MONITORING QUARTERLY

1| FEBRUARY 2012

Utility DXing:

Krypto500

NILS SCHIFFHAUER, DK8OK

 iBooks Author
HF: Still full of Signals
Still shortwave is full of signals, mostly digital. Many of them can be demodulated and even decoded with some
sophisticated software decoders. This iBook focuses on the new Krypto500 decoder, mainly using this new piece of software
for a very short introduction into utility DXing. You will also find some hands-on comparisons with other high-tech
decoders like GX430 by Rohde & Schwarz, Code3-32P by Hoka and W-Code by Wavecom.

Below: Some signals around 8600 kHz show many different modes and stations from all over the world.

Marine Ankara

French Navy, Toulon

Russia

Point Reyes, California

Navy South Africa

Tianjin Radio, China

 iBooks Author
M UCH TO LISTEN TO frequencies. Their ALE
signals can be heard and
Utility DXing today decoded worldwide.

Same goes for the ARINC

aviation network, relying
on short bursts between
air and ground. Or take
those maritime networks
like Global Wireless and
SEAMAIL with also
worldwide coverage. Still
Despite the declining of international shortwave broadcast, some old buddies are
the band is full of signals from professional stations like making waves: FAX
aviation, maritime, military, and NGOs, to name just a few of transmitters with weather
them. Increasingly, they shift from SSB to data charts and news in
communications. Japanese, a few RTTY
Thanks to advances in both signal theory and digital stations, NAVTEX
encoders/decoders, usage of shortwave still is rising. This part maritime reports or the
Global Maritime Distress French Navy Martinique, FUF,
of the solar cycle does reveal many new of them. Shortwave 8478,5 kHz in STANAG4285
provides a worldwide channel free of charge and secure Safety System GMDSS,
communications with a modest setup. ONEMI of Chile, for both in SITOR-B and even
instance, runs a nationwide network covering also their some morse code (CW).
Pacific entities like Easter Island and Robinson Crusoe Island
with mere amateur radio transceivers delivering nor more
Encryption

than 110 watts to a small antenna. Automatic Link and legal issues
Establishment, or ALE, does the trick of automatically Plenty of communications is “open”, i.e. not encrypted. And
choosing the optimum channel out of a pool of assigned even with usually encrypted signals, sometimes there is some
open operators chatter. Many channels do run in an idle mode
2

 iBooks Author
or just transmitting tests over and over again. Take the net of available hardware and software is considered to be “open”.
French Navy with stations from Tahiti to Djibouti, which all Hundreds of stations do even verify reception reports.
can be clearly read in a code called STANAG4285. However, there are some stations and some countries
disliking this view.
Are you allowed to tune in? It depends. In a law suit of
German Authorities against me it was judged that the source Decoders: Focusing on Krypto500
of communications takes control of what is “public” and what
Key to this world is a software decoder. The most recent one is
is “secret”. At this stage of technical development it can be
named Krypto500. It has been developed in the Czech
stated that all communications which can be read with freely
Republic, and is distributed by their website. At a price tag of
US-$ 7400 or nearly 6000 Euros, it plays in the same league
as e.g. Wavecom’s W-PC or Hoka’s Code300-32P. In this
realm of decoders, GX430 of Rohde & Schwarz reigns king.
Thanks to generous loans, I had the chance of testing all of
them. This publication focuses on the Krypto500.

Professional Monitoring vs. SWLing

Professional monitoring differs significantly from what the
shortwave listener (SWL) is doing. Where the SWL wants to
receive some rare stations and identify them by a clear
callsign, professionals are more interested in just patterns of
modes and activities. Most transmission is encrypted anyway.
Done professionally, it can be cracked only within a time, after
which no tactical use can be made of its contents. On the other
QSL cards and letters from all over the world: Most utility hand, frequency hopping is increasing. There, the
stations do verify reception reports of shortwave listener if they communications is split up into short portions in the
report on some general „open“ contents like weather reports or millisecond range or below and transmitted on many channels
CQ/RY calls. Among them: EMBRATEL, Global Wireless,
ONEMI Juan Fernandez Island, Rogaland Radio and U.S. at to a distinctive pattern. Thus, you have to know this pattern
Coast Guard Puerto Rico. as well as the code to actually read the contents. With
sophisticated methods of direction finding, however, you can
3

