The following is a copy of the material included in the first issue of SOVIET MONITOR. If you are interested in further issues you will need to subscribe. Instructions on how to subscribe to future issues will be posted on HAMNET's SWL section. Your feedback on this first issue is encouraged and can be made on HAMNET or to me personally via EMAIL. Tom Roach 76347,1025 ===================== SOVIET MONITOR If you fancy yourself as a puzzle solver, cryptologist, would-be intelligence agent, or just an ordinary citizen who would like a greater insight into Soviet society and commerce, SOVIET MONITOR is written for you. SOVIET MONITOR will explain how to monitor Soviet communications from the comfort of your home. You will have access to information not ordinarily available to the general public. SOVIET MONITOR will explain the rudiments how to analyze the communications you are likely to intercept. This is an activity once restricted to a precious few individuals "cleared" by their governments for such activities. You will require no such "clearance" since there is nothing in SOVIET MONITOR that isn't readily available to the public, if you know where to look. SOVIET MONITOR will provide you with rudimentary slices of "radio traffic analysis", applied to real world messages you can intercept. Traditionally books and magazine articles dealing even peripherally with such topics detailed the personalities and accomplishments of various government intelligence agencies, past and present, active in the field of communications intelligence. SOVIET MONITOR won't be revealing esoteric names the government uses for "secret" satellites. There will be no mention of "codewords", details of clandestine projects, or any of the other secrets of the sort commonly leaked by government workers with a trial balloon to fly or an ax to grind. While our focus is on the Soviets, the techniques and equipment used can be focused on other targets of opportunity. You may be curious to know just what type of information you can become privy to. Most readily available for collection and analysis are: the activities of the Soviet Academy of Science vessels, Soviet commercial shipping, Soviet commercial fishing, and the activities of the Soviet's Space Event Support Ships (SESS). Surprisingly enough you will find that meaningful analysis of these communications can be done with effectively NO knowledge of the Russian language! The opportunity to perform this sort of research is one more spin-off of the incredible wealth of relatively low cost high-tech equipment available to citizens in a free society. The cost of creating a very potent intelligence collection effort is absurdly low, given the wealth of information that will become available to you. I hope SOVIET MONITOR attracts readers with a wide range of ideas and beliefs. What matters most to SOVIET MONITOR is a sense of curiosity, and a willingness to share with other readers what you know and/or learn through your monitoring and analytical efforts. While you don't have to know Russian, but if you do, or are willing to at least learn the Cyrillic alphabet, the rewards will be all the greater. This first "on-line" issue of SOVIET MONITOR will discuss the rudiments of the equipment required to intercept the communications which are the backbone of the hobby. SOVIET MONITOR will provide a place where even those who have no equipment can share their talents by helping decipher what others who have equipment have collected. This publication will provide an opportunity for those inclined to maintain a low profile an opportunity to share information, via E- MAIL (electronic mail), ordinary mail, or with a pseudonym in a SOVIET MONITOR column. For those who want to ensure that their communications remain completely private to any one but the intended recipient, SOVIET MONITOR will reveal methods to encrypt your messages. If you own a personal computer, the opportunities to use it to assist your monitoring or analytical efforts are great indeed. Soviet Monitor will have a column which details its use in pursuit of this hobby. Here you will learn of exciting developments such as a low cost (about $100) Cyrillic/English word processor with a Russian spelling checker. Before going any further a few words about the "law" (at least in the United States) which deals with your monitoring such communications. Statues are on the books which declare it UNLAWFUL to provide another person with the specific content of any personal or commercial message clearly not intended for public distribution. You can LAWFULLY monitor and manipulate the contents of any such messages yourself. Recent Supreme Court decisions dealing with communications and privacy certainly bring into question the "legality" of the restrictions imposed by current laws. There are a number of magazines for hobbyists interested in monitoring communications. These magazines blatantly ignore these laws. SOVIET MONITOR will do its best to honor the spirit of the law by disguising the names of specific individuals, or even ship names where it is believed that this is judicious. If Ivan sends a message to Galina telling her how much he misses her, SOVIET MONITOR may report this but would say, change the names of the couple to Igor and Natasha in the name of privacy. Messages dealing with fish catches or the temperature of the squid stored in bunker three will be passed with only the name of the ship changed. SOVIET MONITOR hopes to achieve a degree of success in analysis of