With Russian missiles now falling in the Ukraine it seems that the worst has occurred and a full scale invasion has started. We wish for the safety of all Ukrainian citizens and to that end we wanted again to reiterate our safety warning to all SDR owners and amateur radio operators in the Ukraine that we put out three weeks ago. Please remember that last year a Crimean resident was arrested and is currently imprisoned by Russian forces for using RTL-SDR and scanner radios to listen to the airband. Crimea was a previous territory of the Ukraine annexed by Russian forces in 2014.
Along with Ukraine's declared state of emergency, one of the conditions is that all transmitting radio amateur activities must cease. We would also strongly recommend ceasing any public facing receiving activities, including ADSB and WebSDR feeds etc.
We are also hearing reports that 8131 kHz is supposedly being used by Russian Strategic Bombers for voice communications and it has been very active within the last few hours. The WebSDR linked in the tweet is already at capacity, but you may be able to hear from KiwiSDRs stationed around Europe.
— TJ (@te3ej) February 24, 2022Russian Strategic Bomber Voice HF active on 8131 Kilohertz USB at 0215 GMT. Aircraft passing short figure messages to ground control. Very busy!
You can monitor the frequency online at the following receiver in Europe.
Type in 8131 and click on USB.https://t.co/ptkGEkIvbn
Sample of the activity. https://t.co/ENwWJGlwTg
— TJ (@te3ej) February 24, 2022