 iBooks Author
pinpoint the geographical location of the transmission and To find a signal, a sonagram (page 1) is a must. In classifying
doing a finger printing on each transmitter. You can also log the mode, function of “analyzers” or even “classifiers” as part
their activity. of professional decoders will do the bigger part of this work.
For “decoding”, the decoder must have a great selection of
Sounds disappointing in the ears of an ordinary SWL?
up-to-date codes which nowadays are filling the air.
Mustn’t! There literally are thousands of stations which can be
received, and many of their transmissions are decoded by a Helping hands
professional decoder like Krypto500. But this is only one part
If you are a mere newbie to utility DXing, you surely will get
of the fun. You also need a good receiver, most preferably a
lost between all the signals. But not only in this case, I would
software-defined radio, or SDR. Mainly for two reasons: they
like to recommend two valuable reference books, namely
provide exceptionally linear filters of flexible bandwidths, and
Michael Marten’s “Spezial-Frequenzliste” with about 30 000
a large spectrum of HF can be recorded; like up to 4 MHz with
detailed entries and Joerg Klingenfuß’ “Guide to Utility Radio
Winradio’s ExcaliburPRO. Most Utility DXing should be made
Stations”, covering around 8 300 frequencies. To dive deeper
on recorded files where you can repeat playing and changing
into monitoring, Roland Proesch’s excellent “Technical
e.g. bandwidths, AGC or passband tuning.
Handbook for Radio Monitoring HF“ is a reliable guide
through most of the modes you encounter on shortwave.
Three steps to monitoring
SDRs do also provide a sonagram, or “waterfall”. This is a
panorama of frequency and time. It considerably helps in
revealing short-time activity and often assists in classifying
the mode due to some distinctive patterns.

Monitoring will proceed in three steps:

• unearthing a signal

• classifying the mode

• decoding

In action: Krypto500 has analyzed STANAG4285 (right)

and decodes French Navy, Djibouti (left).
4

 iBooks Author
There are several Yahoo Newsgroups dealing with utility
USB dongles are the key to professional decoders: Krypto500,
DXing, most notabliy that of UDXF. Among those many Code3-32), W-Code and GX430 - from above.
websites providing audio bites of several modes, that of Leif
Dehio is a first to stop.

On the next pages, I will proceed the „Three steps of

Monitoring“.

 iBooks Author
F IRST S TEPS The signal from the receiver must reach the input of the
decoder. Krypto500 does accept audio and I/Q signals.
Connecting Krypto500 Receiver and decoder are usually connected by a so-called
virtual soundcard (VSC) or virtual audio cable (VAC).

Krypto500 presents the audio in two windows: spectrum and

sonagram. Both can be tailored regarding e.g. colors,
resolution, dynamic range, span and some more features. Use
that combination which fits best to your signal. An „overlap“
function will dramatically increase time resolution, thereby
often revealing some characteristics of a signal or mode.

Reception of U.S. Navy Napoli/Italy „ICZ“ on 15043 kHz in ALE, MIL-SD 188-141A: tuning and decoding

Krypto500: Spectrum

Krypto500: Decoder

Krypto500: Sonagram
ExcaliburPRO

 iBooks Author
Receiver Control SpectraVue can be controlled by Krypto500 and vice versa.
Krypto500 still recommends to use the graphical user
interface (GUI) of the receiver. Nevertheless, the software
provides connection for controlling at least some features of a
vast selection of professional receivers, among SDRs also Krypto500 controls
Perseus and some of RFSpace., and Icom‘s CI-V. With this frequency and mode of
SpectraVue
feature, you can e.g. scan all ALE channels of a network.

See on the right, how a combination of SDR-IP, SpectraVue

and Krypto 500 works: can control the receiver either by
SpectraVue or some features (e.g. frequency) by Krypto5oo.

