History of the noise.
History
Internet is full of Buzzer folklore so I will only present the well-known facts in here, most of which
I can back up with a recording as to avoid spreading false rumours.
Reports of the station's emergence vary from 1976 to 1982. It is possible that it operated without a
channel marker in it's early days, but definitely had one by 1982 as the sample below illustrates.
S28 4625 kHz AM January, 1982, recording by Ary Boender
http://priyom.org/media/57390/s28-jan-1982-am.ogg
The channel marker sound has changed multiple times, below is a sample of slower paced marker
with noticeably higher pitch.
S28 4625 kHz January 15, 1989 2025z, recording by Ary Boender
http://priyom.org/media/57357/s28-old-marker-1989-01-15-2025utc-4625khz.mp3
First logged voice message (no doubt there has been earlier ones of which no record exists) from
the Buzzer was in December 24, 1997 at 2158z which read “УЗБ-76 180 08 БРОМАЛ 74 27 99
14”, a format almost identical to the one used today, only difference being in the “180 08” group
which is currently organized in 2fg 3fg format.
S28 4625 kHz 2158z December 24, 1997, recording provided by Jan Michalski
http://soundcloud.com/lafleurvk/4625-uzb76-bromal
New millenium
On November 3, 2001 the microphone was mistakenly left open and the following conversation was
accidentally transmitted: “Я — 143. Не получаю генератор.”, “Идёт такая работа от
аппаратной.”, translated to English: “I am 143. Not receiving the generator (oscillator).”, “That
stuff comes from hardware room.”.
The Buzzer got international media attention in 2010 when shortwave listeners reported it's
increased activity and soon after this an Internet repeater was established.
It is questionable how legitimate the reports of increased activity were; the current activity varies
from up to 18 messages a day to only one message in a few weeks and without a dedicated receiver
monitoring it constantly these messages could easily be missed and the current good monitoring
results might be misinterpreted as increased activity.
Despite this, 2010 was a busy year for the Buzzer in it's publicly known history. It seems likely that
the transmitter site was moved from Povarovo to currently unknown location and new transmitter
installation caused many outages and tests heard on the air. Buzzer outages, test counts and other
little oddities are too numerous to list but the most notable events are mentioned below.
In June 2010 after a maintenance outage the 1-minute long two-tone buzzer that was played at the
top of the hour was disabled and after this the station hasn't sent any type of time signals.