[HCDX] 6570 Myanmar and 7 MHz Jammer per ARRL

[W5USM@xxxxxxx]

The first part of this posting concerns the following posting:

Subj:   [HCDX] 6570 Myanmar?    
Date:   1/7/2001 9:22:11 AM Central Standard Time   
From:    bjornfransson@xxxxxxxxxxx (bjorn fransson)
Sender:    hard-core-dx-admin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To:    hard-core-dx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

"What seems to be The Burmese Defence Forces Station was heard with quite 
good strength on 6570 kHz from 13.55 and still now at 15.15. Very beautiful, 
oriental music played and a male talked sometimes like religious. 
Interference from radio amateurs, but otherwise (especially when there was 
music) the signals were strong........" 

There being no 'radio amateurs' allocation for 6570 kHz it may well be the 
interference is from some service other than amateur radio, or mixing 
product, etc., assuming the Burmese station reported was actually on 6570 kHz.

The second part of this posting concerns the following:

Subj:   re: Jammer identified   
Date:   1/7/2001 4:55:08 AM Central Standard Time   
From:    100437.173@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Dave Kenny)
Sender:    100437.173@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Dave Kenny)
CC:    W5USM@xxxxxxx (W5USM@xxxxxxx)

Dear Bill:

Your message about jamming on the 40 m ham band was recently forwarded to me
via the British DX Club. 

I doubt the jamming you refer to is in any way connected with Voice of the
People of Kurdistan - which is a long-standing Kurdish domestic broadcaster
based in Sulaymaniyah, in the Kurdish autonomous area of northern Iraq
(Iraqi Kurdistan). It operates a very stable transmitter on 6995 kHz. It
does not use 7100 kHz and certainly does NOT transmit from Iran.   Nor is it
subject to jamming from Iraq. 

The source of your frequency-hopping jammer is far more likely to be IRAN.
The jamming is probably aimed at the Iranian opposition station Voice of
the Mojahed which hops all over the place, including frequencies in the 40 m
ham band.    

Voice of the Mojahed has been around for many years along with its
frequency-hopping Iranian jammers, and is well known to broadcast DXers. I
am therefore very surprised that a respectable organisation such as the
ARRL should get it so wrong. 

Could you pass this on to Brennan Price as I don't have his email address.

73s

Dave Kenny
British DX Club

---------- Forwarded Message ----------

From: W5USM@xxxxxxx

In a message dated 1/5/2001 8:15:37 PM Central Standard Time, W5USM writes:

"MOTHER OF ALL JAMMING STATIONS" CONTINUES TO PLAGUE 40 METERS but is
IDENTIFIED by ARRL

For some months now, regular users of the 40-meter band have been plagued
from time to time by strong, very broad, frequency-hopping signals that
somewhat resemble a slow-scan TV transmission. The signals, it turns out,
originate from jamming stations in the Middle East.

"We know exactly what this is," said ARRL Monitoring System Coordinator
N4QX. "This is a very high-power Iraqi jammer of a very
high-power Iranian shortwave broadcast station."

The loud buzzing signals have been heard on the 40-meter CW and phone bands
and have even been "spotted" on packet. The jammers occupy about 10 kHz of
spectrum.

Price says the shortwave broadcast station involved is The Voice of the
People of Kurdistan, transmitted via The Voice of the Islamic Republic of
Iran facility in Teheran. "The Iranian station has a daily transmission on
7100 kHz from the same facility, and Iraq has jammed that one also," he
says.

Price explains that the Iranian station--which broadcasts anti-Saddam
Hussein propaganda, hence the jamming--jumps frequencies several times each
broadcast in order to avoid the jamming. Unfortunately for 40-meter users,
the Iraqi transmissions follow. This results in a situation where it's hard
to predict when the jammers might show up on a given frequency block or how
long they'll stay.

Price said that neither station is transmitting where it is supposed to be.
"The Iranian and Iraqi telecommunications administrations have been advised
of this," he said.

Price says that such "politically motivated" intruders typically don't
disappear until the political situation changes. "The 'woodpecker' went
away
when the Cold War did," he said. "This one will probably not go away until
Saddam Hussein does."

~~~from the ARRL Letter, January 5, 2001

As Dave has asked me, I have forwarded the Kenny reaction to Mr. Price at 
ARRL.  Hopefully Mr. Kenny will share his information leading to his 
conclusion and identification of the alleged offending jamming source.

73 from Bill Smith, W5USM
   "Shortwave Since 1950"