Spy Radios and Their Detection

Matt Burns, kc8com, posted an interesting link to the QRPL list that I thought would be of interest to club members. As Matt says, it's a declassified article from the CIA on some Eastern Bloc "spy radios". The pictures aren't very good but it's an interesting article and I'm sure with a little effort more information could be found.

Adversary Agent Radios by James J. Fauth:

He also points to another interesting radio related article - DFing stations by their receiver's LO.

Agent Hazard in the Super-Het by M. J. Angelicchi

Buck, N4PGW, then noted that you can do more than DF a station by their LO. Stated that when he was in the US Navy as a Radioman, he had the privilege of visiting the intelligence van
that was installed when he traveled the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea. He was able to see the RF generated by radio equipment in a civilian ship. The monitoring equipment was capable of seeing what signals were being received. That was a ship that was over the horizon and probably never knew we were in the vicinity. It taught him a great deal about Emission Control,
(EmmCon) and Radio Silence.

The concept of LO detection was also noted in Peter Wright's autobiography, Spycatcher. As I recall however there was a little more subtlety to the technique. I seem to remember that the detector van transmitted a signal and listened to the pulling of the LO to confirm the frequency being listed to. I will lookout the copy of Spycatcher I smuggled in from Holland (remember how Thatcher banned the book in UK, when it was freely available in English elsewhere) and reminded myself what they actually did.

Stewart/G3YSX