SpectraVue forwards
frequency and mode to
Krypto500

You can e.g. tune the receiver by the freqeuncy control of

SpectruVue or Krypto500 and the other frequency display will
change accordingly. Some goes for the mode. You can also just
click onto a signal in SpectraVue sonagram, and as SDR-IP
changes to this frequency, also the audio stream will deliver
this signal towards Krypto500. Alas, in the version tested, in
this case the frequency display of Krypto500 would not
Krypto500 offers a really back selection of receivers, also Spectra
Vue for all SDRs by RFSpace, CI-V and Perseus.
change.
7

 iBooks Author
Part of receiver control is a scanner and a
Typically log of some scanned ALE channels, namely 15043 kHz, 13215
recording feature. kHz and 18003 kHz in USB (U). It caught stations from Chroughton/U.K
(CRO), Naples/Italy (ICZ) and Guam (GUA).
The scanner can be programmes with a set of
frequencies, modes and bandwidths. The
dwell time can be set also. After being started,
it will look up channel by channel, stopping on
each for the defined dwell time. If it notes
some activity, it may stop and record and
demodulate.

A typical example is a net of stations using

automatic link establishment to choose the
best channel for a following communications
which may be in SSB oder ARQ or any other
mode.

Krypto500 detects those ALE calls, decodes

them, and documents them with timestamp
plus frequency.

Additionally, a recorder might be

automatically activated, writing a log and
recording the communications.

 iBooks Author
Spectrum and Sonagram

Both spectrum and sonagram do

show the signal. With How FFT width and overlapping will stress different views onto a signal
Krypto500 you have the choice
between several FFT width and
an overlap function. Adjusting
both, you can accent time or
frequency resolution.

The pictures in the gallery will

give some examples at a RTTY
station at 50 Baud.

Above you have the spectrum, below the sonagram. You can change the representation of the
signals by choosing different values for „FFT Width“ and „FFT Overlap“.

 iBooks Author
Unearthing
Signals
The best way to catch signals is to record
a part of the shortwave band and to make
a sonagram (right) of it.
Then you can tune into the wanted
channels at the right time, where they are
active, and propagation allows for a
steady, strong and clear signal. See the
figure on the right side for an example
from some 150 kHz around 12340 kHz,
recorded with SDR-IP from RFSpace and
software SDR-Radio. You see many short
activities which are worthwile to be
scrutinized.

 iBooks Author
S TEP - BY -S TEP Have a look at the gallery on the next page, showing this step-
by-step:
Exploring an ALE Net • Firstly, we have a look at a sonagram, 500 kHz wide, and
showing two hours of activity on 15000 lines. As our brain
has a good pattern recognition (some optical illusions also
relying on this fact), we soon discover some distinctive ALE
selcalls. They last for just twelve seconds and will be easily
missed on a conventional radio.

• Secondly, I noted time and frequency of this activity and set

up a loop of this recording from 20:24:40 UTC to 20:26:10
UTC [hh:mm:ss].

• Thirdly, decoding. Tune into the wanted frequency and

match it to the decoder which is quickly done by the loop.

A sonagram is the tool of choice to get an overlook on activi- The results were as follows:
ties in the utility bands. I use software SDR-Radio of Simon
Brown, together with RFSpace’s SDR-IP for its excellent HF • At 20:24:44 UTC “DB5” calls “DBE” on 5584,8 kHz and
performance, and because it can be locked onto GPS for ultra changes at 20:25:02 UTC to 5565,8 kHz with the same call.
stable and precise frequencies.
• At 20:25:36 UTC “DB3” calls “DBE” on 5565,8 kHz and
These are some general steps to follow: changes at 20:25:54 UTC to 5584,8 kHz with the same call.

Choose the band you like to monitor, and the time. Make a re- DBE stands for Iraqi Border Enforcement. DB3 is “III Border
cording, analyze it by SDR’s function “IQ Data File Analysis”. Police Region, Special Troops Batallion, Kut Central Iranian
Border”, whereas “DB5” stands for “V Border Police Region,
Write down time and frequency of the signal. Take that part of Special Troops Batallion, Najaf Saudi Arabien Border”. DBE is
the recording, where the signal performs best. Replay exactly the headquarter. [Thanks to Tom at UDXF for these infos!]
this part of the recording. The “loop” function will help you
with the next steps of analyzing the signal.
11

 iBooks Author
Three steps from discover the signal to decoding, just leaf through the screenshots.

Step 1: Identify some interesting signals within the complete sonagram. Here, four ALE signals have been magnified.

12

 iBooks Author
A UTOMATIC VS . O PERATOR Some six modes - how they look, how they sound

What mode?

