A British Intelligence Numbers Station In Australia - E03a Cherry Ripe

I've climbed the one at Chernobyl, and it is not possible to describe it's vastness. It is amazing.

I discovered the Russian Woodpecker in mid July of 1976 on my SW radio. By 1980 to 82 the Woodpecker sound was showing up on the telephone, TV and even FM radio too. I last heard The Russian Woodpecker on the 20 meter Ham band while monitoring Hurricane Gilbert communications in the fall of 1988. I thought the signal was fascinating and mysterious, but at the same time I also hated that annoying signal , with a passion.

Back in 1979 as an over the road truck driver, I picked up a trailer load of fencing wire in Kansas City, Mo and delivered it to Columbia Falls Maine. I had to drive several miles down through gravel roads in cranberry fields to a giant opening where huge towers were being put up. The fencing I brought was one of many loads sent there for the purpose of building a reflecting receiving antenna with 20 db of gain to capture our own pulses sent from another transmitting facility many miles away, basically the same architecture as the Soviet system.. This was our own US over the horizon radar system.

Here in Chile, I've heard stories of how annoying the "tapping microphone" as it was called, was. I've heard that it would interfere with local SW stations from the 70s and 80s. I haven't lived to experience the Russian Woodpecker myself, but from what I heard, it seems to have been a day-to-day inconvenience. Still interesting!

The "Woodpecker" was a Russian "Over the horizon" radar system. Both the UK and the USA had similar systems but ours being on a constant frequency where hard to spot. A listener would just hear a high power but narrow constant carrier signal The frequency was changed frequently to be 90% of the MUF between the transmitter site and the Russian launch site at Bykanour (Excuse my spelling). Due to the Official Secret Act I can't tell you where the UK site was but I'm sure the Russians knew. A 500,000 watt transmitter is not hard to find.

I had a pretty potent hf radio set up that time with directional hi gain yagis and a full legal limit rf amplifier. The effective radiated power of my setup was about 30 kw. I could chase the signal out of the amateur bands by taking my electronic cw keyer and matching the pulse rate and width of the transmitted signal. As you mentioned it was very effective. Once it left the amateur frequencies I stopped my “testing”. I wondered at the time if I could possibly start ww3, glad I didn’t.