Soviet radar hidden in Chernobyl’s shadow [video] | Hacker News Reader

Soviet radar hidden in Chernobyl’s shadow [video]

bbc.com

182 pointswglb67 comments

It was apparently informally known as “the woodpecker” because of the sound of the interference it would make. It’s interesting to read the amateur radio community’s response to it at the time: https://www.qsl.net/n1irz/woodpeck.html

> “If you want to screw up a radar signal, all you have to do is send a return signal on its frequency which blocks out the echos. Hams, from the earliest woodpecker days, have been driving the monster off their bands by getting on the frequency and sending properly spaced dots back. The screen somewhere in Russia blanks out and the operators utter some Russian oaths and change the frequency to get rid of the interference."

The opposite behavior is kind of scary. What prevents someone from faking a "missile echo" response?

wikipedia says the transmitter used a pseudorandom sequence, so unless you could copy the PRNG output then you couldn't predict the sequence and generate appropriate returns.

Amateurs would just jam the whole frequency so the radar couldn't hear any returns at all.

Seems like it'd still be susceptible to playback attacks with a slight random delay.

Yes within d/c. So a priori you already need to be rather very close to the position of the object you want to fake appearing. At that point you might just as well put an object there.

I don't know what d/c means but if it's data connection then the fact that light (and other EM energy like radio waves) travel faster in air would probably be a problem for using that as a jamming approach

distance divided by speed of light = time window for a successful replay attack

While I actually find this discussion interesting (serious), I just want to make the note that this is a military system and thought was undoubtedly applied to making it resistant to at least trivial jamming approaches. Hence the PRNG based timing for the transmission.

It would be more compelling if you outlined some ways that that approach might be stymied and how the soviets might have counteracted that.

What the Hams are doing is radar jamming/interference; it’s not the ability to make the radar screen show whatever you’d like. That would be much, much, much more difficult (if it’s even possible).

As far as this sort of spoofing between nation-state actors, discussion is difficult because both the U.S. and Russia have been developing sophisticated ‘electronic countermeasures’ [1] for decades, and all their most interesting capabilities in this regard are certainly classified.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_countermeasure

Put a reinforcement learning network on the task to recreate signals from a radar with a ham radio and see if it can learn it. That would be pretty sweet.

Well, that is kind of stale news. The sending of a few dots worked for a few weeks. I even participated. But a pack of angry hams sending dots was worse than the woodpecker. But anyway, after moving off the ham bands for a while, the woodpecker came back with a chirped signal. That was essentially unjammable.

Over-the-horizon HF radar needs to closely follow the MUF, staying just under it. So the woodpecker would drift up and down through the ham bands as the day want on.

I was working on the Jindalee OTHR at the time. We used to sit in the control room listening in on the Woodpecker. We also had quite a bit more power then the HAMs (beamformed) so they didn't ignore us.

(Jindalee also stayed clear of the HAM bands. The radar had frequency exclusion tables built into it and there was a switch which allowed the tables to be overridden if necessary. A number of techs were HAMs and made sure the HAM bands were respected.)

Eastern Oregon had one of those, used from 1985-97, paired with one in California. (What frequencies?) After the cold war, WP says, it was used by the Border Patrol.(??)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_Valley_Air_Force_Sta...

I've visited this radar installation - of course, as another poster pointed out it was an OTH missile detection system. But a fun conspiracy theory floated by my guide was that this installation was intended as a Soviet weather control experiment. The evidence for that, such as it can be considered, was that allegedly there were supposed to be 12 reactors at Chernobyl, not just the famously exploded Reactor 4, which would have been an immense amount of energy production capability for one single location. Additionally, the nearby Pripyat was inhabited by the brightest of the bright, most elite of the Soviet population in an already highly secret portion of the Soviet Union. Who better to attempt that sort of endeavor? Plus, what powerful government doesn't wish it could control the weather?

Whether or not it's true, it clearly didn't work. But it sure is fun to think about.

edit: typos

Also, while I was there I picked up some forgotten artifacts in the form of old computer operations manuals, including one for the Russian ES EVM, which was a copy of the System/360. I scanned all the pages, maybe it would be interesting some people here: https://chernobylbooks.netlify.com/

The US had HAARP[0] which was researching use of high frequency radio waves in the upper atmosphere which was also surrounded by conspiracy theories. One theory was that HAARP was responsible for the massive flooding in the early 90s of the Mississippi river due to the Jet Stream to severely change course due to the effects of HAARP. Another was that HAARP opened up a hole in the atmosphere which allowed a small portion of Alaska to receive a much more intense dosing of solar radiation.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Frequency_Active_Auroral_...

For non-hams, "high frequncy" here refers to the "HF" band of roughly 3-30MHz.

Or, as anyone else might call it, low frequency.

Afaik, it didn't work at whatever it was trying to do, which IIIRC had something to do with submarines.

That was one of the stated purposes. They thought that they would be able to communicate with deeply submerged submarines with something more than 3 letter codes using ELF. They also thought they would be able to communicate further distances by reflecting the signals off of the ionosphere. They also thought they could disrupt warheads on re-entry. There was a lot of ideas about this place. I guess when you are getting the government to fund such a project it's going to need a lot of things it can pivot to when the original idea fails.

