[Milsurplus] "The Bagpipes"

[jvendely at cfl.rr.com]

Hue is correct, "The Bagpipes" were not a broadcast station interval signal, it was some kind of channel marker.  The musical sequence was inane and hardly worthy of being called a "melody" but the notes were all on the musical scale.
WA7DIA, in his earlier posting described it well--the tones were electronically generated, but had a characteristic reedy sound reminiscent of a single bagpipe playing ,there were often clicking sounds heard while the sequence played, and the carrier dropped in between repetitions.  

The entire melodic sequence of maybe 25 notes took a little less than ten seconds and was comprised of only five discrete tones, undoubtedly sequenced by some kind of mechanical keyer, which produced key clicks at the note transitions .   On some occasions the keying sequence would get fouled up, and the "melody" would have notes out of order.  Sometimes it played slowly, other times much faster.  It was obviousy a rather crude setup.
  
On a couple of occasions, I heard the channel marker disappear, followed by distorted, unintelligible voices which sounded like one side of a phone conversation.  I never did figure out just what this signal was, but a others have claimed it was a Cuba-USSR telephone circuit.  I don't know if this is correct or not.
 
Years ago, I posted queries about "The Bagpipes" to the old WUN list, asking if anyone knew what these signals were, and and got plenty of imaginative but completely cockamamie answers.  Clearly, none of the respondents had ever heard it.  No avid shortwave listener of the mid-late 1960s could avoid hearing "the bagpipes", so there must be more 60s SWLs on this list than there were on WUN!

After all these years, I'd still like to know what the heck those signals were...

73,
John K9WT



---- Hubert Miller <kargo_cult at msn.com> wrote: 
> No, what we were talking about were more likely called "voice markers" or something similar ( which eludes me right now. ) 
Same idea as the IT&T voice announcements that ran over and over on their idling HF circuits. 

 The   "deee,  diddly-diddly, deee - da"    'bagpipes' thing was on a PTP traffic circuit - not a broadcast. They weren't interested in
giving SWLs something to tune on. 

I know i'm a minority of one on this, but i don't think "interval signal" is really the best term for what i'd just call "musical theme"
altho that's cumbersome too. Maybe "interval theme". 
Yes, the golden age of SWL. When 60 and  49 meters were station next to station, almost like the domestic AM broadcast band.
I sure regret tossing out my QLSs many years back.
-Hue 

-----Original Message-----
From: Milsurplus [mailto:milsurplus-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Ron Lawrence W4RON
Sent: Wednesday, June 1, 2016 10:53 AM
To: milsurplus at mailman.qth.net
Subject: Re: [Milsurplus] "The Bagpipes"

What you're talking about is called an "Interval Signal".
Here's a link to a web page that tells all about them; http://live-radio.net/interval_sigs.shtml 

Here's a youtube vid with recordings of lots of interval sigs from the 60's and 70s; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFRYKDF2kxs 

Boy I sure wish we could go back to the wat SWLing was in the 60s & early 70s.

R-

> 
> Message: 3
> Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2016 09:22:18 -0600
> From: "George Babits" <gbabits at custertel.net>
> To: "milsurplus" <milsurplus at mailman.qth.net>
> Subject: Re: [Milsurplus] "The Bagpipes"
> 
> I think it may have been just a way of "occupying" a frequency.  On 
> some of  the Air Force frequecnies you could hear, "Goose Bay,  Goose 
> Bay this is  Gander, this is Gander.  Do not answer.  Do not answer."  
> That would go on  for hours, days, or weeks;  depending on traffic.
> 
>  73,
>  George
>  W7HDL
>

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Knee-deep in the cosmic overwhelm, I’m stricken by the ricochet wonder of it all: the plain

everythingness of everything, in cahoots with the everythingness of everything else.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

73, Ron W4RON

http://radioheaven.homestead.com/menu.html 

http://antiqueradiocharlotte.homestead.com/2016.html



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