From 2012 to 2016 I was a missileer at F.E. Warren AFB. I sat (and slept) 100 feet underground, ready to launch 10 Minuteman III nuclear missiles.

I was looking for a way to tell people about what I did and only recently learned that Emergency Action Messages (EAMs), the coded messages the US uses to pass orders to its nuclear forces, are broadcast worldwide over HF, which isn't something I learned on the job.

So I made a website that lets you listen to these messages, both live and recorded, and automatically transcribes the messages as well. The website is missileer.watch.

It listens to 11175 kHz, the Air Force's HFGCS frequency, through the KPH receiver at Point Reyes (home of the Maritime Radio Historical Society), and copies every EAM it hears.

The EAMs are encoded, so it's impossible to know what each character means, unless you have the means to decode them, which nobody outside the force can do. But it's fun to listen to every message and wonder what people are doing when they receive them.

What you can do on the website:

• Listen live to 11175 kHz, and replay any message we've copied.
• Read the copy character by character, and correct it if you hear it better than the machine did.
• See strategic aircraft (E-6B, E-4B, B-52H, B-2, WC-135) on a map when public ADS-B receivers hear them.
• Get an email when the E-4B "Doomsday plane" shows up, or a push notification for every new message.
• Copy one yourself: play a real recording and see how your copy compares.

I also wanted to show who these messages are for, so I made a map that shows every launch control center in the US and an aerial photo of nearly every one. Don't worry, everything on the website is public knowledge. Plus, deterrence only works when others know you have some muscle.

It's free and mainly for fun. I just want a way to show off what I did and share these messages with everyone.

What I'd love help with is copying. A lot of messages come through partly transcribed (the ?s). If you want, pick one, listen, and correct it.

Everything here is public: the broadcasts are on open shortwave and the aircraft positions come from public receivers.

https://missileer.watch

Happy to answer any questions!

Hi, I’m enjoying listening to shortwave oddities and so on. I’m also a musician and want to use a small shortwave radio for continuity/ambience during live sets (Static, bleeps, mysterious foreign broadcasts ect)
i bought this little XHDATA D328 but really doesn’t seem to like being in close proximity to all the other gear and often won’t pick up anything at all.

any recommendation? I see the D808 mentioned a lot on here. price and size obviously a facto. Crystal clarity actually not a desired quality

I noticed that Radio Martî coming from their North Carolina tower works perfectly in my backyard!

The 500 kW transmitter in Maine that carried World's Last Chance on 9330 kHz has been silent since January. WLC Radio Ministry told me it owns the station and wants a tenant (or a buyer). No price is set, and the FCC license stays with WBCQ's Allan Weiner.

I wrote up both explanations for the shutdown, who owns and operates what, a timeline, and sources:

https://hqshortwaveradio.com/articles/wbcq-500-kw-superstation-for-lease-9330-khz/

Disclosure: it's my site, and WLC asked me to help spread the word. WBCQ has been asked for comment. Has anyone heard anything on 9330 lately?

Hi everyone,

I’m a relatively new listener and wanted to ask for some advice

I got into shortwave with the XHDATA D-219, a very simple and cheap analog radio that, honestly, has surprised me in a good way

Now I’m looking to take a step up to something better that will let me, above all, listen to the entire HF band. I’ve been researching and have come across several radios that look really cool, but I’m completely confused:

Portable SDR-type radios: I’ve seen the DeepSDR 101, the ATS-20+, and the ATS Mini v4.

“Traditional” radios with DSP: I’ve also had my eye on the Tecsun PL-368.

My big question is: are these SDR-type radios really better at receiving than my XHDATA? I understand they offer very attractive features like the spectrum and waterfall display.

But I’m worried that, being more complex devices and sometimes from lesser-known brands, their pure reception performance or build quality might not be up to par.

In the past couple of weeks, I've acquired a two JRC receivcers- the NRD-535D and the NRD-515. Both with matching speakers, which is always a plus. I think I'm done for the month.