HAARP isn't the same type of installation as the Soviet example in the article. It is a radio transmitter, not used for radar.

Alaska had the "dew line" which was an installation similar to the Soviets for detection of ICBM's. It covered the perimeter of the horizon towards Russia. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distant_Early_Warning_Line

Clear AFB in Alaska has (maybe had) an operational radar station that looks very similar to the Russian one. Saw it in person a few times driving by as a kid. Not sure if it still exists or was upgraded with something smaller.

Sorry, wasn't trying to compare HAARP to Woodpecker by like for like purposes. I was mentioning more on totally odd radio installations cloaked in conspiracy.

I went there too, trip of a lifetime. Of course, the disaster tourism angle makes it hard to get too excited, especially if you've spent time in Ukraine and spoken with the people affected.

Either way, the pictures do not do justice to the true scale of this thing. You come around the corner of an old single lane road through the woods and suddenly you can see part of it. It just keeps on getting larger and larger looking as you get closer.

Our tour was allowed to climb up a few levels, but most of us chickened out at the first platform.

There is a now-defunct Soviet-equivalent to HAARP called Sura Ionospheric Heating Facility, as well as facilities in Ukraine that contain similar arrays of antennae:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sura_Ionospheric_Heating_Facil...

http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2007/10/abandoned-ionospheri...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpN3KXLgCz0 (location not disclosed, but this Youtuber makes several videos of abandoned sites around Ukraine)

Apparently it never worked properly (from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09636412.2017.13...):

> Meanwhile, the top Soviet EW warning commanders called OTH radar “virtually useless.”[88] Danilevich agreed, arguing that LUA was impossible before the development of satellites: “there were only above-the-horizon systems; there were no over-the-horizon systems ... These systems were not sufficiently reliable. They did not allow the reliable detection of launches. The only way to reliably determine the beginning of an attack is through human intelligence, but it is dubious that such data could be obtained.”[89] Apparently OTH radar operators would consult public reports about planned NASA space launches and then claim that they had tracked a launch on the appropriate day. But the ruse became obvious when weather delayed a launch.[90]

[88] Fischer, “The Soviet–American War Scare of the 1980s,” 502. [89] Hines interview with Col. Gen. Danilevich, 24 September 1992, in Hines, Mishulovich, and Shull, “Soviet Intentions 1965–1985, Vol. II”, 41. [90] Bruce G. Blair, The Logic of Accidental Nuclear War (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1993), 205.

Huh, that looked familiar, YouTuber shiey climbed around on that thing a few months back: https://youtu.be/jGPjj4B_jEk?t=7755

His channel is well worth watching for anyone who dreams of being so fearless to sneak into factories and climb unbelievably high structures.

His footage from Duga is really amazing, he managed to shoot it with incredible lighting from the sunrise. I'd strongly recommend checking this out even if urbex isn't normally your thing.

They VFXed that into Allegiant https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYyeROGcsIA from the Divergent Series as "The Wall that Encircles Chicago". I mean the thing itself, not the footage the youtuber did. Btw. when he is hoboing on some trains, his head is sometimes very near to the overhead wires. I wonder if he ever heard of "Arcing"?

Whenever I read, see or, especially, visit such enormous abandoned man-made objects I have very specific feeling which is hard to put in words. Some wild yet soothing blend of awe and fear.

Does anyone else experience it? Is there a name for such feeling?

Same here, I also have the same feeling in very large rooms when I’m not on the floor — say an engine room in a ship.

I once watched a old black and white video on YouTube of an Ekranoplan (ground-effect vehicle) flying / gliding on the sea.

I was terrified the whole time and I'm still terrified if I look at it again. I have no idea why (I can watch any military hardware video without any fear).

I mean, it is conceptually kind of a nerve-wracking thing to fly. It's a plane that is constantly two seconds from nailing the ground/sea and crashing. And as you're ripping along at 300 mph you have to constantly scan for any ships that might be in your way, because you can't just fly over them.

One of the noted problems with it was pilot fatigue, for exactly this reason.

Ground effect aircraft are usually designed with enough extra power available that they can temporarily climb to higher altitudes to avoid surface obstacles or high waves, at the cost of increased fuel consumption.

Videos I've seen of the sound of an A-10 firing its main gun can inspire similar feelings, particularly when you hear the supersonic crack of the individual rounds before the rumble of the gun itself.

This definitely resonates with me. These sorts of constructions have been an obsession of mine for as long as I can remember. There's a very specific feeling they conjure that I've never been able to put into words either, and I'm guessing it's similar to what you're feeling! There's definitely a morbid curiosity aspect to it which is why seemingly sinister things like this (or my fave, 33 Thomas St) have even more appeal.

