A new trial forum for political discussions. Largely unmoderated, so whilst discussing politics is fine, personal abuse isn't. So please keep it civil.
As with other forums the posts to do not reflect the view of the FLYER team.
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User avatar
By kanga
#1894338
TrickyWoo wrote:..

(Oh and I speak Russian - it was pointed out in the nicest and most lethal way that it was inadvisable to use this ability in Ukraine. I love 'em. ..)


The Antonov company is proud to be Ukrainian, not Russian, although Oleg Antonov was originally Russian. They are developing a modernised version of the An-24/-26 twin turboprop family (COKE/CURL; military version had rear loading ramp), An-132, with modern Western technology (Canadian PT6 engines, Dowty propellers, glass cockpits; last two from Gloucestershire, of course :wink: ). However, the project is reportedly 'suspended'. Before the pandemic this involved fairly regular visits by Antonov engineers to Dowty, who would ask us at JAM to lay on a private tour for them. Although they always brought a competent interpreter, and their engineers often had good English, I learned to apologise before using Russian to clarify bits of the history spiel. I explained that I learnt Russian in UK secondary school >50 years ago, but can read Ukrainian ...

As mentioned some while ago in another thread ..

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=116512&start=18

.. (and as I mention to visiting Ukrainians), we have on our kitchen wall a reproduction of a pre-WW1 advertising poster for Anatra aircraft of Odessa. It is printed with texts in Russian but in the 'unreformed' Cyrillic alphabet, which is what Ukrainian still uses.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatra
OCB, Flyin'Dutch' liked this
User avatar
By Paul_Sengupta
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1894508
There's been an interesting development, at least in Short Wave circles. There's a station on 4625kHz which is a continuous buzzer which is reportedly used to signify that the Russian Motherland is still there. If it goes off air at any time, it means the place has been nuked and all forces around, well, it would have been the Soviet Union, would then prepare for war.

This is what it normally sounds like:



This evening it's been playing classic rock! Still playing it. Everything from The Eagles to Metallica. Just now they were playing "Don't fear the reaper."

You can listen live here:



Does this mean people have been told to tune in and listen for a message, and they're playing them something more interesting than a buzzer to keep them amused?
kanga liked this
User avatar
By Paul_Sengupta
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1894510
They're now drawing pictures on the waterfall display. It appears that either The Buzzer has gone off air and a pirate broadcaster has jumped on the frequency or someone's actually hacked into The Buzzer feed.

Image
User avatar
By OCB
#1894534
@Paul_Sengupta - thx for posting that. A bit scary tbh.

Here’s hoping it's just some clever trolling (from whichever side).

If so, then I’d request they play my favourite Irving Berlin song…

Image

(The Mel Brooks version from Young Frankenstein also works…)

*sorry for the late edit - I was going to post a direct link to the Mel Brooks version, but I found this one instead - and I challenge anyone to NOT think of Putin On a Ritz whilst listening to these talented lot of real musicians:

Last edited by OCB on Thu Jan 20, 2022 7:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
kanga, Paul_Sengupta, Aerials and 1 others liked this
User avatar
By eltonioni
#1894537
@Paul_Sengupta that's a great find :thumleft: . It's off air now, but earlier this morning the spectrograph posted "hello crazy" and "greetings from [unreadable] "

If it's a dead hand launch tool we're in trouble, how long does it take an ICBM to get here?

Image


As a kid I spent hours under the sheets listening to Radio Moscow / Radio Prague.
User avatar
By Paul_Sengupta
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1894546
I think what's happened is that it has, as of this week, gone to non-continuous operation, and only transmits certain times of the day. Maybe to save electricity, who knows? But that means any shortwave pirate radio operator can jump on the frequency and transmit their own stuff. Listening last night you could hear that occasionally a stronger data signal would superimpose itself with the transmissions...presumably that was the real buzzer station transmitting.
eltonioni liked this
User avatar
By eltonioni
#1894649
While we're all passing the time with this silly stuff we've taken our eye off the ball with the Russian invasion forces in Ukraine and Belarus.

Have never met a daft Russian.

PS hats off to the 900,000 Ukrainian militia. Good luck!

PPS. Ukraine should invite a few battalions of the British Army in to Kiev without any pretext or half-cock excuse. I reckon that will be the end of it. All this shilly-shallying is just encouraging Putin & Co to misbehave.
Loco parentis liked this
#1894802
I think that it is not an overstatement to mention that the military situation in the Ukraine at the moment appears to be delicately balanced. Then along comes the editorial from today's D. Tel. redolent with sanctimonious piety to announce quote: "there is no question of Britain playing an active role in Kiev's defence". Maybe ! Do we really need to offer so much re-assurance to Ivan ? The Russians might suspect that that is the case but should we be handing to them what they probably believe are British Govt. inspired comments that they have nothing to fear from the British. That, might indeed be the case but, we do not have to underline it.

The D. Tel. should really know better. Pulling in our military necks doesn't make the growing stench of appeasement any sweeter.
Aerials liked this
By Cessna571
#1894870
Have you thought that maybe it’s not 100% about Ukraine.

The point might be for Ivan to engage in a conflict that we are involved in for some other reason. (Not just us).

I’ve been playing a lot of chess recently.

The daily telegraph article might be saying to Ivan

“Look, even if you invade, we’re not getting involved” and bizarrely it might be exactly that message, that STOPS the invasion.


It’s a chess game,

What if it IS about Ukraine.. but,

For instance, what if Ukraine have some nasty weapons like cluster bombs that break the Geneva convention. Ivan knows they won’t use them, because if we are there, we won’t break agreements. So Ivan can go in, they know we’ll police the legalities.

Then we say “we’re not joining”, suddenly Ivan has quite a big deterrent specifically because we are not joining in.


I don’t believe that’s a randomly written article, whatever the reason.
By Cessna571
#1894874
eltonioni  wrote:
PPS. Ukraine should invite a few battalions of the British Army in to Kiev without any pretext or half-cock excuse. I reckon that will be the end of it. All this shilly-shallying is just encouraging Putin & Co to misbehave.


I think that’s the worst thing we can do.

Ivan will then just march in.

He will easily overpower a few battalions plus the Ukraine militia.

Then we have a proper problem.

We won’t want WW3 to kick off, and so we’ll have to back down and go home.

Ivan will then have an agreement on his table that he won fair and square, because we agreed to go home.

We have no stomach for a proper war, Ukraine is a long way away, logistics wouldn’t be easy, and Ivan wouldn’t be fighting by setting up IEDs at the roadside, we’d get severely trounced even if we sent everything we have.

We need to make sure we are not backing ourselves into a corner.

For some reason, in chess, beginners Castle, because they think it’s a “clever, advanced” thing. Surround your King with pawns, and a rook to his side, good protection eh?
CheckMate usually follows soon after, as what they’ve usually done is close off all their exit strategies.
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