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Shortwave Number Stations

Heard a few back in the late 80's. I had recently bought a radio with some shortwave bands and had got into the habit of looking for obscure foreign broadcasts. (One channel started off by slagging off the US. Ha ha I thought, its Radio Moscow. It then started slagging off the Russians. Turned out to be Radio Tirana, the Albanian World Service...)

From what I remember, one of them broadcast digits in groups of three, while another did the same in groups of 2. At one point I started writing the numbers down. Never seemed to find any sense in them. (No obvious repeats.)

All very curious. :)
 
I haven't been to any of the links so i'm sorry if I'm repeating something that has already been said.

I heard somewhere that the number stations where to give information to spys. the spys were given a book. The numbers refered to page, line and word. So the spys would listen to these groups of numbers to get messages from HO.
Very good because you could open broadcast the numbers but without knowing which book it was there was no way of deciphering the message.

i guess you could just hang around waterstones waiting for a shiffty looking guy in a rain mac and trilby to buy two copies of the same book
 
good link, very interesting but its one of those things that will never be made public if it is spy based, also i think that most of it is probably just broadcast to throw "the other side" off the scent and try to tie up some of thier resources trying to decipher it. that said i would love to know more
 
liveinabin said:
I heard somewhere that the number stations where to give information to spys. the spys were given a book. The numbers refered to page, line and word. So the spys would listen to these groups of numbers to get messages from HO.
Very good because you could open broadcast the numbers but without knowing which book it was there was no way of deciphering the message.
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With some funds, this could actually be tested. With the number of books online, one could compile a database. Given several sets of page-paragraph-line numbers, the range of possible books could be narrowed significantly. The results for the rest would probably have to be hand analyzed, and may just be another code <sigh>. Plus, you'd have to figure out when they switch books. That part would be wouldn't be too difficult once you've had a positive match, though.
 
If you watch the Mark Thomas Product.they have a recording of spy numbers being read out. I read in an article that they broadcast them as the Government denies their existence.
 
If you watch the Mark Thomas Product.they have a recording of spy numbers being read out.
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I remember them doing that in an early show......didn't they put them on the walls behind him.



There was also a mention of it on radio 5 earlier this year where they played a recording of them
 
Numbers Stations

Has anyone else here ever come across the strange phenomena of Numbers Stations?

In case you haven't heard of them before, what they are are short broadcasts found on shortwave radio bands, and consist of the reading out of a set of numbers by a radio presenter. The leading theory of the purposes of such stations is that they are related to international espionage, and are codes for 'one time pads' - a very secure method of encryption.

The best way to get introduced to them is to hear a few samples, such as The Lincolnshire Poacher or "Papa November".

These statioons have been in existence since the early 70's at least, and probably earlier. They're certainly fascinating, and a little bit creepy.

(Oh, and BTW, this is my first post. I've lurked for almost a year, but have constantly failed to register - my computer didn't like it. After months of attempts and emailing the mods, I've finally made it! :) )
 
I have heard of these and like you say the explanation I've heard is that they are linked to spy networks. Very creepy indeed. This is one of the areas of forteana that fascinates me, the UL's, myths and phenomena attached to technology

I assume they're being monitored by 'the powers that be' but it seems like a clumsy way to transmit information, surely they can be jammed/intercepted etc.

BTW:hello:, fascinating first post.
 
Very creepy indeed. This is one of the areas of forteana that fascinates me, the UL's, myths and phenomena attached to technology
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It reminds me a little of EVP - perhaps that's why it's a little unpleasantly spooky. It's amazing the amount of stuff that's in the air, and can be accidentally plucked out if you have the right reciever.

Also, it's interesting because these broadcasts undeniably exist, unlike many Fortean phenomena which are more elusive.
 
I saw a piece about these broadcast on 'The Mark Thomas Comedy Product' some years back & was thoroughly spooked. I think it was the musical accompaniment that gave them the Indrid Cold quality...

I recall Mark Thomas mentioning that it is actually illegal to tune in to these broadcasts...

I understand that the numbers are an encryption key while the music and timing serve as a signature.

All in all, bags of vintage John LaCarre creepiness...Moscow Rules, George old boy, Moscow Rules all the way...
 
Probably every numbers/letters station ever is featured in the 4 CD Conet Project, which is now available as MP3s-

http://irdial.hyperreal.org/the conet project/

Spooky stuff...

A very good place to start is the Wikipedia entry on numbers stations which I started (15 mins of fame!!), there's loads of stuff out there.

The best I've managed to hear on my crappy shortwave radio was a time signal which pulsed for a while and eventually petered out.
 
Um, you can download the entire 4 CDs from the link I pasted in the post above... if you have a fast enough connection, that is. Then just burn them onto CDs. Et voila... :cool:
 
I only have an internet connection at work, and we can't download MP3s.

So hard cheese for me. :(
 
They're not that great...

(...he says, listening to disc 1 all the way through several times... ;) )
 
There are a fair few .WAVs out there, such as at the Simon Mason website - I can download them quite happily.

I also see that the threads have been merged. :)
 
In the '70s-80s, while still living in my hometown (on the Black Sea Coast), I stumbled across different number stations quite a few times, usually on 16, 19 and 25 meter bands. I remember especially well a station broadcasting German numbers read by a male and interrupted by longish periods of silence. Sounded a bit creepy, I agree... Funny thing, instead of 'zwei' (two) he would say 'zwoh'. I wonder why.
 
Yes - the zwei/zwo thing is used in SW radio by German speakers as 'zwei' can sound too much like 'drei' if the signal's too fuzzy.
 
Numbers on the radio

Can anyone direct me to the thread about strange voices reading numbers out over the radio?
 
If you can track down a copy of William Poundstone's "Big Secrets", there's a chapter on them there. It also has the frequencies you can tune to, and what you'll find when you look there. The book's a bit dated (1979), though, so the frequencies may not still work.
 
I've never heard of those before.
When I was a teenager, I regularly used to tune the radio around the dial at random, looking for something unusual.
On a couple of occasions, I found what could have been morse code, but very rapidly modulated (i.e. faster than a human could do morse code). On other occasions, I found squealing noises a bit like the noise you get from a modem (this was around 1978, before modem use really took off).
I'm sure a radio expert could explain these away - just wondered if these were part of secret operations or something.
 
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