In case you have not heard of it: The video game Control is set in a building inspired by Oldest House: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_(video_game)

I've seen this used as a location in movie/tv show. It was used as the wall/barrier/border. I can't remember which one though. If it was not the actual Russian site, it had to have been the source of inspiration for the artists working on the show. I had to pause the show to look up images of the antenna array for comparison, and it was spot on. Just wish I could remember the title to look for screen shots.

I think you're thinking of the movie "Divergent"

Yeah, I think that was it. Thanks. Pretty sad that I remember nothing about the movie except this minor thing.

https://www.tumblr.com/search/divergent%20locations

Probably you mean kenopsia[0]?

[0] https://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/post/27720773573/...

So that's what I feel on massive sound stages that are dark after we are done shooting for the day.

That's the perfect word to describe many cities and public spaces today.

Really I think you're just describing awe, which as traditionally defined [0] always included (or at least, certainly did not preclude) an element of fear. This seems completely natural to me, but I grew up with a sort of old-fashioned understanding of certain English words. The use of the adjective 'awesome' in recent decades has perhaps helped people to forget its negative connotations.

[0] "an emotion variously combining dread, veneration and wonder" https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/awe

Totally. It's like that sound obsession thing, what's it called?

It's a deep, weird variation of awe.

Btw, the US PAVE PAWS [0] doesn't quite do it, maybe not big enough. Weird though.

[0] https://www.peterson.af.mil/News/Photos/igphoto/2001504934/

The sublime.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sublime_(philosophy)

Probably you're already familiar with it, but if not, you'll love this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AbandonedPorn/

I was there a few months back.

If you go on the day-long Chernobyl tour from Kiev, they will take you into Pripyat as well as the Duga radar installation.

It's a very interesting trip.

I took some photos inside the radar control building. They had a lot of soviet era electronics laying around, as well as pictures of expected U.S. missiles that they were meant to track.

https://thesolidconcept.com/a-trip-to-chernobyl/

I really enjoyed the read, thanks!

Glad you enjoyed it!

The secret radar? The massive, seen from the air, heard on the radio, reproduced in one of the top selling games of the last few years (PUBG) radar is a secret?

I can't wait to hear about the secret arch built in St Louis for the World Fair.

Pictures of the radar array show up on Reddit r/AbandonedPorn all of the time. People have climbed on top of it for pictures.

not when it was turned on though...

The signals were not secret, the physical structure was not necessarily viewed in the west until satellites took pictures. Certainly the mission in all its details and expectations are still classified and therefore secret.

So secret that I booked a trip there a year ago and visited. And knew about it beforehand.

TLDW: A 1970s over-the-horizon radar for ICBMs that apparently didn’t work very well.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duga_radar

I couldn't quite figure out from the video if it was an early launch detection system and/or a signal jammer. Cause the video mentions both.

A cursory glance at the Wikipedia article also didn't clear it up. Does anyone know?

From reading the wikipedia article it seems like it was primarily a launch detection system that had a side effect of jamming signal.

It was a detection system, but it operated on frequencies that already in use by shortwave broadcast stations (much more prevalent then than now), amateur radio operators, etc and interfered with them.

You can get more details on how it and similar systems work at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Over-the-horizon_radar

The Russians have just started transmitting from a new OTHR called Konteyner ..

https://planesandstuff.wordpress.com/2020/02/25/russian-othr...

also ..

https://planesandstuff.wordpress.com/2020/03/06/konteyner-fo...

The HF bands are full of OTHRs at the moment. There are Russian ones , Iranian ones and a British one from Cyprus among many others.

I've visited, including inside, the US equivalent : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/FPQ-16_PARCS

This was before 9/11. Probably these are no longer allowed, but they would have an annual "open house", and my wife is from that area (which is sparsely populated) so we'd pop in. Inside I saw a 16-CPU parallel processing system developed by Western Electric specifically for this project in the late 60's (still operating).

For a longer and more detailed treatment of the Duga antenna and its connection to Cherbobyl, I can recommend the documentary "The Russian Woodpecker":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Russian_Woodpecker

Thar guy takes out his phone and says something along the lines that the phone is way better than that, believe me.

Really? Is phone hardware capable of transmitting that far? I have hard time believing that. Processing power? Sure.

Of course it can transmit that far, it just takes a few hops.

What he was actually comparing the phone with was the so-called "huge computer" that processed all the data wires coming from the radar receiver sensors, not the radar transmitter itself.

4:25> Each radio receiver has lots of sensors. Each sensor has to be supplied with data wires and power. All data wires were going to the main control centre. It looked like a huge (let's say) computer. But believe me, this thing (waves phone) is much better than anything here. (laughs)

People have flown FPV quadcopters around it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhJpdCZNSDc

The Stanford Dish, built in 1961, was used to detect these and other sorts of signals. Rather than over the horizon it was via earth moon earth bounce.

https://medium.com/dish/tech-history-the-story-behind-stanfo...

I visited the Duga installation a couple of years ago (along with Chernobyl) and it really was utterly inspiring. I highly recommend it for nerds and non-nerds alike.

It became the brain scorcher in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R shadow of chernobyl games.

Wow, the Pokemon Go graffiti at 4:58 is hilarious!

Warning: video

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