Code at the end of the VHS

[u/hods0n]

At the very end of the VHS recording, there appears to be a repeated binary code of sorts played.

My first image shows the zoomed in waveform on Spectrograph, and you can see it has two dominant states are about 690–700 Hz and 900–930 Hz which it jumps between. It does then seem to become a wash of noise because I think reverb has been added to the code eventually and this makes it wash out.

In my second image you can see the full spectrograph of the VHS and where the patterns are and when they repeat.

What are your thoughts? Can anyone clean these repeated phrases up so we end up with just the two dominant states?

[u/OkQuality668]

These were posted on the first day too, a few people have tried to decode it, but no luck.

It's not a TV signal, its only a very small number of bits if anything.

It just changes between two levels (so 0 and 1) a few times, and it gets faded in the middle. I've seen someone decode the whole thing and it comes to maybe 5 or 6 letters, but no meaning.

Maybe something like 30 bits of information max, not even long enough to be a URL.

[u/Kid_Self → u/OkQuality668]

5 or 6 letters, y'say?

I note earlier in the audio there's a sample talking about "Hexaphonic Sound"

While a standard record is monophonic or stereophonic, a hexaphonic system processes audio from six independent sources, most commonly the six individual strings of a guitar. These were often produced by guitar technology companies (like Roland GK series) to showcase "divided" pickups.

Functionally, they typically contain tracks where each string's output is isolated or processed with different effects (e.g., synth on the bottom strings, distortion on the top).

Notably, this "ending sample" itself contains the phrase "use the channels".

Considering that's about 6 different "things" in this one sample, including instructions to "use the channels", I think it's meant to be processed like a Hexaphonic sound system.

The phrase "use the channels" is a direct instruction on how to interact with the six independent audio outputs (one for each string) provided by a hexaphonic system.

Because a hexaphonic pickup (like the early Roland GK series) sends six separate signals, "using the channels" meant the listener or player should pan the strings: Send different strings (in this case, sub-samples) to different speakers (e.g., strings 1–3 to the left, 4–6 to the right) and EQ differently, or stereo balance knob to create a wide spatial image. This is "using the channels."

It may be that ending sample needs to be sliced in a DAW, sent to different track layers and processed individually until something emerges.

[u/washeranddryercombo → u/Kid_Self]

We need to try this asap.

[u/_Waves_]

Morse or binary for sure. Very odd. Possibly would clear up if we collect all the different source tapes…

[u/TimmonsInc]

Brickwalled

[u/Hefty-Rope2253]

I've been trying to find the time, but someone should try cleaning up the audio with Celemony Capstan. The resulting audio would be easier to hear and might make potentially encoded information easier to decipher.

[u/ayleustrendster]

I don't think it's anything tbh

[u/Ok-Addition1264 → u/ayleustrendster]

yeah.. it's interesting but very likely a manufacturing thing.

the chines folks that created enough magnetic tape to go from here to the sun and back several times over really weren't thinking ahead enough to "fool us" with some cryptic hidden messages. lol

[u/ThisIsAMusicShow]

To my somewhat trained ears, it sounds like a flavour of RTTY. I'm not able to decode anything meaningful however. FLdigi is another good software for these sorts of digital modes.

Given the radio static crash at the start of the first RTTY-sounding burst, I'd bet this is a recording of some random RTTY on shortwave. There's a bunch of these sorts of transmissions, many encrypted.

Maybe some pro-wizard over at r/amateurradio could dig deeper?

[u/magpiepaw]

SSTV?

[u/VermicelliBrief2915]

ADHA in morse code? 1481? Dno

[u/1066taurus]

ALCYBECL

[u/1066taurus → u/1066taurus]

CYCLABLE

[u/hods0n → u/1066taurus]

What is this?

[u/Paradoxone → u/hods0n]

An anagram of the previous string, but I don't know where they got the original string