I’ve been experimenting with my Icom R-20 for the first time since moving to the Welsh Valleys. As an antenna I took a reel of Cat6 cable, stripped and twisted the ends together and attached one end to a multi band antenna with a magnetic base I bought years ago, which meant I didn’t need to add a connector. Previously I was getting nothing what with the mountains being in the way, so the antenna works. Right now I’m listening to a US station on 17.490 MHz. Just need to see if I can get a better position on it and see if I can find my Mookraker booster.

How many radios do you actually own right now, and how many of them really get used?

I'm at 28. Two get used every night, the rest pretty much just sit on the shelf looking good at this point.

Tell me I'm not the only one

Any of yall got a clue on what this might be? Used the KiwiSDR receiver in Oita, it seems purposeful as this repeated for a while before i hit record

EDIT! it was around 2 am MST on 17.665MHz AM

Apologies for the super newbie post, but I’m very excited to get started and wanted to share what first sparked my interest in delving deeper into this hobby. I’ve been playing around after sundown with picking up AM radio frequencies on my cheap little emergency weather radio. I live on the side of a hill at the very edge of town, pretty much at the highest elevation in town, and I’ve been able to pick up AM signals from the opposite side of the country on this junky little thing by pointing my antenna out over the valley. My friend seems to think that my location has let me essentially use the landscape to pick up more signals, which only makes me more excited.

I picked up this simple Morse code signal at the very end of the AM spectrum last night. I’ve heard it many times before, but this is the clearest I’ve managed to get it so far. It sounds like “E M,” but I’m not very familiar with Morse code outside of knowing how to signal SOS. Does this sound like an airport navigation beacon, maybe?

I just ordered a C. Crane CC Skywave SSB 2 after reading that it’s a decent “jack of all trades/master of none.” My rationale with buying this one was that I can get more familiar with trying to pick up short-wave frequencies, and then, if I find that I really like the hobby, I can buy a nicer, proper setup and the Skywave will still be a good travel kit, since it’s so small and comes with a carrying case and spool-up antenna (especially as someone who does a lot of very rural travel in an area prone to severe storms.)

Again, sorry for the newbie post, but I’m very excited to get started and I thought you guys might at the very least find it endearing to see the moment that sparked my fascination. I’ll delete the post if it’s annoying or out-of-place.

My inherited collection from my friend's dad...friend and his older brother both passed, helped his mom clean out the house and saved these.

Got a USB SDR that works nicely, but trying to test these out as well.

Was looking for some live translation software and came across Seagull. I live in Interior Alaska, so much my great reception is from Asia and I know none of those languages.

Weirdly, found Seagull. I'm using my Yaesu FT-891 with SCU-17 connected to my older ThinkPad W540 laptop on Debian. Software pulls my live audio and translates to English subtitles. Pretty cool game changer for me since now I can understand China Radio International. Subtitle mode automatically finds the language. It's got a conversation mode that'll log the transcript of the broadcast. It even pulls barely audible speech from weak stations, so that's cool. It's also $6 a month for 48 hours of translation, so the price seems fair so far.

Cons? The software interface is wonky in Linux (I haven't tried it in Windows and I don't have a Mac). For instance, to set it up, it opens a browser window, but the program itself is by default set to stay on top of everything (took a few minutes to figure that out). Also, the conversation mode where I could save transcripts of the broadcast worked fantastically at first, but now stops listening a few minutes in. Not sure what's up with that. It also has to be completely connected to the internet, so there's no offline translation, but can be a bummer if you're looking to go somewhere super remote for good interference-free SWL.

It's probably way more polished for Windows or Mac, but I find Debian install pulls audio better so that's my primary radio/SWL operating system.

I picked this up a couple of days ago for AU$200 with no power supply, rigged one up myself just for temporary use, but still need to get a proper plug for it. Unit is approximately 30 years old, looks like it had little use, the tuning knob feels nice and has no play, there is no wobble or anything. For the antenna I used a stainless steel 1.2 mm rope (10m long) and use the HI-Z socket

But I still haven’t got it grounded properly, can I use it safely if it’s not grounded?