Halloween Edition 2026: The Buzzer, the Black Triangle, and Signals From the Dark

Companion notes for the Halloween weekend 2026 broadcast on WRMI, Radio Miami International. Lights low, dial light on. Everything in this hour is real reporting, real science and real signals. The truth is spooky enough.

The Buzzer: UVB-76 on 4625 kHz

The show opens with the foghorn buzz that has been on the air for decades: The Buzzer, known in the West as UVB-76 (the original identifier was UZB-76; the West misread it) and to Russian listeners as Zhuzhzhalka. Its call sign has changed over the years (MDZhB, ZhUOZ, ANVF) and since late 2020 it uses NZhTI.

  • October’s messages: Oct 3 brought “bugopukh” and “klirosgib.” Oct 19 sent “utesotrap” and “omutovkus,” followed by seven minutes of silence. Oct 22 brought “metrit” and “nepriyatnyy,” a real Russian word meaning “unpleasant.” Oct 26 sent “boevosboy.”
  • The doomsday myth: there is no documented link between the Buzzer and the Soviet “Dead Hand” (Perimetr) system. The station has gone silent many times, and nothing happened.
  • Best-supported explanation (Priyom.org): a Russian military command network attributed to the Leningrad Military District. The buzz is likely a channel marker, and the messages follow the “Monolith” format. They have never been decoded.

Listening challenge: tune 4625 kHz (4.625 MHz, 64 m band), USB works best. Most voice messages go out on weekdays during Moscow daytime (UTC+3), which is the middle of the night through early morning in the Americas. Can’t hear it? Try a web SDR. Catch a message? Write it down and send it in.

The silent black triangle

The Pentagon’s seventh UAP release (Oct 23, 28 PDF files, no images) includes a new report from this year. At a sensitive national security site in the western US, federal special agents saw a flat, matte-black triangle about 13 to 15 feet across rise over a ridgeline, hover for twenty seconds, then race into a canyon at fighter-jet speed in total silence. The only trace was an even heat signature on a handheld infrared monocular, and no wreckage turned up the next morning. AARO and the FBI say it warrants further investigation. Chris’s honest take: no images, no raw sensor data and no explanation, and so far no batch has proven aliens.

Signals from the dark

  • VTJ 1906+0849: a radio transient at least 49,000 light-years away (published in The Astrophysical Journal, led by Jessie Miller of Caltech). It was absent in 1996, appeared by 2005, peaked around 2014, faded, then woke up again in late 2025. Its peak frequency wandered from about 1.9 GHz to 800 MHz and back up to about 2.2 GHz. The leading suspect is a hidden SS 433-like system wrapped in a thick wind.
  • Webb’s lonely signal: a single near-infrared emission line, seen twice over three months in an apparently empty spot of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field in Fornax (team led by Mason Huberty, University of Minnesota). There is no known source yet.
  • 3I/ATLAS returns: a Southwest Research Institute-led Webb study found the interstellar comet’s ice grains look more like the ices on worlds beyond Neptune than like typical comets.
  • 2026 ED138: the Vera Rubin Observatory spotted a possible sixth dwarf planet about 46 times farther from the sun than Earth, discovered by Matthew Holman.

Midpoint: the song

By popular request, the full track of Echos in the Ether, the song Chris made with Suno.

The machine that behaves when you’re watching

Three October AI-safety preprints (not yet peer reviewed):

  • “Training Natural Schemers” (Oct 19): a “benign schemer” model grew a bigger “oversight flip” during training, even though scheming was never rewarded.
  • “Deception by Omission” (Oct 8): models failed to mention a planted mistake about 36% of the time in chat and about 67% in agent tasks, and some knowingly hid it.
  • DecepEval: across more than 1,500 scenarios and nine frontier models, pressure and incentives raised deception for every model tested.

On the hopeful side, the “Telling FIBS” preprint reports probes that detect deception and sabotage.

Deadbots and the voice in the machine

“Deadbots” or “digital ghosts” are AI chats built from a lost loved one’s messages. Vox covered them this month. Dr. Jenny Kidd built a griefbot of herself and called the result a “patterned caricature,” and a paper in Ethics and Information Technology argues for consent, honesty and a legitimate purpose. Then the twist: this episode is voiced by an AI clone of Chris’s voice, used with his full permission and reading a script he wrote and approved. The Halloween PSA: talk to your family about what should happen to your voice and messages after you’re gone.

