Wow. My stepfather is a ham radio operator (KA5OVO) and he's always been a bit of a radio head. He recently sent me an old fashioned cassette tape that he'd recorded of a transmission he'd received via shortwave radio of a man's voice reading a series of numbers. Nothing else, just numbers.

Several weeks ago, we'd argued over the phone about these transmissions, him telling me that they were top secret encoded messages from the government to spies, and me telling him that he was full of crap.

Well...

I'm starting to believe him! Check the Wiki article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_stations

Anyone else ever hear of this??

Oh, I almost forgot; "Happy Day of the Woman!"

You've never listened to the numbers stations before? I remember listening to them on my grandparents shortwave set when I was a kid. My grandpa (who was in the Intel branch of the Army-Airforce during WWII) explained to me that they were for spies. They were so bizarre, but would keep me fascinated for hours. Pick up a cheap shortwave radio at the store and you can hear them for yourself if you hunt around a bit.

I too have also heard numbers stations before.

When I was a kid we had a radio that also picked up shortwave. We never really knew what they were all about but we assumed they had something to do with spies.

The "Atencion" station mentioned in the Wiki article sounds really familiar. I'm positive that is one of the stations I heard. I also remember the stations that broadcast morse code.

I do have a shortwave radio... this little Grundig unit, actually:

[img]http://farm1.static.flickr.com/172/394642669_3d7ca2ab20.jpg?v=0[/img]

The only thing I've EVER heard on shortwave is the atomic clock ("TOCK; TOCK; TOCK; At the sound of the tone, the time is XXXX, coordinated universal time; BOOOOOP") and occasionally i'll hear some morse code. I've NEVER heard numbers.

Anyone know the frequencies? Do they move around? One thing I don't have on my Grundig radio is a SCAN button that looks for transmissions. I have to enter the frequency.

The old radio we had when I was young was a dial radio. We just stumbled on the channels.

Try on the top of the hour and on the half hour.

I found some possible frequencies you could check...

http://www.spynumbers.com/V2sked.html

http://www.spynumbers.com/E10/e10-1.html

Cool! I'm totally gonna start hunting for them.

I've personally heard Cherry Ripe and the Lincolinshire Poacher, both come in good on the east coast...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Conet_Project

for your consideration:
www.irdial.com/conet.htm

You don't have to buy it, as it's recordings of another's peformance, you can download them for free:
http://irdial.hyperreal.org/

Have fun.

Oh yea, the Ft. Collins Co. clock (WWV) simulcasts at 2.5MHz, 5MHz, 10MHz, 15MHz, 20MHz.

You should get them about 10MHz and 15MHz pretty darn clear. Use AM, not SSB.

Thanks!

Side note... What do you have against Revos? I *LOVE* mine.

Yeah what's wrong with Revos?

This is strange. Another topic about number stations popped up yesterday on another board I frequent. Hmmm...

I have never heard them, as I don't have a shortwave radio.

Revos clog up too easily and do not clean well in Georgia Mud or Flordia slop.

I ditched a set with 4k miles on them for a set of BFG AT KO's and never looked back.

Back on topic... Another favorite of mine is Radio Havana, and if you ever listen to VOA, you'll notice that the Voice of America has very little English programming Voice of China however is mostly English. The BBC is also interesting to listen to, and Denmark comes in good as well.

Came across this a couple of days ago. Haven't listened to it yet, but it fits the general topic.

http://theradiokitchen.net/live-shortwave/

I was talking about this Revo lol.



Any none MT sucks in mud.