Firedrake Exposed! China's Secret Shortwave Jamming Project

[W0BTU]

Ahhhhh, the Woodpecker!

Before the Russian Woodpecker went FSK, a simple CW signal (string of dits sent about as fast as the woodpecker was pecking) on top of it would make it magically disappear (QSY). Anybody else remember that?

[NN5AA]

Firedrake as a jammer wouldn't make a WART on the WOODPECKERS @rse! HI!

Ernie / W4HLN

I wasn't a licensed Amateur during the heyday of the Woodpecker, but it sure impacted a lot of my SWL activities. Homebrewed myself a rather grotesque filter network out of old telephone and slot car and model train parts/pieces. It worked but cut signal output, so I used a Peavey guitar amp & speaker to offset that. Had some neighbors who didn't appreciate the loud sounds coming from the shortwave anymore than playing rock tunes on my guitars.

[W4HLN]

The Woodpecker was dead during cycle 23... It died out in 1989. You can read about it and see the antenna's here...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Woodpecker

The noise from the woodpecker was usually from 20 to 40 over on most bands and sometimes you could hear it in your home phone!

There has been several of these radars in the last 20 years but nothing remotely close to the Russian woodpecker in the article above! There was no getting away from it except to turn off your rig sometimes! HI!!

Ernie / W4HLN

[G4SKO]

Before the Russian Woodpecker went FSK, a simple CW signal (string of dits sent about as fast as the woodpecker was pecking) on top of it would make it magically disappear (QSY). Anybody else remember that?

Yep! you are correct. I did this many times with an auto-keyer and it did indeed work. At first I thought it was just coincidence because the woodpecker used to hop frequency at random but I studied it's habits at great length, it soon became clear that it wasn't random QSY but as a result of receiving fake/random echoes from carefully synchronised return pulses. Makes sense, Oh! happy days hihi.

de G4SKO Mark.

[W8XDR]

The reason nations like China try to block us out is that the fear us! We are a part of the greatest nightmare they can have, people talking to each other without them censoring what we say. Check it out over the years.....you will find that control of information is one of the primary things that governments wish to control....next to gun control. It's important to remember that despots want control of your minds and ability to fight them if needed.

I don't think China gives a rat's ass what the US does. And you should probably take a look in your own back-yard in regard to some of these things you're talking about.

[K4HX]

Jammer out of Africa on 40 meters nearly every night.

[N9ABC]

I really hadn't thought about the Russian Woodpecker in a long time. Thanks for the link to the Wikipedia site the article was very interesting- Steve N9ABC

[K7RQ]

The Kenwood TS-850 was produced with two separate noise blankers, one of which was specifically for dealing with the Woodpecker.