Klingenfuss utility guide 1999

Klingenfuss utility guide 1999

And once again something different

YOU surely know that  I am a keen  radio listener. However you possibly don’t know  that  the older times I was also a keen listener of utility radio stations! That happened  on mid 90s to mid 00’s . and more interested during the time of the war in Serbia.

I was using a  Philips  2395  radio  (having BFO to tune ) together  with a Spectrum micro computer  and an interface connected on the rear of Spectrum that  did the decoding of various digital  transmissions  of that time .

What is utility radio station? This kind of station is a transmission  normally not intended to the general public as  the transmissions are aimed to  communications.

These’re the following categories

UC 1: Time Signal Stations, Space Stations and the Aero Section

UC 2: PTP Stations

UC 3: Maritime Stations

UC 4: Military  

UC 5: Government Stations and various other stations

Standard radio stations (like voice of America , BBC etc ) cover  less than the one third if this radio spectrum  while remain  spectrum  is used solely  to these  communications services

This book is intended to those  interested in this specialized and very exciting  hobby . As far I know  Klingenfiuss is one of the oldest (?) publishers (since 60s )in this category  with many books in mind

I am  now going into the structure of this book

This book contains  about 600 pages with relatively   thick paper of one inch thickness.

The first part contains some interesting introductory material and the status of monitoring utilities . (for example  several countries  prohibit listening ). References  to publications from ICAO ,ITU WHO and other international organizations including several  persons who contributed  to make this book being published .

-Types  of radio services included : aero meteo beacons broadcast feeders ships diplomatic services intelligence services Interpol press agencies UNO aero mobile maritime  mobile freq  and time services

-Modulation types : SSB , CW (standard morse ), radio fax , radio teletype RTTY (or radio telex) and all related  encoding systems as ARQ , FEC etc (that time  there were about 43 encoding systems )

-equipment and  what extra is required (as  for example a communications receiver is surely required with SSB and CW at least ) the extra ca be a  dedicated  reader  to cope

- series of radio regulations

Ca 300 pages of freq lists . This includes a tabled format with 4 columns : freq , ID station , mod  type (CW SSB and in the case of RTTY the encoding  )or any other remarks 11600  freqs from 1500 stations

All  frequencies and stations  have been  thoroughly monitored via Klingenfuss own monitoring facilities in Tubingen or via his contributors over the world and on special DXpeditions !

Alphabetical listing by country including all services addresses .with a funny   PRC  is referred as Communist Undemocratic China and same  is referred  to the North Korea . Obviously he puts his political thoughts in this book

3rd part  includes more interesting information as :

• Stations  IDs  and ITU’s radio regulation
• Call sign formation possibilities
• NATO routing indications
• call signs  by country
• radio fax and radio telex schedules
• navtex (navigation ) on 518 kHz
• screenshots from their monitoring work
• Full Q code (standardized collection of three-letter message encodings also  can be found here http://www.kloth.net/radio/qcodes.php )
• Full Z code  (also can be found here http://www.kloth.net/radio/zcodes.php)
• Phonetic codes  for alphabet and figures (as alpha for A or lima for L )
• SINPO/SINPFEMO code (a code used to describe the quality of radio transmissions)
• Emission codes  codes to describe the transmission and its parameters (full here http://www.ominous-valve.com/emission.txt)
• Class of stations and nature of service
• Definitions also radio regulations 
• aero mobile services and freq allotment plan 
• abbreviations  (more a than  35 pages !)

And on on the end many pages with all products of this publisher . Except the books he sells a special inverted  V antenna , and the WAVECOM  digital  decoder series (required to decode the various teletype encodings)

This book is surely one very interesting and useful