Category Archives: Numbers Stations

Miami Herald: Cuban spies and shortwave numbers

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towersI should note that we have several recordings and frequencies for the numbers station HM01, which is mentioned in this article. Very happy to see that they interviewed Chris Smolinski:

(Source: Miami Herald)

Even if you’re not a Cuban spy, you too can receive secret messages sent by Havana to its spooks in Miami, Washington and around the world.

Every week, one short wave radio station in Cuba broadcasts 97 messages coded in fax-like tones. A computer program easily available to the public changes the tones into numbers, and the Cuban spies then decode the numbers into words.

A second Cuban spy station transmits 16 messages per week in the dots and dashes of the 175-year-old Morse code – secret messages to Havana spies who may be older or less technologically savvy.

[…]The busiest Cuban station these days, and the only spy station in the world that uses the fax-like tones, has been baptized as HM01 by amateur eavesdroppers who run Web pages like Spooks List, Spynumbers, ShortwaveSchedule and Enigma2000.

It transmits 11 to 14 messages per day, a total of 96 per week, on the same schedule each week but using a dozen different short wave frequencies, said Chris Smolinski, 41, a Maryland software engineer who monitors the spy stations as a hobby.

Each message almost always has 150 five-digit groups, so that eavesdroppers cannot measure the true length of the text. And some of the 10-minute transmissions are phonies, designed to mask the real number of spies receiving them.

Anyone can hook up a radio receiver to a computer, where the DIGTRX program – widely used by ham radio aficionados to send and receive lengthy texts, turns the tones into numbers. Spies then use secret computer programs to turn numbers into text.

“HM01 is an ideal system because you don’t have to teach any to anybody. The computer does all the work,” said Smolinski.

For the less computer-savvy spooks there’s the M08a station, which broadcasts 16 messages in Morse code, developed for the telegraph in 1836, on a set weekly schedule and on many of the same frequencies as Hm01.

Read the full article on The Miami Herald website…

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Reuters: “Beethoven and numbers on Korean shortwave”

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FlagNorthKoreaNumbers stations get some spotlight in the wake of Jang Song Thaek’s removal from power:

(Source: Reuters)

Dec 9 (Reuters) – As a scratchy rendition of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No 8 fades into a sea of shortwave radio static, a robotic female voice starts speaking in Korean.

“Number 1913, number 1913, incoming message,” the voice says, before reading out seemingly random sets of numbers.

“68360, 75336, 80861, 94409, 03815,” it continues in an eerily authoritative tone.

The broadcast, a method of sending one-way secret messages to spies, dates back to the French Resistance in World War Two and is still in use on the Korean peninsula, where human intelligence remains the most important way of gathering information.

Blanket electronic surveillance and satellite imagery offer only limited penetration in isolated North Korea, where the use of mobile phones and the Internet is far below global standards. But reliance on antiquated methods and human sources has meant that the National Intelligence Service (NIS), South Korea’s spy agency, has a patchy record on finding out what is going on in nuclear-armed and unpredictable North Korea, with which it is still technically at war.

The agency may have scored a coup last week, however, by informing the world that Jang Song Thaek, the powerful uncle of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, had been removed from his positions.

[…]The radio messages have been used by the South for decades, say sources with knowledge of how the country’s secret agents operate.

“It’s classic – the safest way to deliver messages, it leaves no trace,” said former agent Yeom.

The messages work by sending strings of seemingly random numbers over shortwave radio signals to an agent in the field, armed only with a radio, pen and an easily concealed pad with corresponding letters on it that can be used to decrypt the messages.

“The first time I heard the South Korean numbers station now known as V24 was probably in the early 1980s,” said a radio hobbyist who only identifies himself by his call sign, ‘Token’.

Long-time listeners like Token say V24’s unique power signature and signal strength place its origin somewhere south of the Demilitarized Zone that separates North and South Korea.

An official at the NIS who deals with media requests said he could not confirm anything related to the operation of South Korean numbers stations.

But hobbyists say the secret station is being used less frequently.

“In July 2013, I received 62 messages, most of them in the first half of the month,” said Token, who monitors the signals from his location in the Mojave Desert in the United States. “However, in the first ten days of November, I only received three.

“I have never seen traffic anywhere near this low. This station could be winding down operations,” he added.[…]

Read the full article at Reuters by clicking here.

Also, on the topic of of Jang Song Thaek, check out this video from Radio Free Asia:

If you would like to hear audio from numbers stations, check out some of these posts and recordings.

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Pavel’s 70s era recording of a German numbers station

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towersI read this account Pavel posted on the Spooks reflector and asked if he would share his story on the SWLing Post.  He kindly agreed.