Krypto500 is among those few decoders

which assists you in analyzing the signal
to specify the mode – or a choice of
modes. To speed up, you have to do a Experienced listeners often recognize a code just in a
sonagram or by its audio. This video shows six typical
kind of pre-selection: is the signal examples: ARINC 635, SELCALL ICAO, FAX (FM), Morse,
Saab Grintek MHF-50 and GW-FSK.
frequency-shift keyed (FSK), or is it
phase-shift keyed (PSK)?
A frequency-shifted signal usually
consists of two (FSK) or more (MFSK)
single tones, keyed in the rhythm of the
information. See some modes for
example in the video on the right.

 iBooks Author
Automatic Classification How classification works.live and on the air.

Only GX430 and W-PC (with options) do offer a

general and automatic classification. GX430 does
the best job ever seen in this respect, identifying
even FAX transmission correctly. W-Code is most
convincing with continuous signals, but burst
signals are another animal. Code3-32P also has a
classifier, working remarkably well in many cases.

All classifiers try to determine specific parameters

of the signal – like bandwidth, baudrate, number of
tones of phase constellations. They check these
specifications against a look-up table, giving their
vote, often with a figure of probability. As there is a
Automatic classification and decoding of an RTTY signal can place some
big number of combinations to check, classification
challenge. This live example compares GX430, W-Code, Krypto500 and
can take some time. Noisy, weak and distorted sig- Code3-32P. For all decoders, there has been used the same snippet of an
nals will do the job even more difficult as ambiguity HF recording of the strong signals of NATO Lisbon, 12823,5 kHz.
– (nearly) the same pattern for different modes –
will add up to the challenge. ally, will be often faster and more successful. The video on the
page before shows some typical examples.
The video compares several decoders in classifying a 75 Baud
FSK signal of NATO Lisbon. To sum it up: automatic classifica-
tion with all decoders without GX430 is giving you nothing
more than a bit of assistance.

To get a knowledge of how different codes look like in a sona-

gram or how they sound, and to choose the right code manu-

14

 iBooks Author
Krypto 500 is
JJF on 8313 kHz with a 1500 baud QPSK signal, correctly analyzed as originating from the
quite generous. Japanese Navy. Alas, there is no green arrow behind the mode. Thus, this version of Krypto500
The software even will not decode this signal.
identifies many of
those signals
which in at least
this version it can-
not decode. Take
for example the
1500 QPSK of the
Japanese Navy.
Yes, mostly those
channels carry an 1500 QPSK
8-tone ASK (ampli-
tude shift keying)
signal called „Slot
Machine“, but this
is sometimes re-
placed by a QPSK
signal, Krypto500
correctly deter-
mines - see the screenshot.

The next chapter will deal with identifying also exotic signals
manually by analyzing their specific characteristics.

15

 iBooks Author
T AKING M EASUREMENT

How high
the ACF?

Some decoders do have sophisticated

modules to take measurements of e.g.
frequencies, channel spacing and phase
constellation - some not. At a first look,
Krypto500 seems a bit sparse on this
field. But many things are done
automatically under the hood. Those
functions will considerably help in
identifying a mode, and can here be just
scratched on the surface.

 iBooks Author
O F PHASES AND C ORRELATION
FSK
FSK and PSK, X-rayed FSK in its most easy form consists of two frequencies,
switched alternatively according to the information. The shift
between those two signals is as important as the Baud rate,
and the pattern of those bits. ACF, or auto correlation
function, will show this bit pattern. Krypto500 also most
automatically will find both signals, and will determine the
shift between them by „FSK Autotune“.

A RTTY station with 7,5 Bit (ACF) will show this window. Above you see
both tones, followed by some measured values, starting with „Center
Frequency“, followed by „spectrum“ of ACF, and its graphical
As the manual of Krypto500 provides an instructive representation below.
step-by-step introduction in analyzing a signal, I here
just want to give a few examples.

The software provides two analyzers: for FSK or

frequency-shifted signals and for PSK or phase-shifted
signals. Both analyzers do have the goal to get a
smuch information on the signals to get a clue of their
specific mode - even if Krypto500 may not have a
decoder aboard, as for e.g. the 1500 Baud QPSK Mode
of the Japanese Navy.

Let‘s start with FSK, then switch to PSK. We will do

this with real-world examples, and not with modes
from a generator. As some signal maybe weak, noisy
and distorted, also some results may give no perfect
pictures. Don‘t blame Krypto500 for that - it‘s just
live.

