about the unid 32-bit protocol used in S-4538 + MS-110A transfers

This is the third time I have encountered these transmissions [1] and, given the good number of recordings made over a few days on the frequency 6964.5 KHz/USB, it is now possible to draw a more definitive "picture".

Transmissions normally occur each 5 minutes and last 1.5 - 2 minutes average. STANAG-4538 (3G-HF) "circuit mode service" is used, where MS-110A (usually in 75bps/Long Interleaver mode) is the used traffic waveform; sometimes a transmission may consist of two or more distinct data transfer sessions (Figure 1).

Links are established using the FLSU (Fast Link SetUp) Asynchronous scanning call, using BW5 and an "optimized" waveform which provides no repetition of the initial TLC section (used for transmitter level control and receiver AGC settling). Such a scanning call is exactly described in paragraph C.5.2.4.5.2 of  MIL 188-141B Appendix C: "The LE_Scanning_Call PDU shall be sent repeatedly to capture scanning receivers [...] During a scanning call, only the first LE_Scanning_Call PDU shall include TLC. All succeeding LE_Scanning_Call PDUs and the LE_Call PDU shall omit TLC, and include only the BW0 preamble and data portions" (1)(2). So, we look at a STANAG-4538 FLSU Async call (since the use of BW5 waveform) which is 188-141B compliant for what regards its formation (since the omission of  the TLC sections): ie, a sort of  188-141B/STANAG-4538 mixed implementation most likely implemented by L3Harris [2][3]. That "formation" of the Async call clarifies why decoders recognize only the "first" BW5 PDU. 

Fig. 1

Looking at the asynchronous scan calls, at first glance it seems that Linking Protection (LP) is not used: in fact, as you can see, the decoded strings are identical. This should not happen since when operating in encrypt mode, the LP algorithm takes as inputs the PDU to be scrambled, a key variable, and a “seed” that contains Time of Day (TOD) and the frequency that carries the protected transmission.

2024-08-21T09_54_32Z BW-5 00111001010000100011011001001010011110001000011010
2024-08-21T09_56_17Z BW-5 00111001010000100011011001001010011110001000011010
2024-08-21T10_01_54Z BW-5 00111001010000100011011001001010011110001000011010

2024-08-22T07_46_52Z BW-5 00010110100000110011111110111010101110111100000110
2024-08-22T07_51_52Z BW-5 00010110100000110011111110111010101110111100000110

Anyway, it's to note that when the protection against spoofing offered by LP is not required, LP may be used without a key variable or seed to provide only scrambling based on the network number as described in STANAG-4538 4.1.2 (in this regard, note that the scanning calls of 2024-08-22, for example, do not have the expected value "001" in the first three bits). 

The analysis of the MS-110A decoded bitstreams show initial 100 bytes length headers which have some parts common to all the bitstreams, the header "format" is more evident after the removal of the initial "10"s sequence (Figures 2,3).

Fig. 2

Fig. 3

In my opinion, headers are made up of the following structure (Figure 4):

1) common initial sequence

1100000100011100101001 (maybe 001100000100011100101001, 0x0CE294)

2) common 193 bits length "01"s sequence, (phasing?). Boundaries are marked by two consecutive logical "1"

3) common 160 bits / 20 bytes length sequence (sync sequence for the receive crypto device?)

10001011010001111000010010000111
01111011101101001011100010000111
01000100011110000100100001110111
10111011010010111000101101110100
01000111100001001000011101111011

4) 256 bits / 32 bytes length sequence which is different in every bitstream (Initialization Vector?)

5) common 5×32 bits / 4 bytes repeated sequence (frame sync?). Note that the sequence can't be an Initialization Vector since it's always the same in every bitstream.

10001011010001111000010010000111
10001011010001111000010010000111
10001011010001111000010010000111
10001011010001111000010010000111
10001011010001111000010010000111

Also note that the 4 bytes repeated sequence is used in the first 4 bytes of the 160 bits sequence.

