UVB76 "The Buzzer" But NOT on 4625!

[DXerPaulAK]

After 4 years in Alaska, 1 1/2 in Galena and currently nearly 2 1/2 in McGrath, I finally logged UVB76 "The Buzzer" but not on 4625khz and no one in the DX/hobby community I spoke to knew of or heard of The buzzer anywhere else...

However , Jan 29th I logged "The Buzzer" on 9705khz! At 2125UTC, I tuned across the dial and had a decent signal from Vatican Radio in Portuguese, but there was this "noise" under it I didn't initially recognize.

It took me a minute to make out that it wasnt any digital data, weather Fax, etc and when I pulled up someones youtube stream, what I had on 9705 was a perfect match to 4625. After 3 minutes and 10 seconds, the Vatican program signs off and The Buzzer is in the clear.

Here's the audio:

The Buzzer 9705kHz Sun Jan 29, 2023 2125UTC.mp3

 

[northwoods]

Thank you Paul and now the hunt starts for your hits. I hit KENI 650 AM from Anchoage Alaska newstalk 50.000 watts on a Sunday evning i beleave last Fall into North Eastern Wisconsin. Around 4 p.m. Clear I.D. A coupe of hours before WSM 650 would have dominated again. Came and gone like the wind. Ill never hit KNEI 650 am again. 3.500 mile pull. That was a blessed Sunday. Called for 5 days the number to the radio studio line office and would not connect. No connection availble. No QSL card. Area code 907. Love western long haul..

 

[northwoods]

Bless you for your radio reports from Alaska. Thank You.

 

[Boombox]

Very strange sounding.

I wonder what sort of transmission it is -- some digital mode? FSK mode? I imagine being as close to Russia as you are, there are a lot of signals from there to be heard (providing propagation favors the polar route). The buzzer in your reception sounds a bit different from the live one on YT, different pitch, different length to the buzzes, but the buzzing quality sounds identical. Maybe they've changed the length of the buzzes and mode for 9705 khz.

Maybe you've logged a new Russian military channel marker, new because of the war?

Here's the live stream of the 4625 khz one I found.:

 

[Token]

After 4 years in Alaska, 1 1/2 in Galena and currently nearly 2 1/2 in McGrath, I finally logged UVB76 "The Buzzer" but not on 4625khz and no one in the DX/hobby community I spoke to knew of or heard of The buzzer anywhere else...

However , Jan 29th I logged "The Buzzer" on 9705khz! At 2125UTC, I tuned across the dial and had a decent signal from Vatican Radio in Portuguese, but there was this "noise" under it I didn't initially recognize.

It took me a minute to make out that it wasnt any digital data, weather Fax, etc and when I pulled up someones youtube stream, what I had on 9705 was a perfect match to 4625. After 3 minutes and 10 seconds, the Vatican program signs off and The Buzzer is in the clear.

Here's the audio:

The Buzzer 9705kHz Sun Jan 29, 2023 2125UTC.mp3

Not the Buzzer, both timing and audio tones are not right.

This really sounds like a radar to me. However, you recorded the audio in AM mode, so it is hard to be sure. For future reference, with an unknown signal like this try a couple different receiver modes in a recording, say AM and USB. Also try very wide filter settings if you have them, to capture as much of the signal as possible. Each mode can reveal different things. For example, in USB mode we can tell if the signal is FMCW or FMOP, either of which would confirm radar.

T!

 

[DXerPaulAK]

Not the Buzzer, both timing and audio tones are not right.

This really sounds like a radar to me. However, you recorded the audio in AM mode, so it is hard to be sure. For future reference, with an unknown signal like this try a couple different receiver modes in a recording, say AM and USB. Also try very wide filter settings if you have them, to capture as much of the signal as possible. Each mode can reveal different things. For example, in USB mode we can tell if the signal is FMCW or FMOP, either of which would confirm radar.

T!

Sounds exactly like the buzzer to me, i had a stream up of UVB 76 and the audio was the same.

 

[Token]

Sounds exactly like the buzzer to me, i had a stream up of UVB 76 and the audio was the same.

The problem is that while they sound similar, even very similar, they are measurably different.


I have a recording of the Buzzer on 4625 kHz from the same night, although slightly different time, about 1.5 hours later than your recording. I compared the two sounds, captured spectrogram images of the audio from each, and measured the pitch of the tones.


In your audio recording the pitch of the tones is about 83 Hz. In my recording of the 4625 kHz Buzzer the same night it is about 104 Hz. The 83 Hz audio pitch in your example is what made me think "radar" might be a possibility, there is a Chinese radar that uses the same 83.x Hz PRF, and JORN has also used a PRF similar to that. But without seeing more bandwidth or a different RX mode there is no way to know if that was it.


Also, the duration of the tones is longer in your recording than in the 4625 kHz Buzzer.


The below image contains a spectrogram of each. The upper half of the image is your recording of 9705 kHz, the bottom half of the image is my 4625 kHz recording from the same night, about an hour later. All time scales and bandwidth settings are the same between both samples. The sample width in both cases is 16 seconds. You can see that in that 16 second sample time your example issues 4 bursts, while the Buzzer yields 6 in the same time. Also, the length of each of the bursts on 9705 kHz is visibly longer than the ones on 4625 kHz.

I did notice that the tone pitch (104 Hz) of 4625 kHz was about 125% of what your (83 Hz) 9705 kHz example was. Could your example be the Buzzer running at about 0.8 speed? It has slowed down and sped up in the past. So I took my 4625 kHz example into an audio program and slowed it down until I got 83 Hz tones. But the length of the bursts was still not right to match your recording.


I really think this probably was not the Buzzer.



T!