17

 iBooks Author
PSK Switched to decoding ARINC-635, the phase gets sharper.
In PSK, phase shifting carries the information. With data
communications within a bandwidth of 3000 Hz, two to 16
phases are common. They are represented by the phase plane.

Krypto500 will determine Baud rate as well as center

frequeny automatically in most cases.

ARINC-635, 2-PSK transmission with 1800 Baud. On the left,

you see the phase plane, on the right the usual sonagram.

Phase plane of STANAG4285 in 8-PSK, left of GX430. Right

the same signal, showing the 2-PSK descrambled symbols at
Krypto500.

18

 iBooks Author
ACF can also be detected and shown in PSK signals. Here a
STANG4285 signal, exhibiting an ACF of 106,67 millseconds.

Autocorrelation function ACF of a STANAG4285 signal, 106,67

milliseconds.

19

 iBooks Author
O N AIR

Some Modes

The following pages will show some

annotated examples on how Krypto500
decodes live signals.

See an example on the right:


SELCALL menue has been choosen,
„MIL-STD 188-141A ALE“ clicked, and
FEMA Region 3 with their Headquarters
in Philadelphia PA/USA received on
12216 kHz and decoded („FR3FEM“).

 iBooks Author
ARINC 635 Three ground stations
This is a system of worldwide ground stations, built by
„Aeronautical Radio Corporation Inc.“ of Annapolis
MD/USA. You can receive and decode telegrams of ground
stations as well as airborne stations which are sent in a
GPS-controlled time pattern on numerous frequencies. The
so-called „Squitters“ from the ground stations do carry the
identification plus those stations and frequencies on this net
which this specific
station is able to
ARINC 635, structure of the signal receive. Thus, you
can tune into exactly
Date, 1,8 or 4,2 s
their frequencies to
check whether the
ionospheric path is
open. Tuned to 10075 kHz, I received Bahrain transmitting a list
of ARINC station they hear.
Pre-key,
Exactly that has
249 ms been done for the
gallery on the right
side, starting with
Preamble,
Bahrain von 10075
295 ms

kHz, switching to
Guam 6552 kHz and
eventually
Johannesburg on
13321 kHz.

21

 iBooks Author
ALE
This „automatic link establishment“ is somewhat ubiquitous
on the bands as in this publication.Just some quickly picked
up examples below.

Iraqi Army, 7th Brigade Special Troop Bataillon, Ninawa („NAN“) calling Iraqi Border Police Tikrit („DB2“), 5493
kHz, 17:15 UTC

Navy Lithuania („P1G“), calling another station („S1B“), 8166 kHz, 17:45 UTC

Croation Amateur Radio Emergency Operation Network (HRSVKS), near Samabor/south-east of Zagreb („9A5EX“),
5403,5 kHz, 17:20 UTC

22

 iBooks Author
CTCSS Open, sesame!
In FM, some transmitters
add a special tone in the
lower audio range to open
up e.g. the receiver of a
relay. This „continous
tone-coded squelch
system“ is used by hams in
the 10 m band, as well in
CB radio, and also among
radio stations with some
feeder transmitters from
studio to the main
transmitter. The CTCSS
tones range from 67.0 Hz
to 250.3 Hz, and are
filtered out („notched“) at
the cooperating receiver.
Krypto500 decodes those
tones and shows their PL
(private line) code,
introduced by Motorola.
Two examples are given in
the picture gallery, both
with feeder transmissions WBAP from Dallas/Texas provides their transmitters on 820 kHz AM and 96,7 FM by an FM
from the U.S. feeder on 25910 kHz from their studios at 3090 Olive Street, Dallas. They secure the input of their
transmitters - „relay“, technically speaking - by a CTCSS tone of 151.4 Hz. This corresponds to a PL
designation of „5Z“. See also the peak at this frequency in the spectrum of Krypto500.

23

 iBooks Author
[M823] Differential GPS DGPS transmitter Zeven with its parameters and the Radio Beacon Almanac of
A service on longwave, providing GPS this station plus some in its vicinity (chain 3D4x). Received on 303,5 kHz.
receivers with information for
correcting their values for most
demanding resolution of the 3D
geographical position. Also called
„DGPS“ for short.

