SAQ transmission on 1 December 2024 commemorating 100 years of commecrial activity

The VLF radiostation on Grimeton/Sweden with the callsign SAQ was put into commecrial service on 1 December 1924. SAQ was a transatlantic station. The main correspondent were stations in Long Island, New York, USA.

SAQ was one of the Alexanderson system stations built under the supervision of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) . These stations were similar to each other, the antenna and transmitter (an Alexanderson alternator) were the invention of Ernst Alexanderson. Poland had a similar station in Babice near Warsaw with the callsigns AXO/AXL/SPL.

On 1 December 2024 there will be a transmission to commemorate the 100 years of SAQ being put into commercial service. The message will be transmitted on 17.2kHz CW (morse code).

SCHEDULE:
10:20 CET (09:20 UTC) Live YouTube broadcast begins.
10:30 CET (09:30 UTC) Start-up of the Alternator.
11:00 CET (10:00 UTC) Transmission of a message*

The event will be streamed live on youtube under the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwINhKcSF5o

Usually about 10 minutes before the transmission of the message “VVV DE SAQ” is transmitted continiously.

 

SAQ “50-th Anniversary of the UNESCO World Heritage Convention” transmission on 20221116

A video of the SAQ  transmission on 20221116 16:00 UTC, commemorating the 50-th Anniversary of the UNESCO World Heritage Convention.

Received at SQ5BPF QTH Warsaw/Poland KO02md.

E-field active antenna, vlfrx-tools and Spectrum Lab receiver

The transmitted message is:

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An analysis of ZEVS messages during the russian invasion in Ukraine in 2022

In the last article i’ve written about a method of automatically finding ZEVS trasmissions, and an analysis of it’s messages: Analysis of ZEVS messages

Luckiny i have data from 25 August 2021 until now. Using it i can check if anything has changed during the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

These are encrypted military messages. So there is no reason to analyze them, right? 🙂

Continue reading “An analysis of ZEVS messages during the russian invasion in Ukraine in 2022”

Analysis of ZEVS messages

Russia uses radiocommunications in the ELF band to send messages to it’s  nuclear submarine fleet. This transmitter it called ZEVS, the frequency is 82Hz (yes: hertz, not kilohertz, not megahertz). For more info see here: http://www.vlf.it/zevs/zevs.htm

I’ve installed a grabber on the KLUBNL.PL page showing the spectrum around 82Hz. It is available here: https://klubnl.pl/wpr/index.php/klubnl-pl-grabbers/grabber-zevs-82hz/

This grabber calculates the spectrum in 80-84Hz every 60 seconds, and makes spectrograms out of it. The files with the spectrum information are not deleted, so out out of coincidence i have a history of data from 25 August 2021 until now (around 10 June 2022).

And since i have this data, it would be nice to do an analysis how the messages to the submarine fleet look like, and how often are they transmitted.

Example ZEVS transmission
The spectrum of an example ZEVS transmisson. The signal around 83.3-83.5Hz is some local interference.

Continue reading “Analysis of ZEVS messages”

SAQ Christmas 2021 transmission on 17.2 kHz

Christmas transmission from SAQ on 17.2kHz, 24 December 2021 8:00 UTC

Received at SQ5BPF QTH Warsaw/Poland KO02md.

E-field active antenna, vlfrx-tools and Spectrum Lab receiver.

On the recording one can see a weak carrier between the symbols. This is because the keying circuit leaks a weak carrier. The leakage is about 2kW.

QTH Jacek / SQ5BPF Warsaw KO02md

The message was:

THIS IS GRIMETON RADIO STATION/SAQ IN A TRANSMISSION USING THE ALEXANDERSON 200KW ALTERNATOR ON 17.2KHZ. = WE WISH YOU ALL A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR. = SIGNED WORLD HERITAGE GRIMETON RADIO STATION AND THE ALEXANDER GRIMETON FRIENDSHIP ASSOCIATION.= FOR QSL INFO PLEASE READ OUR WEBSITE ALEXANDER.N.SE. DE SAQ SAQ SK