Fig. 4 - the common blocks in the headers of the bitstreams

According to the results of the "Shannon Entropy" and "Statistical" tests, the ansferred data are most probably encrypted (Figure 5).
The measure of the Shannon Entropy can be used, in a broad sense, to detect whether data is likely to be structured or unstructured. 8 is the maximum, representing highly unstructured, 'random' data. Properly encrypted or compressed data should have an entropy of over 7.5 The statistical test below determines the randomness, the number of single bits in the stream is counted, then the double bits, then the triple bits and so on to the end. The result is a graph: if the information is not systematic, the adjacent columns should be half the size of the previous ones. Both the test shows good encryption quality.

Fig. 5 - Shannon Entropy and Statistical tests on the data portions

The transmissions are fairly receivable only in the northern regions of Europe, likely a low power transmitter is used or a local/domestic area shall be served. Just about the site of the transmitter,  all my direction finding attempts point to a quite large area in Norway (Figure 6): maybe a Royal Norwegian Navy Tx? Anyway, it's to notice that the DF results "suffer" from the lack of detection points west of Norway.

Fig. 6 - Direction finding attempts (TDoA algorithm)

Monitoring & recordings thanks to the remote KiwiSDRs SM0KOT (Sweden) and OZ1AEF (Denmark) [4][5]. 

https://disk.yandex.com/d/AcwncUTKxXlQ_A (decoded bitstreams)

(1) MIL 188-141B refers to BW0 as the waveform to convey "LE_Scanning_Call PDU" and "LE_Call PDU" (LE stands for Link Establishment): FLSU, and consequently the BW5 waveform, were not yet defined at that time.

(2) 188-141B (released on March 1999!) was superseded by 188-141C (December 2011), in its turn superseded by 188-141D (December 2017): the last two standards no longer have the Appendix C but only some short paragraphs, among them the #C.6 says "The specifications previously contained in this appendix have been replaced with reference to the essentially identical NATO STANAG 4538".

[1] http://i56578-swl.blogspot.com/search/label/P%3D32
[2] http://i56578-swl.blogspot.com/2022/10/harris-3g-ale-flsu-async-call.html
[3] http://i56578-swl.blogspot.com/2022/10/harris-3g-ale-flsu-async-call-2.html
[4] http://aspliden.kostet.se:8074/
[5] http://85.191.35.22:8073/

 

async FLSU call followed by STANAG-4197 (3G-HF "circuit mode")

This transmission was logged and recorded by my friend DK8OK Nils on 11228.0 KHz/USB, and refers to op-comms between  "INY" Trapani-Birgi airport and "DHN66" Neuteveren/Geilenkirchen NATO air base (INY provides technical-operational and logistical support to the AWACS of the E-3A Component, based in Geilenkirchen). Nils kindly sent me the file for its analysis.

The sample is an example of a STANAG-4538 3G-HF FLSU (Fast Link Setup) asynchronous call followed by traffic in "circuit mode" (data continuous, not packed); short voice comm is in the middle. Although synchronous calls are the preferred mode in 3G networks, async calls might be used if the called (or the caller) station may not have achieved net synchronisation. 

The BW5 burst waveform used by FLSU is recognizable in the initial PSK-8 segment from its duration and from the conveyed tribit symbols (2432), as it results from the cross correlation function and the demodulated stream (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1 - CCF/ACF and demodulated stream

According to Annex C to STANAG-4538, the async call of FLSU protocol begins with the LBT (listen before transmit) for at least one dwell period, followed by the transmission of 1.35N (nearest integer value) Async Request PDUs on the requested link frequency, where N is the number of channels in the scan list, and 1.35 is the duration of each dwell period in seconds. The async call procedure ends with a single LFSU Request PDU (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2 - async FLSU PDUs

Looking at the 50-bit payloads in Fig. 2, type 3 (011) PDUs are sent 10 times and are followed by a single type 0 (000) PDU: since PDUs type 3 indicate the Async_FLSU_Req PDU, and type 0 indicates the FLSU_Request PDU, the sample exactly matches the async call procedure as above. By the way, it's worth noting that since up to 10 Async_FLSU_Request PDUs are used, 7 are the allocated channels for this network.

