Germany's DARC reports problems with short wave radars. On almost every evening at 5310-5410 kHz the Russian coastal radar 'Sunflower' broadcasts, making the new miniband useless

The system is located near the city of Makhachkala on the Caspian Sea. Acoustically its perceive as a deep hum. It transmits in FMOP (Frequency Modulation On Pulse) with 43 sweeps/sec and captures aircraft at a range of up to 450 km.

Over water ships are recognized. Even stealth planes can be classified. The system is so successful that the Chinese operate several "sunflowers" on the east coast. Chinese OTHs (Over-Horizon Radars) work almost daily in the 20-meter band.

“In the mornings we can often receive them with high field strengths. They send in blocks of several seconds and jump over wide frequency ranges. Very noticeable is the radar, which resembles a foghorn sound (66.6 sweeps/sec). The worst “QRM brooms”, however, are the broadband radars of the Chinese. They work with 10 or 20 sweeps/sec and a signal width of 160 kHz.

In the mornings we find them in the 20 m band and in the evening also in the 40 m band. There they are particularly noticeable when the transmission line is in the dark. At the moment we have extreme problems with the new Container Radar from Russia. It works as an over horizon radar in FMOP with 40 sweeps/sec and a signal width of about 40 kHz often for hours in the 20 m band. In the past few days, we see two systems side by side on our SDR screens.”

— DARC

The station is located north of Penza and not far from Saransk. On the S-meter we see S9 + 40 dB and sometimes +50 dB. The DARC-Bandwacht has informed the BNetzA-Konstanz [Federal Network Agency].

Bandwacht Website - http://www.iarums-r1.org/iarums/latest.pdf

Bandwacht and the IARU Monitoring System - http://www.iarums-r1.org/

DARC - https://darc.de/