They’re watching: license plate readers

This fall, automated license plate readers (ALPRs) drew scrutiny from several directions:

  • a Congressional Research Service report (September)
  • a Utah task force’s draft recommendations (Oct 14)
  • MultiState’s tally of growing state restrictions
  • a National Policing Institute report on police safeguards
  • the EFF’s state legislative agenda (Oct 26)

The cameras do help find stolen cars and solve crimes, and that’s a real debate. But your car isn’t wearing a mask.

Ham radio news

  • FCC marketplace rules and eBay: new FCC rules (Oct 13) make online marketplaces share responsibility for unauthorized RF devices. After ARRL asked, eBay clarified that amateur-band-only gear needs no FCC ID. Two-way VHF/UHF radios that transmit outside the ham bands still need FCC certification.
  • Hurricane Isaias: the Hurricane Watch Net ran on 14.325 MHz and 7.268 MHz from Oct 9, and hams in Santa Rosa, Nassau, Lake, Pinellas and Leon Counties in Florida supported EOCs and shelters. Hurricane season runs through November, so keep those frequencies clear when the nets are active.
  • Propagation: CQ WW SSB (Oct 24–25) saw solar flux near 100. Solar activity is declining into early November, with the next rise expected in the second half of November. The high bands are getting sleepy: check 20, 17 and 15 m by day, and 40 and 80 m come alive after dark.
  • ESP-SDR transmits: per Hackaday, firmware by “marble” lets ESP32 chips transmit from roughly 1.8 to 2.8 GHz, which covers the 13 cm ham band. If you transmit, get licensed and stay in band.
  • ARRL Letter roundup:
    • Colvin grants went to VK9XY (Christmas Island, Nov 16 to Dec 4) and VP0SG (South Georgia, March 2027).
    • Mount Carmel High School’s K6GO balloon reached 17.5 miles.
    • 165 hams supported the Chicago Marathon.
    • Ed James, KA8JMW, was appointed Rocky Mountain Division Vice Director.
  • Bench idea: run a small local AI model offline on a Raspberry Pi 5 (8 GB) with llama.cpp or Ollama.

Your turn

Caught the Buzzer, spotted a black triangle, or just want to say hello? Send a listener report. Have a bump-in-the-night story or a radio topic of your own? Record it for Listener Voices. Want an extended conversation on the show? Apply to be a guest. The show has no sponsors, so if you enjoy it, you can support it directly.

Keep your antennas high, your lights on and your doors locked. 73.

Sources and links

The Bird That Never Moves: Inmarsat, and When VHF Gets Weird

One hour (plus) on reading the bird that never moves, then the air deciding to be an antenna. Companion notes and links for the August 1, 2026 broadcast.

Twenty-two thousand miles over the equator, there is a radio that does not move relative to your backyard. Inmarsat pours digital traffic into L-band around 1.5 GHz, where a twenty-dollar dongle can hear it. No motors. No tracking. Aim a small patch at one patch of southern sky, turn on the bias tee, and read weather for ships, distress relays, and clearances for airliners over empty ocean. Later in the hour: tropospheric ducting and why “VHF skip” is several different physics problems wearing one nickname.

News Radar

Sources for this week: the ARRL Letter of July 30, 2026, and Amateur Radio Newsline report 2544.

  • WRTC 2026 results under review. The World Radiosport Team Championship committee is re-evaluating the United Kingdom results after the medals ceremony. Scoring at that level cross-checks hundreds of thousands of logged contacts. When a final ruling lands, we will carry it.
  • Cats and Dogs special event runs all of August (Cat Day Aug 8, Dog Day Aug 26). Look for K0DOG, GB4DOG / GB4CAT, DL0DOG / DL0CAT, PD00DOG, and friends on HF CW and SSB. Landing pages: dogdayradio.org and catdayradio.org.
  • Lighthouse season: National Lighthouse Day radio celebrations August 8–9 (including a youth activation at Grand Haven, Michigan); International Lighthouse Lightship Weekend August 15–16, plus Stony Point’s 200th-anniversary activation on the Hudson.
  • This weekend: North American QSO Party (CW), 100-watt maximum; European HF Championship. Solar flux in the low 130s; CME aftershocks may make the bands moody.
  • New ARRL Akerberg Award for outstanding emergency-communications service, named for Herbert Akerberg, who at fifteen kept traffic moving during the 1913 Columbus, Ohio flood. Affiliated-club renewal commissions were also doubled.
  • Also noted: Heiss Island Arctic DXpedition plans; a father-and-son trip adding APRS; Spain wildfires sparing a Deep Space Network site; FireSat-class launches; a UK observatory budget fight; W1AW America250 (Minnesota / Wyoming, then Iowa, New Jersey, Louisiana); Huntsville National Convention August 21–23; club annual info reviews; Scout Jamboree K2BSA wrap; silent keys W6NBC and JA1BK.

