Sylum Posted January 12, 2012 Report Share Posted January 12, 2012 Wow. First topic ever started in this subforum. You're an amateur radio enthusiast. Just cruising along accross the shortwave frequincies when suddenly, You decide to stop on one that caught your ear. You hear numbers being read. Monotone voice. What the hell did you just find. What you just stumbled upon is a Numbers Station. What some people believe to be left over from the Cold War era as a way for [insert Country] to communicate with it's spies. (Or some people claim that that was their purpose.) "Numbers stations generally broadcast artificially generated voices reading streams of numbers, words, letters (sometimes using a spelling alphabet), tunes or Morse code. They are in a wide variety of languages and the voices are usually female, although sometimes men's or children's voices are used. Evidence supports popular assumptions that the broadcasts are used to send messages to spies. This usage has not been publicly acknowledged by any government that may operate a numbers station, although two QSLs have been received from numbers stations by shortwave listeners who sent reception reports to said stations, which is the expected behaviour of a non-clandestine station.[1]" Source: Wikipedia (yanked for a better definition than mine.) My question is, What is your take on this? Spies? Someone just screwing with amateur radio enthusists? Or something else? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vy'drach Posted January 13, 2012 Report Share Posted January 13, 2012 Anyway, no real idea, though the only thing it seems good for is sending coded messages to spies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unoservix Posted January 13, 2012 Report Share Posted January 13, 2012 numbers stations are clearly there so that when it's 3am and i'm strung out on caffeine and Aristotle i can totally convince myself that my space lobster overlords from Alpha Centauri have activated me to begin the invasion Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sylum Posted January 13, 2012 Author Report Share Posted January 13, 2012 I knew that's what they were for! Well, we're all boned... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rusakov Posted January 16, 2012 Report Share Posted January 16, 2012 Count Von Count's favorite radio station? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xortberg Posted January 16, 2012 Report Share Posted January 16, 2012 4 8 15 16 23 42. EDIT: Derp, I had two 15s. Can't be having that shit, no siree Bob. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vy'drach Posted January 16, 2012 Report Share Posted January 16, 2012 4 8 15 15 23 42. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sylum Posted January 19, 2012 Author Report Share Posted January 19, 2012 Hahaha Well this turned out to be a complete clusterfuck. Ah well. lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fox-Shot Posted August 8, 2012 Report Share Posted August 8, 2012 The Numbers, Mason. What do they mean? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98ESCg4rLmE&feature=related Well, the assumption must be pretty well known since it created an entire game's Cold War plot. I wouldn't be surprised if it was the premise to be for spies, but it likely ended up not getting anywhere further than numbers, but I do like the idea of it being just to screw with people poking their nose around the airwaves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DZComposer Posted August 9, 2012 Report Share Posted August 9, 2012 The spies thing sounds too tinfoil hat for me. It's more likely they are transmitters that need to be used at a moment's notice, and having things like that constantly coming through ensures they are up. I mean, if you were broadcasting to spies, why the hell would you not encrypt the transmission while using a frequency anyone with a scanner can pick up? EDIT: Further reading has led to a spy case involving Cuba, but those transmissions were encrypted, not open. Though the frequency was a known numbers station. But, I also read that in many areas, there is a "use it or lose it" licensing scheme for shortwave radios. This is the most likely explanation for the majority of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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