Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Mario, who writes:
Dear Thomas,
It has been about two or three days since it was impossible for me to hear Radio Romania Int in Spanish (1900 UTC) from my home, at Zaragoza.
A strange interference appeared close to my favourite SW station (13860). A little bit on the left of the waterfall an strange emission appeared jamming.
After some research in your past entries I found that it could be a radar over the horizon.
Using the TDoA function of the kiwisdr environment, I found the following:
If it worked properly, the emission source could come from Kaliningrad.
According to old news, another 29B6 facility has been planned to be built in Kaliningrad.
Mario then sent the following update:
Well, it seems that the mystery has been resolved.
I am pretty sure that is a new 29B6:
A 1300 Yards Wide Structure Appeared on Satellite Images – This Is The “Kaliningrad Monster”
It can be see on some satellite imagery services (https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/, at the coordinates of the previous link).
It is not visible on Google satellite images or Bing maps.I hope they change their frequency shortly because they are messing my SW listening at radio Romania Intl in Spanish.
Best regards.
Dear Tony
Many thanks for your contribution. Definitely I have lot of reading pending in your blog..
By the moment the interference has been swapping frequencies. At least it stop bothering my SW listening ay Radio Romania Int. But I will continue performing TDoA search when able.
Best regards
Hi Thomas,
To follow up on this post.
Firstly, the fourth link in the image above (planesandstuff) is my blog. It’s part of a series on Konteyner:
https://planesandstuff.wordpress.com/2020/02/25/russian-othr-29b6-konteyner-analysis/
https://planesandstuff.wordpress.com/2020/03/06/konteyner-follow-up/
https://planesandstuff.wordpress.com/2020/03/23/more-konteyner/
Unfortunately, this site is not what is causing the issues faced by Mario.
I’ve just checked the latest high resolution imagery of the site and it is still a circular field of mud and is no way near being in service.
Also, the circular shape just doesn’t fit with the Konteyner set up – and actually isn’t a big enough site.
I’m afraid he’s going to have to look elsewhere for the interference.
Tony
Hi Tony,
Thank you for your comment. Do you have any clue about what is that circular shape?
After some review, the bandwidth of the interference is about 20 kHz less than expected for a kontayner radar, isn’t it? But in the other hand, the TDoA function pointed very accurately to that area… It is strange.
Congratulations for your blog.
Hi Mario,
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you.
At this time I do not know what the circle could be associated with. It is certainly not Konteyner. It is being watched – and has been for around three years now. However, I do suspect it is military – at the moment 🙂
I believe it will have an antenna there at some stage soon. See 54.9118, 21.7177 as an example. The circular area is the same size as the “monster”! (Slapping my head at the naming by clueless OSINTERs). This antenna is not too far away from your TDOA plot (28 km).
One thing for sure is that “Radio & Nukes” on X, who seems to have started this conclusion, clearly doesn’t have any idea what he is talking about! For instance, his associated site B to the circle – located at 54.47069, 21.65252 – is a large cattle farm!!! I state in my blogs that the area has lots of these sites.
A clickbaiter looking for you to buy him a coffee, making lots of money out of the UKR war. Just one of many, which is why I stopped posting blogs publicly after a while.
A similar sized circular area – though not as developed – is not too far away at 54.5589, 21.8719 – cut into a forest area. This has been there since the 1980’s. Are they the same thing? Not sure. Possibly was going to be an antenna site way back but found unsuitable. There’s lots of sites dotted around the area.
So at the moment – likely an antenna site (eventually) but could also be a giant holding area for cows!
Yes, the bandwidth is not correct for Konteyner. There are lots of military sites within your TDOA area – including 152nd Guards Missile Regt. who operate Iskander Missiles and just 9km from your TDOA plot. But unlikely to be them.
I wonder if your interference came from the large antenna site I mentioned earlier.
Cheers
Tony
Sorry,
I forgot to say that there is a Murmansk-BN unit based in Kaliningrad. The 841st Independent Electronic Warfare Centre. It used to generally operate from a field at 54.8330 19.9578 but as it is totally mobile, could be anywhere.
Murmansk-BN is a HF jamming system.
I wrote about this in 2019 as a follow up to a Janes article I had written about the system – https://planesandstuff.wordpress.com/2019/09/09/murmansk-bn-hf-ew-complex/
SWLing readers may find this interesting as the system uses Icom IC-R8500’s as it’s receiver. A similar system uses AOR 500’s.
I really should check my replies 🙂
I also forgot to say – the Kaliningrad Konteyner transmitter site is located at 54.6780, 21.1628, but is still under construction and a good few years away yet.
The receiver site isn’t known yet. But if it is the circle, it is completely different to any of the other sites – and considerably smaller.