The Russian Woodpecker a Blast From the Past

73 from Ki6BDR - I just gave a talk to the Radio Society of Great Britain and would like to share what I found with you.



Anyone ever hear the woodpecker?
Anyone ever jam the woodpecker?

The talk in the link above reverse engineers the Russian Woodpecker based solely on frequency and geometry
In the movie the Russian Woodpecker an interview with locals in the Ukraine admit that the frequencies came from the Duga-3 Radar. And that the antenna was going to a new frequency that was blocked by the Arora. (probably 4 MHz) The radar would send 4 different frequencies in either the 8 or 16 MHz band. Probably dithering the elevation of the beam. The phase shifters (admitted in the movie as well) probably scanned the columns of antennas in azimuth. The physical geometry of the face of the array pointed straight down the middle of the United States. The array was preserved due to the location in the radioactive zone from the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant explosion.

I hope you enjoy the presentation.

73 Ki6BDR

 

Ah...dit dit?

 

Looks like feed lines are still in place has anyone tried hooking a hf rig to it or parts of it? Might be interesting.

 

There was good 2017 article in spectrum monitor that described some of the frequencies, the pulse width and bandwidths.
https://www.thespectrummonitor.com/Feb2017Final.pdf

K4PP

 

Would you believe the Woodpecker in Chernobyl is now a tourist attraction. The buses that go to the Chernobyl Nuclear station also stop in at the Woodpecker to have a look. Of the Duga radars, all caused a lot of interference but Duga 3 seems the most notorious. What an amazing piece of craftsmanship pushed onto the world's radio frequencies. The JORN radar here in Australia is also amazing. Back to the Woodpecker in it's deteriorating form it is an ominous reminder of the past.

 

I'm not going to transmit from that site/it's highly Radioactive the real.

On top of that it's in the Ukraine/ the Russians are taking it back
73 from,
The K0UO "Rhombic Antenna Farm" 2 miles of wire, I'm In the Air or On the Air daily

 

Wrong thread.

 

Thanks I just read the article. I see the antenna was used by ham radio operators after it was abandoned. 73 Keith

 

I was not a licensed Ham back then, but the Wireless Institute of Australia has published information regarding the Duga radar. From my understanding it was from 1976 to 1989 the radar could be heard worldwide. I do remember hearing it back in the day at a friends Ham shack, it was as much annoying as interfering and really knocked out some frequencies all together. The Hams nightmare which thankfully came to an end after the cold war.

 

Yes granted it is glowing and I am not going there. But it would still be cool to see what it would do.

 

The Russians have officially captured that area/ so it's now under Russian control again