[Spooks] Odd CW Tranmission 18.169 mHz

[Brad Johnson]

Was tuning around the 17 meter amateur radio band at approximately 0700 UTC
August 3 and came across an unusual CW transmission on 18.169 mHz (just
above the amateur allocation).

The cw was being generated by someone with a pretty sloppy fist using a
straight key, and the speed was approximately 10-12 WPM. The transmission,
or at least what I heard of it, consisted of a repeating pattern of: a six
character group of numbers followed by a seven character group of numbers.
The groups were separated by  what at times sounded like the cw prosign "AR"
( over or end of message) and what at other times sounded like "AA"  The
transmission abruptly stopped with no identification transmitted that I
could hear. A few minutes later I began hearing fragments from the same
station but propagation conditions were poor.  It almost sounded as if a
child or someone who didn't know code was just playing with the key to make
noise...this may have been to due to the conditions.

My dipole is fixed, so I couldn't get a bearing on the signal... the only
amateur stations heard on the 17 meter band at that time were in
Australia... my dipole favors the NE US, Europe, and the South Pacific due
to its orientation and length.

I'm new to the list and am not aware if this type of transmission has been
documented before. If course I would like to hear any theories about what I
heard.