(Continued from previous message)
station has a callsign of its own. However, the master station seems to use
more than one callsign. VNB, KKK and RGA, which are believed to be trans-
mitting from the same location are most probably callsigns of the master
station. It seems that the master receives a different callsign on each
specific two-way link.
 
 
What did we find so far ?
-------------------------
We have found several clues about the preambles and QSL system. Let's take
a closer look at the preambles. Each message starts with a preamble con-
sisting of 5 groups, followed by the message itself. A typical preamble
looks like this: 11177 00142 23687 05012 01109.
 
1st group: probably a message identifier, stating what kinda message it is,
           maybe also a priority code. 11144, 11166, 11177 and 11199 are the
           combinations heard so far. The most common are 11177 and 11199.
           The latter is being used for QSL purposes.
 
2nd group: the link-identifier, each link has its own id, except for stations
           who have a two-way link, in that case both stations have the same
           link-id.
 
3rd group: the crypto-factor.
 
4th group: the first two digits are the date and the last three are the
           message number.
 
5th group: the first four digits represent the number of groups in the
           message + 1. The extra group is most likely the crypto-factor
           (3rd group of the preamble). The last digit is either a '1'
           or a '9'.
 
After the messages have been sent, the operators sometimes have a little
chat. In the America's the conversations are in often poor English while on
the European side often cyrillic is used and also German words are used.
 
As I mentioned earlier, there are also QSL messages. The original messages
can be transmitted on other frequencies and even on other days then the day
the QSL messages gets out. The first group of the preamble is always 11199.
The messages always seem to start with 55555 followed by 77011, while the
last groups represent the QSLed messages. A typical QSL preamble and
message looks like this:
 
        11199 00142 00000 18010 00069
        55555 77011 00089 00090 00091
 
Five different cipher systems have been noted:
 
1) The 3rd group of the preamble is 00000 and the message consists of 5L
   groups.
2) The 3rd group of the preamble consists of random digits and the message
   consists of 5L groups.
3) The 3rd group of the preamble consists of random digits and the message
   consists of 5F groups and the last group is NOT 11111.
4) The 3rd group of the preamble is 00000 and the message consists of 5F
   groups and the last group is 11111.
5) The 3rd group of the preamble is 00000 and the message consists of 5F
   groups and the last group is NOT 11111.
 
The Brotherhood uses various RTTY modes, the most common is Baudot 75bd.
Sometimes 50 or 100bd is used. They also use a Russian version of Piccolo,
better know as Crowd36 or CIS Piccolo, Other, yet unknown, exotic modes are
used as well. Then there is of course the Mazielka and CW is used as well,
mostly for chatting and callups.
 
Who are the partners in this Brotherhood ? Well, it's all guesses of course.
No-one steps forward and says 'he you guys, it's me you're looking for' :-)
According to DF-research, the European master station  must be located in
the Moscow region, while the WFO / MIG link is a link between Cuba and
the New York area, probably the Russian UN legation. Station GMN could be
located in Mexico City.
 
In 'Soviet Signals Intelligence' by professor Desmond Ball, he listed Soviet
Sigint Posts located in the Western Hemisphere. The sigint posts are in
Mexico City, Washington 2x, New York City, San Francisco, Managua, San Jose,
Buenos Aires, Montreal, Ottawa, Chicago and Lima.
So far, 13 transmission schedules have been noted for the Brotherhood in the
America's. There are 12 listed sigint posts and 13 schedules, so if there is
a connection between the schedules and the sigint posts, then there must be
at least one more sigint post.
The European scene is a bit different; we have not yet determined where the
out-stations are located. Most probably outside Russia and in the eastern
part of the country.
 
Then there are the QSF messages: 1/1, 2/1, 3/1, 7/1, 8/1, 9/1 QSF3
The official meaning of the QSF-code is ''I have effected rescue and am
proceeding to base''. We can safely assume that the Brotherhood-QSF's have
nothing to do with the official meaning of the code. Intensive monitoring of
the stations revealed that QSF2 means a normal schedule, QSF4 means no
schedule and QSF3 is yet unknown but could mean that an alternative schedule
will be used. On the days that QSF1 had been indicated a QRU was sent.
 
There is a very significant feature to the 5-letter traffic. The last group
(Continued to next message)
--- GEcho 1.11+
(1:369/8)
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