Soviet communications similar to that of a British group which analyzes Soviet telemetry (TELINT). This group of British laymen is known as the Kettering group, and their activities were recently dramatized on the TV series Nova. The Kettering group was started by an English schoolmaster teaching physics at a boy's school in England. The schoolmaster was intrigued by the telemetry signals he received from the very first Soviet sputniks. He received these signals using an ordinary shortwave receiver. Over the years the group grew in size and eventually included interested individuals from across the globe. The published results of the group constituted the major source of "unclassified" information on the early years of the Soviet space program. The group published its findings in various British journals, and became so proficient and well known that the schoolmaster who started the group, Geoffrey Perry, received the MBE from the Queen of England. One of the Kettering group's noted accomplishments was revealing the existence and location of the Soviet launch facility at Plesetsk. This happened long before either the Soviets or western intelligence services publicly acknowledged its existence. The group was also able to discover the exact meaning of the data transmitted in complex Soviet telemetry signals. Many interesting examples of their work can be found in a report (Soviet Space Programs: 1976-1980) issued by the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. Finally, you may find yourself content in just reading about this interesting hobby. You can share vicariously some of the joys of those who actively pursue it. Whatever your motivation, I hope you will find the publication of interest and honor us with your personal thoughts and findings. THE NECESSARY EQUIPMENT To intercept the wide range Soviet communications SOVIET MONITOR will be covering, you should possess, at a minimum, a good quality shortwave receiver and an adequate antenna. SOVIET MONITOR will often be dealing with Soviet RTTY signals so a radio teletype decoder, and a video monitor are highly desirable. I would also suggest that you have a cassette recorder to record the messages from your shortwave receiver. This allows you to store or replay these communications at a future date. For those of you who wish to attain greater analytical results, a personal computer will prove especially useful. If you are starting from scratch my personal suggestion is to purchase the following: a JRC (Japan Radio Corporation) NRD-525 shortwave receiver ($1200), an antenna (50 to 100 feet of wire and a couple insulators ($15), an M-7000 decoder ($1000), and a monitor to read its output ($125). Throw in about another $100 for some reference books. By purchasing the "minimum" set forth above, you will be able to receive and "read" many of the three major types of communications transmitted by the Soviets. These are: Morse code (CW), radio teletype (RTTY), and voice communications (VOX). For about another $100 you can purchase a modification to the M-7000 which lets you view Soviet facsimile (FAX). The shortwave receiver will, in addition, allow you to listen with ease to Radio Moscow and probably several other "internal" broadcasts meant only for the Soviets themselves. If you tire of monitoring the Soviets, you can always use the receiver to listen to the broadcasts of well over 200 other countries, many of which broadcast in English. The decoder box will also allow you to read communications directed to and from non- Soviet ships. Many of these messages are in English and quite often confidential, some even pornographic, in nature. The Cubans often send totally unencrypted diplomatic messages to their embassies and consulates . I have read communications to what must be Cuban intelligence agents referred to by their codenames. I have found that for myself what I once thought was an exorbitant amount of money was more than justified by the pleasures it has brought me. Even if you are disappointed, well, the resale value of such equipment is very high. I never said this was going to be cheap! I might mention that you can get by with less, and many people do. Cleverness and know-how can decrease expenses but I also wanted to lay out a system that requires a minimum of technical expertise. I recommend that you purchase your equipment from a distributor whose staff specializes in shortwave listening, as opposed to a store geared for the radio amateur, or "ham". The vendors mentioned below have experts on their staff who can provide you with extremely valuable suggestions on just what you need. I have dealt with all three of them and have personally found them to be both honest and knowledgeable. There may be many other such vendors, but these three are among the best known and respected of the outlets which specialize in such equipment. When known, I have provided the name of the individual working in the store, when known, who can best assist you in your equipment selection. The prices are very similar for all three outlets. VENDORS ======= Gilfer Shortwave 201-391-7887 Universal Radio 703-938-3350 (Fred Ostermann) EEB (Electronic Equipment Bank) 800-431-3939 SWL RECEIVERS ============= I specifically recommend the Japan Radio Corporation's NRD-525 not because it is the only receiver adequate for your needs, but because it is of premium quality and probably the easiest to learn to operate for a complete novice. Don't let the large number of knobs overwhelm you. The manual which