Zeven parameters

Groß-Mohrdorf, 308 kHz

Helgoland, 298,5 kHz

Zeven, 303,5 kHz

Koblenz, 302,5 kHz

24

 iBooks Author
STANAG4285 FUV Djibouti - French Navy „East of Suez“
You will find this mode nearly everywhere
on shortwave, but only few signal can be
decoded by the ordinary listener. Most of
those do belong to the French and include
such rare spots like Noumea,
Point-a-Pitre, Papeete and Djibouti. You
may already have seen some of them in
this iBook, and more are to come.

On the left, you see a short video of

KRYPTO500 decoding the weak to fair
signal of French Navy Djibouti, just fading
in on a January morning on 22447 kHz.
Please also note some interference by
PLC, power line communications.

Signal fading from weak to fair, plus some interference of PLC. Nevertheless,
Krypto500 provides a near-perfect copy.

25

 iBooks Author
AX25 - Packet Radio Amateur Radio mailbox on 14113 kHz.
Since years, Packet Radio has
been widely used by hams, on
shortwave as well as on the
higher bands.

Mainly, you find mailboxes

using this on shortwave a bit
outdated mode. See picture on
the right.

26

 iBooks Author
ARQ-E3 ARQ-E3 signal, 192 Baud, 388 Hz, 11421,6 kHz: Crozet, Mayotte, Djibouti?
A mode, which nowadays is a rare one on
shortwave. One of the very few stations still can be
found on 11421,7 kHz. This is listed as DTRE Base
Alfred-Faure Crozet Island, far south in the Indian
Ocean. Most of the time idling, the few
five-letter-groups and texts in French are regularily
received here under just marginal conditions.
Krypto500 is among the few decoders reading at
least parts of these transmissions, and is doing this
first class - see screenshot on the right.

In autumn 2011, there has be a discussion on the

location of this transmitter. Professional direction
finding points more to Djibouti than to exotic
Crozet. Also Mayotte has been rumoured.

27

 iBooks Author
SITOR-A, ARQ WLO, Mobile Radio AL/USA on 1258,5 kHz with a TOR
massage (teletype on radio). The QBF („quick brown
A mode with automatic request, or ARQ. The transmitter
fox“) text has been receivednot completly
sends out the message in small packets. The receiver has to
check each packet wit a special algorithm and to acknowledge
that this packet almost certainly has been received correctly or
not. In the latter case, this packet is repeated by the
transmitter. If you only listen, you may miss some packets,
because you cannot acknowledge, neither aks for a second try.
Still used for communications between ship and shore in the
maritime bands.

28

 iBooks Author
SITOR-B, FEC Algiers Radio on 518 kHz with a weather report.
A mode with so-called „forward-error correction/FEC“, which
in fact is redundancy. Still used e.g. for weather broadcasts in
the maritime bands.

29

 iBooks Author
EFR - Europäische Funk-Rundsteuerung 135,6 kHz, transmitter Lakihegy/Hungary.
Kind of a remote control service, operated by three longwave Transmitting time information between the
control signals.
stations; one of them in Germany, the other one in Hungary.

30

 iBooks Author
Global Wireless FSK (GW-FSK)
This U.S.-based organisation is responsible for a good part of
today‘s maritime communications. Their FSK channel
markers are daily visitors from numerous locations around
the world. As some of their identifiers are ambigous, you have
in these cases to consult a frequency handbook.

The picture gallery below presents you with a choice of some

16 Global Wireless stations with their channel marker.

It‘s a fast ship to China: 16 channel markers of GW-FSK. Have a look at the slighty differing shifts.

6379,5 kHz: 8PO, Barbados

1 von 16

31

 iBooks Author
CW - Morse Code Dah-dah-didah di-da-dit dah: Not every CW station has gone QRT (Q-Code for: closing
down)
This oldest mode of wireless
communications presents a
hard nut to crack for most
decoders. Even when given by a
machine with consistens length
of dit, dah, and the pause, it
remains reluctant to be
automatically decoded. The
ever-existent noise and
crackling on shortwave makes
this case even mor diffcult.
Rohde & Schwarz‘ GX430 excels
in this field. But as ham with
some knowledge on reading the
code by heart, you are often
disappointed by the
performance of any decoder.
Krypto500 plays in the middle
with W-Code and GX430 in
front of it.

