Talk:Operation RAFTER

Other sources?

Has any corroboration for this appeared outside of Spycatcher? I don't think we can baldly assert details from Spycatcher as fact. — Matt Crypto 14:39, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

There should be some reference to number stations that would explain better the use of shortwave radio transmissions in espionage. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.217.207.120 (talk) 03:24, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Article name

Why is this article called "Operation RAFTER" when it appears to be about a piece of technology used in many operations? Does anyone know how to change this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C4:4F07:1000:4847:5193:EADB:23E3 (talk) 16:45, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

455kHz

455 is not a magic number; it is simply an engineering compromise that American consumer radio manufacturing practice settled on after much early experimentation. Some other frequencies used were 60kHz, 175kHz, 262kHz, 470kHz, 500kHz, and 1700kHz; in some cases the offset is itself variable. Advanced models employed double conversion, triple, or even more, with several local oscillators, each radiating on its own frequency which is characteristic of that model and the band and frequency to which it is tuned. An example is the R-390A/URR, which had a long and storied SIGINT career of its own. Vintage Dave (talk) 19:28, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

But 455 kHz was the pretty much universal frequency for a "domestic" radio. And no spy wants to be caught with an unusual piece of equipment. Andy Dingley (talk) 19:00, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Not only is 455 kHz only typical of American consumer radios (470 khz being standard in British radios at the time), the propability is that operators such as soviet embassies were using professional grade communication receivers - these have a first IF of 4 MHz or higher. Dionne Court (talk) 07:48, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

article should be deleted

This article should be deleted. It is entirely based on Peter Wright's Spycatcher book, which is a regurgitation of old public domain stories considerably embellished by Wright's vivid imagination. The British had used the technique of detecting the local oscillator of enemy radio receivers in World War II. The German military had taken countermeasures eg using TRF receivers in submarines. The technique was not developed after the War by Wright as he claimed in his book. The BPO also used the technique to detect unlicensed radios and TV sets. All this means that the method has always been described in radio industry publications and the Russians could hardly be unaware of it. Nor would the American security organisations, CIA etc, as claimed at great length by Wright in his silly book. Professional communication receivers of the time had one or two RF stages, which made the local oscillator radiation negligible. Detecting local oscillators from an aircraft circling over a city is just Wright's wild imagination. If the local oscillator signals were that strong, everybody with a radio would be picking up everybody else's radios as interference. for this reason there have since the War always been limits on the allowable radiation such that that does not occur. The signal could often be detected in the order of 10 metres away, perhaps up to a few hundred metres in a radio-quiet area, but not in an aeroplane at legal minimum height over a city. Dionne Court (talk) 08:07, 13 January 2024 (UTC)