Klingenfuss Radio Utility Guides

 .. and some very long story behind  not noticed  on the main history page !

the 3 editions i have kept from the  many books ordered!

 

Quite long around 1990 I had a interest for the uitlies that fill the remain part of the radio band. BY the yers I have read too much on various magazines of the market that include the famous 73 magazine of 80s not to mention also the QST or even the Pop Com that made me once again into digging a bit more on the field

Using this old knowledge and searching a lot more via standard communication (sending  letters ia the standard post ) I finally bought those old times a  mini FSK and more interface from a UK company for my very old Spectrum. It was quite big for our time around 1,5 cassette thick and nearly as  a big cigarete box. It was connected in  Spectrum’s  interface socket and had another 3.9 mm socket for connecting via a cable to the radio. I used my father’s Pilips 2395 radio to connect it. The spectrum was then connected to a 14” monitor that I used for tuning satellite systems  that was also used as secondary TV in  my house together with a mini American TV monitor of just 5” a gift from the American cooperative (see another article from the testimonials for more)

Enough much for my rather mixed setup. In a short the system was simple: The Philips  R2395 was connected to interface that was also connected into the spectrum. Spectrum was also connected with the mini monitor  and also with the cassette player to ..download the program from the tape via audio. A process that required around 5 minutes  of waiting that was not always successful as just a lost bit can destroy ..downloading

After the program was successfully downloaded via audio everything was Ok to start decoding

This was the way of the time (80s-pre90s )to listen and decode digital signals using amateur equipment !That time there was no internet!

Since its more than 30 years ago I m not very sure for the maker of the decoder. What I can remember for sure is that using a different interface I added also a Wefax module a little later . sorry but I cannot remember  times nor companies !

In the mean time from this interesting correspondence I have found MR Joerg Klingenfuß  and his publications.One  of the books he sells since that time was the guide to utility radio stations  a huge book for tat time with more than 600 pages. I m unsure which was my first but the earliest I have is the 1999 guide

For me it was something as like driving to the land of the unknown ,a guide that usedin a total different format than the old pal WRTH. Listing were by frequency and not by region , country as the WRTH making the identification of a station even easier  then with WRTH

typical frequency page

Very soon I was adapted to the content of the book .  separate part for the frequencies  that is the half of the book size,  separate part for the countries plus a lot of useful parts as meteo or radio  fax listings by time,  also navtex listings on the main frqs of 518 or later 480, aero services ,  SINPO and SIPFEMO codes , the Q and Z  codes , SYNOP codes used for the weather text reports sent from various FSK meteo stations plus some separate maps for the aeronautical communications on RF of the time

MY preferences for that time were mostly the RTTY  stations and especially the press agencies Tanyug from Yugoslavia , and some other interesting ones but also the great leader's KCNA from Pyongyang to name a few very good to learn the political positions  of their countries in various general or international topics . All of them used the standard radio teletype or teleprinter format of Baudot with only ‘50 bps’ the same as the standard teletype of the time that was used.

For anyone who doesn't know what is teletype you can google for more. In short is a very big in size old type of typewriter that consists of a reel feeder in the rear and is leaded with a second doted mini reel in its left with the text that has to be transmitted to the remote teleprinter via dedicated phone lines. It was the predecessor of faxes before 1980. the text is first  written with the keyboard and if a letter has to be deleted you had to press the delete button immediately so that you can press the new letter. The text is being saved with a dotted code into the mini reel. I know this technology because in the office i used we used it in the endof 70s

As far as I can remember once I was lucky to read once the service from a Malay FSk service for a few minutes by using the Kling’s guide for checking the frequency. Also the  services of PBB PBC and other that used the 75 baud that seemed as mostly as markers than  being useful of sending info. For several times via the usage of FEC transmission I  checked some other interesting shipping info at that times.

As you ca understand this book saved my life from identifying unknown stations!

There were also  several interesting wefax and standard fax services .tat were used with the separate interface . Once I think I have decoded a newspaper of the many stations of the time. It si very sad that most of them are now off the radio. This is the big side effect of internet.

