremely rare exceptions there
are no zeros, ones, eights or nines heard in these strings). [Eventually
you might discover that this HF EAM activity is also heard on a group of HF
frequencies that are known as the ZULU frequencies utilized by communication
assets (both airborne and ground based) of the JCS and U.S. Strategic
Command (see Graham Tanner's frequency designator column in any recent WUN
newsletter for the known frequencies) and on HF frequencies utilized by the
U.S. Navy]. This activity is heard daily, 7 days a week, 365 days a year,
year after year.
A second group of coded messages heard on the GHFS (and the ones that
produce the most comments from new listeners because of the "SKYKING do not
answer" nature of the broadcasts) are the so-called FOXTROT broadcasts.
These are heard only on the GHFS frequencies listed in the previous
paragraph and take the form of the GHFS operator broadcasting a message that
states "SKYKING, SKYKING. Do not answer. [3-element alpha-numeric group]
[minutestamp] [time dependent two-character authenticator]" and repeated
once. These transmissions appear to be initiated by any of the GHFS ground
stations except ASCENSION and HICKAM, with the initiating ground station
prefacing the broadcast with a codeword that can consist of DECENT (or
DESCENT), ENLIST, FAIRLY, EYESTRAIN (or sounds as), DEFROSTER, "ANY STATION"
and maybe one more codeword recently reported. The codeword appears to
determine which other GHFS ground stations are to "echo" the transmission.
As an example the DECENT transmission appears to apply only to CONUS
stations while all the others appear to apply (with an occasional exception)
to non-CONUS stations that fall outside an arc from Guam to Japan to Alaska
to Greenland to the UK to the Azores. These coded messages are said to be
*only* for the positive control of ACC/AMC airborne forces detailed to the
U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM). These messages appear to have higher
priority on the GHFS voice circuits than do the EAM transmissions as an EAM
transmission will be terminated in midstring in order to immediately
transmit these "SKYKING" DNA broadcasts.
Further detailed information can be found from the following sources:
Hobby sources:
1. Ary Boender's "Numbers & Oddities" column in the July 1995 (FOXTROT
broadcasts) and August 1995 ("EAMs") WUN Newsletters (both newsletters
are now "archived" at the WUN web site to save drive space -
wunv1n7.zip and wunv1n8.zip) - a short overview of how these broadcasts
0manifest themselves on various HF frequencies.
2. The December 1994 issue of Monitoring Times containing the "Utility
World" column of Larry Van Horn, titled "US Air Force Global High
Frequency (HF) System." A concise overview of the GHFS, and the
traffic contained on the GHFS.
The September 1995 issue of Monitoring Times containing the "Utility
World" column of Larry Van Horn, titled "What's the meaning behind the
messages." An overview of the "message" traffic heard on the GHFS and
the NIGHTWATCH net.
3. "The Aeronautical Communications Handbook - HF Edition" by Robert E.
Evans; 1989 (and out of print, I believe); pages 7.11-7.13. Written
while the Strategic Air Command was still in existence, so most of the
information is out of date in it's details, but apparently not in it's
overview of the EAMs.
"Academic" sources:
There are no known public sources for detailed descriptions of these
strings, but there are a number of books and papers published that cover
this topic in broad strokes (and, which I suspect are in many ways greatly
out of date - I've found nothing that covers the post 1992 strategic world
in a way that is as detailed as they cover the pre 1992 world. It may be
too early to do so, as it is probably still in transition). Some examples
follow:
1. "The Logic of Accidental Nuclear War" by Bruce G. Blair; The Brookings
Institution; 1993 (still in print); ISBN 0-8157-0983-8 (paper). There
are numerous additional sources listed within the extensive "notes"
section of this book. The notes section also contains detailed
information that covers the uses of these messages.
2. "Strategic Command and Control - Redefining the Nuclear Threat by
Bruce G. Blair; The Brookings Institution; 1985 (still in print as of
the middle of 1996); ISBN 0-8157-0982-X (hardbound). Much of this
information covers what is now the foundation for today's strategic
world, but I suspect that many of the specific details covered in the
book are now greatly altered, maybe beyond recognition (such as the
integration of the USN into much of the then SAC-centric activity in
his book.)
3. "Global Zero Alert for Nuclear Forces" by Bruce G. Blair; The
Brookings Institution; 1995 (May or so, and still in print); ISBN
0-8157-0941-2. The only "book" (it's actually an "occasional paper"
of 108 pages) in this group that can be said to be up-to-date in the
post 1992 strategic world. On EAMs, in particular see pages 59-60.
4. "Guarding the Guardians: Civilian Control of Nuclear Weapons in the
United States" by Peter Douglas Feaver; Cornell University Press; 1992
(out of print unfortunately). Mostly covers PAL (Permissive Action
Link) locks but has an overview on EAMs throughout the book.
6. "Dark Sun - The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb" by Richard Rhodes; Simon
and Schuster; 1995 (still in print); ISBN 0-684-80400-X. Page 573:
"..SAC routinely transmitted DefCon increases as unclassified messages
until 1972." Question: what happened after 1972? - "SAC routinely
transmitted DefCon increases as classified messages"?
5. The 10 May 1976 issue of "Aviation Week and Space Technology", devoted
almost entirely to the Strategic Air Command. Written during the
"Alpha Net" days of OFFUTT/BARKSDALE/WESTOVER/MARCH but has
information that might still apply in some aspects 20 years later
(probably modified.)
6. The Winter 1996 (Volume 27) issue of "World Air Power Journal" devoted
to the B-52H with a long article beginning on page 54 written by Robert
F. Dorr and Brian C. Rogers. See page 89 for a description of the
receipt and authentication of an emergency war order onboard an
airborne B-52H.
Fiction
1. "The Hunt for Red October" by Tom Clancy; Naval Institute Press; 1984
(still in print); ISBN 0-87021-285-0. Pages 65-66 (hardcover) for EAM
information; and page 68 (hardcover) for "traffic analysis" fans.
2. "Arc Light" by Eric L. Harry; Simon and Schuster (his editor was also
Rhodes' editor on "Dark Sun"); 1994 (Aug); ISBN 0-671-88048-9. The
author gets to engage the Midnight Express (see the "Logic..." book)
and run his SIOP, in a probable pre-92 way though.
02 September 1998
Jeff Haverlah
jehaverlah@pdq.net
Waldo325mvfd
Member
hay thats pretty cool.
Your welcome!Waldo325mvfd said:
Then the entire nation would step out of their houses, businesss and cars and bend their head's between their leg's and kiss their ass's GOOD BYE! LOLWaldo325mvfd said:
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
:shock: We came close to doing this many times.:shock:
Ass is not profanity (definetion= Abusive, vulgar, or irreverent language.) This is reverent.
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