Now for the good news: Five examples, very different in ionospheric conditions and quality of keying. But that‘s live at
Nowadays, there is only few HLG/Seoul, RJH66/Kyrgyzstan, RJH69/Belarus, AQP/Karachi and 4XZ/Haifa.
professional communication in
CW. In the video on the right, I found some stations, mostly
Navy. You will easily see that automatic decoding of CW wants
a stable and clear signal. Please observe: not alle signals in
these examples are perfectly keyed by the transmitter!

32

 iBooks Author
ICAO Selcall 8891 kHz. After some exchange in voice with mentioning its
selcall also in voice („echo-lima-sierra-bravo“), the airplane is
Most airplanes do identify themselves in the aero bands by a
transmitting its ICAO Selcall „EL-JS“.
so-called „ICAO Selcall“ check. This is a combination of a two
two-tone signal, coding the „callsign“ of this aircraft by four Its decoded correctly. Inadvertently, some speech formants
letters, grouped into two. can also fall into the secall pattern. Hence, they are also
„decoded“. Just ignorme them or change Krpto500‘s dcoding
The video on the right show as example Aeroflot 315 flying
threshold.
between Moscow and New York, and calling Iceland Air on

Over Iceland: Flightnumber Aeroflot 315

On route from Moscow and New York, Aeroflot‘s Airbus A330-343 (VQ-BQZ) does a selcall check with Iceland Air, 8891 kHz.

33

 iBooks Author
OLIVIA Like music: Olivia is a multitone mode.
This multi-tone mode is
mostly used by hams. It
refers back to the
PICCOLO system which
tried to keep together
Britain‘s empire in the
1950s - HF-wise, at
least. It‘s rather robust,
and comes in different
bandwidth and
numbers of tones. The
screenshot shows a
QSO between
OH/DK4ZC and G3IVB
on 14107,5 kHz. Mode:
standard, 32 tones.

34

 iBooks Author
PSK31 Two phases within a bandwidth fo 31 Hz: PSK31
This BPSK mode of Peter
Martinez, G3PLX, nothing
more than revolutionized
amateur radio
communications with low
power. PSK31 created also a
family of similar codes,
some faster, some slower;
some broader. Still, original
PSK31 is one of the best and
frequency-efficient
rag-chew modes on
shortwave.

On the right a QSO between

EA3UV from Spain and
2E0LES from the U.K. on
15 m. The decoder window
is on mid-left. On the right
you find the main window,
and below the phase
constellation.

35

 iBooks Author
D IFFERENCES Screenshot of a comparison - see videos on the next pages

Compare!

There is only one professional way to

compare decoders: take the same test
text, encode and modulate it with a
signal generator, send it through a fading
simulator, capable of different channel I compared several decoders at different modes. To do so, I
took an HF recording on some signals live on the air with
characteristics (like: „CCIR poor“), let it receivers like Winradio‘s ExcaliburPRO and and RFSpace‘s
decode and measure the bit error rate SDR-IP. Those same files where then played and decoded by
different decoders. The results are not scientifically
(BER). Compare it.
representative, but mostly will point into the right direction.
As I don‘t have all this equipment, I had
All comparisons are documented by videos - there have been
to find an alternative. This maybe not made no tricks. It‘s like you looking me over the shoulder
perfect, but will give some impression. when testing and comparing.

 iBooks Author
Comparison 1: Weak ALE signal

Copy of the weak ALE signal on 556,820 kHz out of Al-Kut/Iraq: first the signal, then decoding with Code3-32P, Krypto500 and
W-Code. Krypto500 performs best.

 iBooks Author
Comparison 2: Weak GW-FSK signal

ZSC Capetown on 19692,5 kHz: Code3-32P, Krypto500 and W-Code. Krypto500 delivers fastest aquisition, followed by W-Code. Also
Code3-32 P gave perfect copy, but a bit slower.

 iBooks Author
Strong STANAG4285 signal

FUE Brest on 6348 kHz in STANAG4285, strong with only slight multipath: GX430 (no decoder, but fast acquisition), Krypto500
(fast and clear decoding), Code3-32P (fast classification, slower start of nevertheless clear decoding).

 iBooks Author
STANAG4285, modest signal, strong multipath

This signal of the French Navy at Noumea/New Caledonia on 16956 kHz shows heavy multipath, placing the hardest nut to
crack for all decoders. Only Sigmira (above) produced a fluently decoded output - as on the right, whereas ...

40

 iBooks Author