Pavel writes:

“Inspired by a recent thread about a vintage number station, I searched my old tapes (I really [have a] LOT of them, hundreds of reels, mostly with music, but sometimes with other interesting things) and finally found a short snippet of a German number station transmission. There is neither a start nor end of the transmission, just a few 5-digit groups.   It was recorded sometime between 1977 – 1980, at my cottage near Ceska Lipa, Czech Republic (but it was Czechoslovak Socialistic Republic [then]).

Reception was made on a Czechoslovak tube receiver “Barcarola” on a shortwave band with classic AM (of course this receiver was not capable of SSB or any other advanced modes) using a random wire (about 10 m) antenna.

A recording was made on the B400 Czechoslovak tape recorder using a Scotch 220 magnetic tape (exactly the one which is in the picture), speed 9.53 cm/s. Import to the digital domain was performed using the Audacity open source sound recording and processing software, without any artificial filtering or other DSP techniques.

As you can hear, it was perfect, clear readability:

I know that because the recording is incomplete, it has just a low value as such, but maybe it can at least demonstrate, which kind of equipment was obvious at this time and that it was possible to use it for activities like SW listening and number station (at least the strong ones) monitoring.

I’m curious whether somebody will identify the station.

With regards,
Pavel

Pavel's Barcarola was similar to this model (Photo source: http://www.oldradio.cz/)

Pavel’s Barcarola was similar to this model (Photo source: http://www.oldradio.cz/)

What really amazes me is the fidelity of Pavel’s recording. Though the transmitter might have been relatively local, there is certainly something to be said for analog equipment–both Pavel’s Barcarola receiver and his B400 recorder.

I actually collect and maintain more tube receivers than solid state. While their sensitivity and selectivity isn’t always on par with modern receivers, their warm audio fidelity makes up for it.

 

If you can identify Pavel’s numbers station recording, please comment.

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Cuban Numbers Station HM01: serving up a little confusion

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WFL_015On occasion, I hear the Cuban numbers station HM01 on 5,855 kHz on weekday mornings.

It seems that many of the mornings as I listen, I hear HM01 making mistakes or at least experiencing “technical difficulties” (click here for a recent case in point).

Though I don’t often record HM01, I did record it on the morning of September 20, 2013––and, yet again, I heard what seemed to be HM01 tripping over its own tongue.

Instead of the broadcast starting with numbers to identify the transmission, then implementing intermittent RDFT data bursts as per usual, this broadcast begins in the middle of a data burst, then shuffles awkwardly into a “normal” broadcast.  I imagine an operative in the field scratching his or her head…

But hear this for yourself.  Either click here to download an MP3 of the recording, or simply listen via the embedded player below:

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Russian Numbers Station UVB-76: “the most mysterious radio transmission in the world”

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UVB-76-detailJames Cook, associate editor, at The Kernal has written an excellent article about the Russian numbers station UVB-76. Those of us who listen to numbers stations are very familiar with this reliable buzzer on 4.625 MHz. Cook writes:

The radio signal that occupies 4625 kHz has reportedly been broadcasting since the late 1970s. The earliest known recording of it is dated 1982. Ever since curious owners of shortwave radios first discovered the signal, it has broadcast a repeating buzzing noise. Every few years, the buzzer stops, and a Russian voice reads a mixture of numbers and Russian names.

A typical message came hours before Christmas day, 1997:

“Ya UVB-76, Ya UVB-76. 180 08 BROMAL 74 27 99 14. Boris, Roman, Olga, Mikhail, Anna, Larisa. 7 4 2 7 9 9 1 4”

Instead of shutting down with the fall of communism in Russia, UVB-76 became even more active. Since the millenium, voice messages have become more and more frequent.

Click here to read Cook’s full article on The Kernel.

If you would like to listen to UVB-76, and can’t easily receive it via radio, click this link to listen to a live stream or click this one to load a live stream in iTunes.

If you’re interested in numbers stations, click here to read some previous articles on the SWLing Post.

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Russian spies used shortwave numbers stations and satellites inside Germany

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towersThanks to Andrea Borgnino for sharing this article:

(Source: Der Spiegel)

A pair of Russian agents was convicted on Tuesday of spying in Germany for more than 20 years. Russian President Vladimir Putin is personally conducting the negotiations for a potential exchange, but now a new case is straining German-Russian relations.

A treasure in the exhibit room at the German Federal Criminal Police Office in the western city of Wiesbaden has aroused a great deal of curiosity among the world’s intelligence agencies. It looks like an ordinary, black laptop bag. It contains a Siemens hard drive, or at least it looks that way. But a notch reveals that it is not an off-the-shelf product. It’s a high-frequency satellite transmitter, with an antenna hidden in the flap of the bag.

