[TheList] Listening to other stuff.

Sat Nov 20 20:54:57 AEDT 2010

For anyone interested in HF monitoring, here's an example of some traffic on
the US Customs COTHEN (Customs over the horizon enforcement network)
received here tonight on freq 10242 kHz. This is a message using the
Automatic Link Establishment (ALE) mode which allows HF stations to
automatically select the best HF channel to use for their voice comms.
(more info at http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/COTHEN)

[09:10:03][FRQ 10242000][TO ][K85][TIS][PAC][AL0] BER 22 SN 07

Translation:
Time 09:10:03 UTC
Freq 10242 kHz
Calling K85 (US Coastguard MH65 helicopter no 6585)
This is PAC (US Coastguard Area Master Station Pacific - CAMSPAC Point Reyes
California)
Unencrypted message (AL0)
Bit Error rate (BER) 22
Signal to noise ratio (SN) 7db

(Last two are an indication of signal quality)

There's plenty out there for your listening pleasure...

Cheers

Andy