[Spooks] Bad day in Havana (17436/17435 SK01/ V02a)

Hugh Stegman utilityworld at ominous-valve.com
Wed Mar 26 16:56:43 EST 2008


Not a good day for SK01. Along with my computer's contribution, the 
initial powerful carrier on 17435 kHz had a number of selectively fading 
audio harmonics and mixes starting around 72 Hz and going up from there.

At 1605, an attempt was made to transmit a file in RDFT. Start tones 
came up OK, but the actual file transfer was aborted after a few 
seconds. This was followed by various strangling noises from what 
sounded a lot like an RDFT signal being hung by the neck until dead. 
The start tones would come up, only to be killed most horribly.  They'd 
gurgle, shift, and fight for their lives all the way, but in vain.

This carrier dropped at 1630, on schedule.

The usual V02a sked began on 17435 AM at 1700, and was in progress when 
it cut abruptly at 1707. This was followed by the same aborted RDFT 
transmission as in the 1600 time slot. It repeated as if on an audio 
loop from then until nearly 1800.  Every time, it stopped short. Every 
time, DIGTRX either apologized for not finding an end-of-file block, or 
simply crashed and burned, asking me if I wanted to tell MicroSoft about 
it.  The transmitter didn't work and the receiver didn't work.  Great 
way to pass instructions to covert agents.

V02a never did return.  Carrier gone at 1800.

(26 Mar 08)

-hugh



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