Russian Long-Range Aviation on 8033 kHz: the autumn set, callsign Stupen

What you hear

A quiet frequency for long stretches, and then a Russian voice, male, clipped and formal: a callsign, a group of digits, a request to confirm. The ground station answers with the word "Ступень" (Stupen, a step or a stage) as its own callsign, reads the groups back and signs off. The aircraft side is weaker and often buried in noise; the ground station, by all appearances a powerful transmitter in the Moscow region, is what you actually hear from Europe. The traffic is short: callsigns, digit groups, "принял" (received), occasionally a longer exchange in which the ground reads a series of groups and the aircraft repeats them. Nobody chats. Between exchanges the frequency sits empty for half an hour or more.

The net has a tell. On a separate ground frequency, in Morse, the letter W (dit dah dah) is sent over and over for about two minutes around :00, :20 and :40 of each hour whenever a sortie is up. Listeners use it as a sign that there is something to wait for on the voice frequencies; without it, the evening is usually quiet.

Who transmits and why

Long-Range Aviation is the branch of the Russian air force that flies the strategic bombers and the tankers that go with them, on patrols that can last many hours over the Arctic, the Atlantic and the Pacific. Beyond line-of-sight radio, the aircraft keep in touch with their command through HF nets like this one, in voice and in Morse, and the digit groups they exchange are coded reports: positions, states, acknowledgements of orders. The content is not readable to an outsider; the pattern of activity is.

The frequencies change with the season. The autumn set, used in roughly September and October, has the ground callsign Stupen and three voice frequencies: 5803 kHz at night, 8033 kHz in the evening, 11320 kHz by day. In winter the set changes, and the ground callsign with it, to Balans; that set has its own articles. The date of the changeover is not announced, so in late October it is worth checking both.

Listening to this net is not prohibited. The transmissions are in the open, in plain voice and plain Morse, for anyone with a receiver; the program only receives, and in most countries receiving open transmissions is legal, with some countries restricting what you may do with the content, such as publishing or retransmitting it. This is not legal advice, and the rules where you live are yours to check.

When and where to listen

8033 kHz is the evening frequency: in European time, from late afternoon until around midnight, it is the one with the best chance of traffic. The ground station is heard well from receivers in Finland, the Baltic states, Poland and central Europe, and often from western Europe too; the aircraft are a lottery. The catalogue places the ground station near Moscow, so a receiver within a couple of thousand kilometres of it is the best start.

The mode is USB. Patience is the main tool: the net is busy on some evenings and silent on others, and the Morse marker is the best predictor.

In ShackDeck

Station catalogue → Military → Russian Long-Range Aviation 8033 (autumn). The program picks a public receiver that covers 8033 kHz, tunes it and sets USB, with no receiver, antenna or account of your own. The night and day frequencies of the set, 5803 and 11320 kHz, have their own rows, as do the ground Morse frequencies where the W marker is sent.