Also that time I awarded many QSL from many ute stations

In the mean time with the next edition I bought before 1999 i think someone shown interest in using the technology required for using in a serious office . I mean for buying the necessary hard+soft ware to decode HF digital communications .After a few letters and some more discussion the project was off . I m referring to the  equipment Wavecom offered,  the technical partner of Klingenfuß of the time

Now I  m returning back to the books. Later enough  after my marriage I bought the 1999 guide which is still quite fat with around 540 pages that has the same content as above except the SYNOP code but lacked some info on the country part : several addresses  were removed!

Conditions were slowly then with more stations missing in the band. The  computer I Used before 2012 was totaly noise free and decoding with  external interface was very good This interface used Radio Raft a MSDOS type program to communicate and decode TTY messages for more than 25 formats They were not only ham oriented but a few were a bit more professional as RTTY ARC& FEQ  ,Pocsag etc

The next computer on 2012  was too noisy . As noticed elsewhere it raises the noise up to S7. I still used the 2005-6 edition if RUG Although the book was still uses the same editing format  as before book it was no now fulled with hundreds of screeshots from the programs they use mainly Wavecom

This screenshot shows on how the new computer adds much noise.The higher part shows the generated noise plus the standard signals while the bottom part shows  the real reception without the use of the PC  Notice that ehe is some Sdl routetr noise plus some man made noise from various factors that are not clearly identified in the area as  measured by the special software used for the SDR

In my older practice as checked with the R75 receiver ths computer generated noise adds a level of around 6 S units across the bands to S8-9 This causes   all stations to be heard with strong noise from 1 MHz and above

The only way to listen in ‘clear’ since then was only with PC switchd  off . This caused me to stop listening to digital signals and  to return to standard HF broadcasting and more sporadically   into some voice transmissions. 

 

In more recent times , ie since mid 19 and with the huge availability of remote Kiwi SDR receivers and little later , It wold be a good choice to once again check  once again the bands with a new guide from Klingenfuß on near the end of 2020  . As usual the guide was and is very useful with its nearly up to date information . However this time the things are very different than before:

Most older transmissions are now disappeared in favor to STANAG 4825 a transmission that is encrypted by 99% of the stations . The bands are now flooded by unknown or mysterious signals as the Pipe or Squeaky Wheel .   Twice per year new transmissions appear. Kontayner an old ODFM wide-band signal that can be found in rally every part of he band or even more exotic OTHR signals from everywhere . Meanwhile new jammers are in the band as also BPL – internet via electricity - or some similar. And finally most of the mysterious or even regular of the time digital transmissions change their schedules or even change their frequencies unless they are just for short time transmissions. That makes ID in g them even harder ! However these conditions make the book  nearly immediately outdated, much sooner then older times!

Once I made an IQ recording from a narrow band on 15 MHz while I was testing a local signal on 15000 to look on when it stopped. As noted in my main blog this signal is presumably originated from some nearby electricity towers as part of a BPL usage  that appears in every 200 kHz starting from roughly 7 MHz to 27 MHz with a -80dbm signal and heard as like ‘fast footwalk’ This signal after many experiments has been found to stop  around 15+ during summer winter and around 1730  during  summer. For the date n particular I have found a poor transmissions on 15015 from AFN as checked then with the Kling’s guide that no other source could notice.

Today are several online sources today that can help the DXer to identify the today's  :

EiBi’s shortwave guide It’s one of the free shortwave listings and is used mostly for standard radio stations but also includes he most basic utilities as meteo stations , standard CW WEFAX and FSK transmissions, numbers stations and also beacons. It is updated many times per year as far as stations announce  their  schedules.  

UDXF logs : It is a utility stations club known from its numbers and oddities newsletter on the 0s era,   that offered until Nov 19 the monthly concise logs listing for only its  members as I but suddenly stopped because it was a very hard work for only one person. Each month it consisted of  around 22500 entries but still there were many frequencies missing from the list. But there are several entries that are shown many times. As for example there was a staton logged by more than 15 users and flooded more than 3 printed pages.

And surely the Klingenfuss guide that shows the most regular signals  in  the band which  much more complete than EiBi with its 250 pages in its 19-20  edition!The 1999 edition is roughly 300 pages. 

By the above please don’t think that the Klingenfuss’s guide is useless In contrast there are many cases that it can be helpful as with the above noted case!Just notice that his clients are not only radio listeners or DXers but is used also for professional services as military , diplo and other as noticed in his product bulletins !

My verdict 8/10

(c )writen in one day only