001 00 0000101000 0000001010 1 0 011 111111 010010 11011011
001 00 0000101000 0000001010 1 0 011 111111 010010 11011011
001 00 0000101000 0000001010 1 0 011 111111 010010 11011011
001 00 0000101000 0000001010 1 0 011 111111 010010 11011011
001 00 0000101000 0000001010 1 0 011 111111 010010 11011011
001 00 0000101000 0000001010 1 0 011 111111 010010 11011011
001 00 0000101000 0000001010 1 0 011 111111 010010 11011011
001 00 0000101000 0000001010 1 0 011 111111 010010 11011011
001 00 0000101000 0000001010 1 0 011 111111 010010 11011011
001 00 0000101000 0000001010 1 0 011 111111 010010 11011011
001 00 0000101000 0000001010 1 0 000 111111 010010 01001101

The STANAG-4197 waveform following the call is most likely used in a ANDVT modem in order to achieve secured voice transmission.  
Notice the apparent lack of the fourth doppler tone at 2812.5 KHz: indeed, it's seems just barely visible in the bottom sonagram of Fig.3: probably a defect/malfunction of the HF modem. 

Fig. 3 - STANAG-4197 segment

 NATO_INY-2019-10-10T072738 11.228 MHz.wav

3G link + S5066: example of Circuit Mode (HF2000, Swedish Defence)

Nice example of how to send STANAG-5066 data on a 3G link, using the Circuit Mode service provided by the 3G-HF STANAG-4538 profile.The link is established with the 1-way FLSU procedure then 188-110A Serial at 1200 bps is used for the data transfer. After the transfer is completed, an FLSU_Term PDU is sent by the caller and the link is terminated (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1

The most interesting aspect is the use of STANAG-5066, which has been detected thanks to the lack of the encryption before the MS110 modem: indeed, STANAG-5066 allows to indentify the Authority/Country by the addresses coded into the Data PDU (D_PDU), unless dummy addresses are used:

Once removed the overhead bits added by MS110, the D_PDUs can be isolated by syncing the resulting bitstream with the sequence 0xEB90 (regardless of type, all the D_PDUs begin with the same sync sequence): the result is displayed in Figure 2.

Fig. 2

The Size-of-Address Field specifies the number of bytes in which the source and destination address are encoded, the address field may be from 1 to 7 bytes in length (as in this case), with the source and destination address of equal length.The first half is the destination address and the second half is the source address:

In this case:
source address: 006.046.000.028
destination address: 006.046.001.010

both belonging to the block 6.46.x.y allocated to Sweden (Table N-6 European National Addressing Schema):

Fig. 3

 

https://yadi.sk/d/qLTvDIH33JhaFL

STANAG-4538 "Circuit Mode" (a 3G-2G switching)

an interesting sample of a 3G-2G switching copied on 7780.0 KHz/USB: the handshake is performed with FLSU bursts (ie 3G-ALE) and user data are sent using MIL 188-110A serial (a 2G HF waveform), last FLSU bursts terminate the link (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1

In this scenario the traffic service is termed “Circuit Mode” in STANAG-4538 and  is used when an HF data continuous waveform (not a burst waveform) will be used to convey traffic after link establishment. The FLSU_Request specifies the traffic waveforms that will be used during circuit mode, for example MIL 188-110A (as in this recording), STANAG 4285, STANAG-4539 or other. Once circuit mode begins, any station can initiate transmissions using the specified traffic waveform. A CSMA/CA process is recommended to avoid collisions (Fig. 2)

Fig. 2

Same operational contest was copied on 11132.0 KHz/USB (Figs. 3a, 3b): these are more likely  test sessions that involves both the packet mode (the used datalink protocols are HDL+ and LDL over BW3-BW4 burst waveforms) and the circuit mode (the HF waveform is MIL 188-110A serial). These (test?) transmissions are probably from Algerian Military.

Fig. 3a

Fig. 3b

A STANAG-4538 circuit mode traffic was also copied by my friend Mike (ak mco) on 9003.0 KHz/USB (Fig. 4) who sent me his recording.  The sample consists of n-transmissions, each composed of a MIL 188-110A transfer running at 300bps, preceeded and terminated by BW5 bursts which control the link. More precisely, 188-110A frames transport Harris proprietary Citadel encrypted data, Fig. 5, so it's difficult to say what sits behind.

Fig. 4

Fig. 5

(9003.0 KHz)
https://yadi.sk/d/GCq28TAjzSYzU

3G-2G switching

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FLSU/FTM protocol + 188-110A Serial: example of 3G/2G switching

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