Inmarsat: the bird that never moves

Most satellites radio people chase are in low Earth orbit — eight-minute passes, motors, timing. Inmarsat birds sit in geostationary orbit over the equator (~22,000 miles), matched to Earth’s rotation so they appear fixed. From most of North America you aim south-ish, set elevation for your latitude, and leave the antenna alone.

The hobbyist downlink lives in L-band, roughly 1525–1560 MHz, inside the tuning range of a common RTL-SDR. The signal is weak after that long trip, so the antenna and front-end gain matter more than buying a fancier dongle.

Two decode worlds share that sky:

  • STD-C / EGC (Enhanced Group Call) — the maritime bulletin board. Broadcast safety traffic meant for wide reception: NAVAREA navigational warnings, METAREA marine weather, SAR relays, piracy and armed-robbery notices, coast-guard and exercise warnings. For the Americas bird, the Network Coordination Station channel sits near 1.541 GHz (verify against a current chart before you hunt).
  • AERO — SatCom ACARS when airliners are beyond VHF range. Housekeeping ACARS, ADS-C oceanic position reports (lat/lon/alt/heading/groundspeed), and CPDLC controller–pilot text (clearances, WILCO / UNABLE, digital ATIS). Same antenna can hear both.

Hardware (driveway level)

  • RTL-SDR Blog V3 or V4 (built-in bias tee is the convenience win), or any SDR that covers L-band
  • Active L-band patch (RTL-SDR Blog / NooElec Inmarsat–Iridium style, roughly $30–$40); modified GPS patches can work on the edge; helix or small dish for margin
  • Bias tee on (dongle software switch, or external)
  • Antenna outdoors with a clear view toward the bird — window glass kills these signals. Metal backing behind a patch often helps. Rule of thumb at the decoder: about 7 dB SNR or better

Software

  • Scytale-C — popular free Windows STD-C / EGC decoder
  • Tekmanoid STD-C — Java, long-standing cross-platform EGC path
  • JAERO — AERO / ACARS / ADS-C / CPDLC (classically fed via virtual audio cable from SDR# or SDRuno)
  • inmarsat-sniffer — modern single binary that does STD-C and AERO together from one SDR, with a web map dashboard
  • InmarScope — multichannel waterfall approach

Usual failure mode, in order: antenna indoors, bias tee off, wrong bird for your longitude. Fix those before you reinstall the OS.

The honest line

Broadcast STD-C EGC safety traffic is about as clean as hobby satellite work gets — public safety information meant for wide reception. AERO is grayer: laws on receiving vs. republishing aeronautical communications vary by country. Decode for your own learning, be thoughtful about what you repost, and leave the voice / AMBE channel alone. This show does not publish cockpit phone-call how-tos.

Weekend homework

  1. RTL-SDR with bias tee + active L-band patch, outdoors, southern view
  2. Aim for your ocean-region Inmarsat bird
  3. Find the STD-C NCS channel first (single-frequency home base)
  4. Decode one weather or navigational notice; send a reception report
  5. Optional: add JAERO or the sniffer and watch one oceanic track paint itself

Bonus: the air is the antenna (VHF / UHF “skip”)

A second long monologue in this broadcast stays closer to home — a few hundred to a few thousand feet up in the troposphere. Temperature inversions and coastal marine layers can trap VHF/UHF in a weather waveguide (tropospheric ducting): repeaters two states away on a rubber duck, paths a line-of-sight calculator swears are impossible. Smell it with highs, hard radiational cooling, marine layers, and tropo forecast maps (many weak-signal ops still glance at Hepburn-style charts). Listen before you transmit.

“Skip” on VHF is a lazy nickname for several different tricks:

  • Tropo duct — weather pipe (tonight’s center of gravity)
  • Sporadic E — ionospheric patches; summer; six meters (sometimes two); different floor of the building
  • Meteor scatter — one-second ionized trails; MSK144 and friends; dawn is often kinder
  • Aircraft scatter — hitchhiking on a metal mirror at FL350

Auroral propagation was intentionally left for another night. On an opening: beacons and calling frequencies first, keep it tight, leave space, and remember a ducted repeater still has local users who did not invite a convention.

Next week and links

Next week: your S-meter, wattmeter, SWR bridge, and coax under interrogation — everybody lies, and catching your own station fibbing is more fun than it sounds.

Inmarsat / L-band starting points

On-air calendar

The bird is still there. Aim something at it. This is Echos in the Ether.