accompanies this receiver is written in English but might prove a bit intimidating to a beginner. Future issues will discuss the proper settings for these controls. There are excellent books available that deal at greater lengths with shortwave receivers. I personally recommend the Shortwave Listening Handbook written by Harry L. Helms. It is published by Prentice Hall and sells for about $12. This book is generally available from any of the three dealers mentioned above. The three most important qualities in a shortwave receiver are sensitivity, selectivity, and stability. The first, sensitivity, is routinely excellent in any of the several receivers which would prove suitable for this hobby. One word of caution - DO NOT purchase the likes of a Sony ICF-2010 (about $350 to $400) or similar receivers! I own the Sony ICF-2010 and consider it's sound output to be better than the NRD-525's for standard monitoring of stations like the BBC, Radio Moscow and other major international shortwave broadcasters (ISWBC). The Sony ICF-2010 is excellent for listening to the major international shortwave broadcasts but it was never intended as a receiver to be used for serious communications work. The second of these three receiver characteristics is selectivity. It simply refers to the ability of a receiver to separate signals close to each other. For a simple analogy, consider three doors opening into your house. One might be just large enough for your pet mouse (narrow), the second big enough for your dog Fido (medium), and the last (wide) appropriately sized for yourself. Assume you are walking in a single file with the mouse first, the dog second and last you. You come to the narrow door. Only the mouse gets in. If you chose the wide door, you'll all get in, and two of the three if you choose the medium size entrance. Selectivity is effectively a matter of giving you different door sizes. In a receiver selectivity is a function of the quality of the electronic circuitry and the "bandwidth" of the receiver's filter(s). For the type of communications you will be monitoring be certain to get a "narrow" filter (500 Hertz bandwidth) for RTTY, a medium (about 2000 Hertz) bandwidth suitable for single side band (SSB) voice reception, and finally a "wide" bandwidth (5000 to 10000 Hertz) for the likes of Radio Moscow. Stability is the last of our trio. It is the ability of the receiver to stay tuned to EXACTLY the frequency which you tune. It is a crucial factor in the quality of long duration intercepts of RTTY and SSB signals. It too, is a function of the quality of the construction and the receiver's circuitry. The NRD-525 is excellent in all of these three crucial aspects of receiver quality. There are several other reasons why I strongly recommend the NRD-525. For the beginner, it also offers the greatest ease of operation. It also allows precision tuning. This means you can tune to the frequency of a signal with a 10 Hz resolution (many excellent receivers allow only 100 Hertz resolution). Once tuned to a given frequency, you can be certain to remain there. This is useful for RTTY and essential for determining the stability and frequency of any amplitude modulated (AM) transmitter you are listening to. More on this later. Another feature of the receiver is the ease at which you can the select, "memorize" and recall preset frequency, bandwidth, and mode of operation (e.g. RTTY, CW, USB, FAX) settings for target signals. The NRD-525 allows you to remember 200 different frequencies with their accompanying settings. On some other fine receivers when you tune to the exact frequency of a known RTTY station you may have to adjust a second control for optimum signal reception, which makes successful tuning a function of increased sophistication on the user's part. This makes such receivers less desirable for the complete novice. I find such fiddling with controls annoying and for a beginner, intimidating. The NRD-525 is engineered so this is not a problem for the user. The ICOM R-71A is an appealing receiver whose price is often about three hundred dollars less than that of the NRD-525. For this receiver to approach the stability or selectivity of the NRD-525 you must purchase additional modifications. This effectively reduces any initial price advantage. I have owned and operated an ICOM R-71A. As far as I am concerned, even with the modifications, it doesn't approach the quality of the NRD-525. Fortunately for me, an honest dealer pointed this out to me when I first started out in this hobby and was hell bent on getting the less expensive ICOM R-71A. While I am quite outspoken about this choice, I have a friend who pursues this hobby and is more than satisfied with the performance of his Kenwood R-5000. Since I am a purist I find its inability to "exactly" tune to an RF with better than 100 Hz resolution an annoyance I would not be willing to put up with. Is there anything wrong with the NRD-525? Yes! The audio quality, as already mentioned, is inferior to almost all other professional shortwave receivers. Unless you spend hours listening to the BBC, this is a minor annoyance, as the NRD-525 audio quality is certainly adequate for shortwave listening in general, and for the most part inconsequential for this hobby in particular. I stress the above is MY opinion. You will find that many take issue with it. For those who are members of Compuserve, I suggest you proceed to their SWL Forum which is Section 3 of their HAMNET Forum (GO HAMNET) and post your opinion.