The device is state-of-the-art military technology, a “top quality intelligence product,” raves an expert. In the spy wars, German authorities haven’t gotten their hands on anything this important in years. The significance of this high-tech device, however, approaches that of the legendary Enigma code machine from World War II. Domestic intelligence officials at the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) in Cologne are eager to examine the device. The American intelligence agencies, the CIA and the NSA, as well as Israel’s Mossad have also asked for permission to inspect the miraculous piece of equipment.

The satellite device served Andreas and Heidrun Anschlag as a connection back home. They were Russian spies who lived as agents in Germany for more than 20 years, until they were arrested in October 2011.

[…]In their dispatches, which the couple received with a shortwave radio, the agent controllers in Directorate S of the SWR referred to the Anschlags as “Pit” and “Tina.” They were given the state-of-the-art satellite equipment during a trip to St. Petersburg and Moscow. They also attended a course on the use of a decoding program called “Sepal” and an encoding program called “Parabola.”

This enabled “Pit” and “Tina” to establish a secure connection to Moscow. All they had to do was pay attention to the times when one of the six to eight satellites sent into space by Russian intelligence for spying activities came into range. A red light on their radio device signaled to the Anschlags that the satellite was approaching, while a blue light indicated the transmission of encoded messages.

Sometimes, when the equipment failed, the Anschlags placed the transmitter below one of their attic windows, among the fruit trees in the garden or on a nearby hill. The hills directly behind the house proved to be unsuitable, because nearby wind turbines apparently interrupted communication with the satellite.[…]

Read the full article “In the ‘Land of the Enemy’: Spies Strain German-Russian Ties” at Der Spiegel Online International.

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Boards Of Canada puzzle: shortwave numbers?

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SWLing Post readers: I received the following email request today. Sounds fun and intriguing.  Perhaps you can help solve this mystery…

Boards+of+Canada

Boards of Canada (Source: Last.fm)

Hello, readers of The SWLing Post, and please forgive the intrusion. I admittedly know very little about shortwave radio, but there has been a bit of a puzzle going on for fans of the band “Boards of Canada” recently, and there is the distinct possibility that its solution could involve shortwave radio. A message I posted over on Reddit was forwarded to Thomas, who very graciously offered to post the plea here.

Some background — Boards of Canada is an instrumental electronic music duo from Scotland who are, to put it mildly, somewhat private and aloof, in all the right ways. Their references tend to be very math-heavy and their music has some innovative and fascinating-sounding tape loops, synths, etc. This puzzle has been going on for the better part of a week, and we fans been very impressed with the complexity of it, though we are not even certain of the meaning of it — though we hope and suspect it is a lead-up to a new release by the band.

Someone (presumably the band) has been currently leaving these (for lack of a better word) “clues” in several key places in the media. First, a single album was sold to one person on National Record Store Day in the US — an album containing a “numbers station” style reading of a series of 6 numbers. Then a cryptic YouTube video with another series of 6 numbers also being read like a voice on a numbers station. 6 additional numbers were played (unannounced and without explanation) over a commercial radio station in England. Then on April 25, the band stealthily released 6 more numbers by encoding a link hidden in a gif — a link to two soundfiles that had to be played simultaneously in order to cancel out the phase and reveal — you guessed it — another numbers station-style broadcast.

We have reason to believe that there are 1 or 2 more series of numbers out there — and given the nature of the broadcasts, plus the picture of a radio tower on the band’s Facebook page and the different media by which the band has released some clues, there is at least some reason to believe that perhaps there is another series of numbers being broadcast somehow over shortwave radio.

Here is where I’m hoping the expertise of your readership might come in — as I say, I apologetically have no idea how the world of shortwave radio works. But I’m wondering: in your journeys across the frequencies recently, have any of you stumbled across anything that sounds like this:

http://youtu.be/Qe4UCjjyr8U — specifically something with that same chime pattern at the beginning and then the 6 numbers? (This is obviously not a “real” numbers station broadcast, but something made to sound like it). I would not put it past Boards of Canada to transmit a signal somehow and expect their listeners to find it.

And/or does this series of numbers mean anything to you in the shortwave world:

xxxxxx/628315/717228/936557/xxxxxx/519225

The Xs are gaps where we’re waiting to fill in the numbers, but we have yet to discover them — though one of the series might likely be 699742.

If you’re curious, here is a summary of most of the events that have happened so far: http://2020k.wordpress.com/2013/04/20/boards-of-canada-distribute-new-vinyl-releases-out-for-national-records-day/

Thanks so much, and apologies if this is a waste of your time — this may end up having nothing to do with shortwave transmissions — I just figured it might be worth a shot, and also an opportunity to learn more about this particular passion.

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