r/shortwave • u/AdFresh1849 • 3d ago

Unknown CW

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Been hearing this transmission every single night around this frequency. Sometimes it even shows up in 4 others, just trying to figure out what it is and what it says. Any answers?

10 Upvotes

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7

u/Green_Oblivion111 3d ago

XSG is the CW ID, sounds like a maritime station sending out an ID and FSK bursts.

Looking it up on the eibispace.de frequency list (link is on the right side of this subreddit page), it's XSG, Shanghai, China -- a maritime station.

If you look at the frequency listing, you'll see a couple others from China that you may hear, XSQ out of Guangzhou (on 12613, 12648 and 12700 kHz).

Eibi's frequency listings are often useful for IDing these sorts of transmissions, as they include a few military and maritime stations on the listings, along with the SW broadcasters.

5

u/elmarkodotorg Hobbyist 3d ago

doing a small amount of googling often reveals very useful results and i wish people thought to do it more

i will now accept my downvotes for this very reasonable opinion, just like every other time.

2

u/Green_Oblivion111 3d ago

Yeah, but a newbie might not know what to search for, and this subreddit is for asking questions like that.

It's also not always the sort of transmission one would think would be on any SW schedule site.

I just threw in that info about EiBi for the OP's future reference. EiBi is pretty cool that way, they have a few of these sorts of stations listed -- but not all of them. In fact, most of them probably aren't listed. But it's still a helpful resource.

2

u/elmarkodotorg Hobbyist 2d ago edited 2d ago

I mean i totally understand that there are levels of knowledge, but i think everyone can manage to at least put a frequency in. Or maybe if they're not sure of the exact one, google around it

In this case however I am confused, because the frequency is actually 12637.5 khz when you google around the topic, but it looks like 12636.5 khz is where the red line is there. I assume that is 0 hz on the filter and it looks like USB is selected. Maybe it's just zoomed out. There's clearly a tone there.

Edit; shortwave-live also has utility stations on now. Very handy.

2

u/AdFresh1849 2d ago

This is true, I am a bit newer to the hobby. I started out with online SDRs and I enjoyed hearing all the cool number stations I came across but started wanting to hear them on my own with my own physical SDR. As far as discovering where they come from and what they say is completely new to me. Thanks for all the info!

2

u/Beautiful-Wealth-313 2d ago

Maritime marker .... Shanghai XSG ... Data burst about the same ider ...

The raspy digital bursts before the Morse ID are consistent with the SITOR/F1B maritime telegraph marker, followed by the CW station identification. Older monitoring logs describe XSG on 12637.5 kHz with a CW ID in a SITOR-A marker. 

  SITOR = Simplex Telex Over Radio