This happened maybe a week ago, over the course of several days. I was there and talked to the pirate via Telegram.
I don't really like Vice and don't want to reveal anything about the pirate (singular) in particular, but I believe they are Russian, not Ukrainian (I just sent a message asking), and it is a younger gentleman (perhaps early 20's). His name on the SDR messages was Alex but his Russian name is something different. He was very kind, at least through messages (we spoke via Russian and some simpler English messages) and he accepted requests for music and images.
By far the clearest hijacking broadcast was the first day. The buzzer was completely gone, Alex's broadcast absolutely drowned it out for most online receivers I could find. The following days seemed to battle a bit more - perhaps the military did something to boost the signal.
As well, the days following the hijacking there were a lot of cryptic messages sent out, at a much higher frequency than usual. You can find what they sound like on YouTube if you just type "uvb76 broadcast". There were several per day whereas historically the channel could be unused for months at a time. There is still no known meaning behind the messages but they're always broadcasted by a live human, speaking Russian.
You've been very vocal about how this is supposedly fake so far, but you've been very mysterious. You say it's so obvious that any ham can instantly tell why, yet you treat the reason like some kind of secret that only you must hold. I can't help but think you may be the one spreading misinformation. You're welcome to prove me wrong though.
I’m going to wait a while and see how many more fake news articles come out about this before I describe exactly why these reports are fake. In the mean while you’re welcome to try to locate I/Q recordings of the incident. Trust me, none will be offered.
I’m mostly a radar guy so I’m missing it — is it the fact that we only see the upper sideband, as though the signal is analytic? I don’t know this software (only a bit of GNUradio now and then) so I don’t know if the green bar up top is just the filtered passband or what. If it’s supposed to be the passband, I get that some of the spectra (“demo2,” for example) creep out of it, which is fishy. Any insight is appreciated!
I don't really like Vice and don't want to reveal anything about the pirate (singular) in particular, but I believe they are Russian, not Ukrainian (I just sent a message asking), and it is a younger gentleman (perhaps early 20's). His name on the SDR messages was Alex but his Russian name is something different. He was very kind, at least through messages (we spoke via Russian and some simpler English messages) and he accepted requests for music and images.
By far the clearest hijacking broadcast was the first day. The buzzer was completely gone, Alex's broadcast absolutely drowned it out for most online receivers I could find. The following days seemed to battle a bit more - perhaps the military did something to boost the signal.
As well, the days following the hijacking there were a lot of cryptic messages sent out, at a much higher frequency than usual. You can find what they sound like on YouTube if you just type "uvb76 broadcast". There were several per day whereas historically the channel could be unused for months at a time. There is still no known meaning behind the messages but they're always broadcasted by a live human, speaking Russian.
I screenshotted almost everything I could find, sans his Telegram handle for obvious reasons, Twitter thread here: https://twitter.com/bad_at_computer/status/14839824282219397...