
Radio hams do battle with 'Russian Woodpecker' (1982) - dmazin
http://www.qsl.net/n1irz/woodpeck.html
======
femto
In theory, it should have been possible for the Hams to modulate the their
transmissions, to write an expletive on the tracking screen of the Russian
radar. In practise, it probably would have been too big a challenge with
1980's home based technology, as an HF transmitter that could accurately
generate arbitrary waveforms was bleeding edge tech. Nice to dream about
though.

I used to work in the Jindalee OTHR facility back in the woodpecker days. I've
memories of sitting in the control room, and being given a tour of the
airwaves by one of the senior techs, who was also a ham. The tour included
listening on on the various HF radars that we could find, including the
woodpecker, discussing each system as we went. By the nature of the project, a
lot of the technical people had an interest in ham radio, so they looked out
for the ham bands. The tech who gave me the tour used to occasionally have a
bit of fun by plugging his ham rig into the main transmitter (lots of power,
with beamforming).

The other cool bit of technology was the "frequency management system", which
was a mini HF radar, used to map the ionosphere in real time. It was
fascinating to watch the dynamics of the various ionospheric layers on the
screens.

------
late2part
_Officially, the Soviets don 't even admit the signal is theirs._

Just like that superbowl ring.

[http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/eye-on-
football/22429359/patrio...](http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/eye-on-
football/22429359/patriots-owner-robert-kraft-vladimir-putin-stole-my-super-
bowl-ring)

~~~
13hours
"It would be in the interest of US-Soviet relations" \- in 2005?!

~~~
sanoli
Why not? Better not start some stuff with Russia just because of some ring. I
mean, it's Putin, I can see him throwing some childish fit over a ring he
wanted to have. It's just too bad for russians.

edit: forgot to say it's the first time I heard of the story, and it is pretty
'wtf' to me.

~~~
iak8god
The Soviet Union ceased to exist in 1991.

------
fapjacks
If this kind of thing interests you, drop by #priyom on Freenode! We've got
current schedules of active number stations and loads of info about weird
transmissions.

~~~
grendelt
Also, check out WebSDR.org to listen to HF receivers around the globe. (My
Raspberry Pi-based receiver here in Texas should be back online Sunday night.)

~~~
fapjacks
Yes, indeed! We actually use links to various of these (mostly the receiver
located at UTwente in .nl) when a number station schedule activates. Our
channel bot spits a link into the channel where you can listen via this very
cool in-browser receiver to live number stations as they are transmitted.

------
jleader
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duga-3](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duga-3)
appears to be the radar system in question, with a photo of an antenna.

~~~
wgx
Indeed. Duga-3 (over the horizon) long-range missile defence array was the
source of the 'woodpecker' signal.

------
UVB-76
See also:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UVB-76](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UVB-76)

~~~
rdtsc
Nice username ;-) You'd have to change it to MDZhB though?

Also here are some recent 2015 transmissions:

[http://priyom.org/military-stations/russia/the-
buzzer/2015](http://priyom.org/military-stations/russia/the-buzzer/2015)

------
bmease
It really does sound like a woodpecker.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOMVdOc9UbE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOMVdOc9UbE)

~~~
digi_owl
That sounds oddly familiar, but i was just a kid when this thing was
decommissioned.

------
PaulHoule
Pretty funny, but if you are a ham (i am) you're not supposed to deliberately
interfere with other transmissions, period.

    
    
       -- KC2ZZQ

------
mkesper
Let's hope those times packed with hostility won't return ever.

~~~
jmnicolas
They're already back, don't you read the news ?

~~~
bencollier49
GP may have been exercising <sarcasm>.

~~~
jmnicolas
If that's the case, GP should have used the proper <sarcasm/> tag !

