Everything You Should Know About Secret Numbers Stations & How To Listen
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 20 พ.ย. 2022
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I got the secret message that you sent me, Lewis, but I don’t know where I’m going to find water skis, two liters of mayonnaise and a typewriter, at this time of the night. 😂
A proper spy would always have those items to hand.
If that's not a "Pinky and the Brain" reference, it should be.
Lewis!!!!???
we're great concerns regarding your latest ""agent""?!.
If he can't even figure out doing the shopping?! by simply going to a 24 hour shopping mall???!! how in gods name is he going to carry out the "actual" spy mission???!!! . 🕵🏽♂️🙄🤣
@@paulsengupta971 exactly..
next he'll be telling his operator Lewis that he's not got a jet pack a flame thrower, at hand.. in his wardrobe !?
@@grahamfisher5436 who the hell jus has a 24 hour shopping mall lmfaoo malls here in the us close at like 8pm😂
I work for the government (not an intelligence agency obviously) and the idea of a bunch of civil servants having a meeting to decide on which horrifying jingle they will broadcast on their spy station makes me smile 😊
"(not an intelligence agency obviously)"
this guy for sure works for an intelligence agency 🤔
"Lets use something by Lada Gaga this time!"
Baby shark...
@@patrickkenyon2326😂 that would be great. Or tubular bells (think I got that tune right, from the exorcist movie).
@@trulythedudeDon’t believe anything until it’s been officially denied. 😉
My father worked in COMSEC with the USAF. He introduced me to SW and explained what the number stations were. It is still the safest way to get info to an agent or spy located in unfriendly territory as receiving stations are hard to detect and being portable are moved enough to not create a pattern which with detection would point to a specific person. It's also used for military purposes. It will likely be around awhile because it uses simple common gear which anyone anywhere might have.
Can you tell us any more? 😍 I'm so enamored with these.
@@barbieblues7639 Not much, Dad died in 1972 and that's all I know regards numbers stations.
Tonight's the first time I've seen an explanation of number stations, but I have some hobbyist insight into radio and cryptography. 📻🔒
To my knowledge passive radio receivers are virtually impossible to detect in use, and broadcasting over public airwaves allows operatives to receive communications using consumer radios bought locally, which would be much less suspicious (Except, perhaps, in the DDR or USSR) than being found with a concealed, fixed-frequency receiver - Noting a one-time pad or code-book is much easier to conceal than a radio. 📔
Where an operative was detected, it was likely someone frequently listening to numeric transmissions was overheard and reported to the authorities rather than the receiver itself being detected. 👮
Broadcasting over public airspace - With the pre-existing knowledge that anybody anywhere can receive that transmission without you ever finding that out - Also forces agencies to adopt the position that they're transmitting to the entire world, which means anything transmitted would be assumed to have been received and recorded by the enemy as well.
Because of this all transmissions would be engineered to be entirely meaningless to any observer - Only authorised persons have any codebooks, and know the (memorised) procedures for decryption - And this would assure near definite security of the message despite the world and his brother having obtained the cyphertext. 😇
@@dieseldragon6756 You should make some content! That's really helpful.
@@Matt-hc1fi That's awesome! Glad to hear that it helped! ❤☺
I _used_ to create content years ago (Mostly between 2008-2010 on a long-lost account) but I was getting forever shot-down by the _Copyright Sharks_ and it really put me off. 😢
Nowadays TH-cam has a number of excellent resources ( _Copyright School_ especially 👍) and content panels to help creators avoid the pitfalls - And to assess harmful claims made by _Ambulance Chasers_ in a neutral and impartial fashion - But what they're *not* doing is extending this back to those of us who've been abused by that sort of industrial malpractice in the past. 😑
The last broadcast by the "Gong Station" is kinda interesting. Its the German nursery rhyme "Alle meine Entchen" (All my little ducklings). The text is: "All my little ducklings swin in the sea, dive head under water and put the tail in the air." I might have been a joke as well as final instructions to tell their agents to go into hiding and pretend to be someone else in public since they are for their own now.
Believed to be sung by a group of highly inebriated agents of Stasi. Possibly celebrating the impending end of the Cold War.
There were lots of these stations in the 70s when I was a radio operator in the Military. Number stations often sent messages with the same interval each day even if they didnt have any information to the agents. That way it was harder to find out if there was increased activity or not.
True. That padding was known as "Dummy" traffic and its purpose is exactly as you say. I have copied tons of it when I worked as an intercept operator for Big Brother (US).
Cool.
Radio oddities are what pulled me in the hobby so many years ago. Living in a very remote area in Québec. Canada, it was very interesting to listen to shorts waves transmission on the long months of winter. The colder it was, the better. Reception was better when we could saw auroras boreal. That was in the latest 70's early 80's. I still have the old Hammarlund HQ 180A that I used back then. With a long wire antenna at 100 fts in the air. It measures exactly 160 meters. It's old but very efficient. These videos are very interesting.
SPY!
Est-ce que tu en entends encore?
I came across the number stations by a coincidence when I was probably 9 or 10 years old, so about 30 years ago, in former Czechoslovakia. It was a summer evening and I turned on my old radio to tune up some interesting radio stations from around the world, when I tuned to a station with a czech female voice saying random numbers. I was quite shocked, because it was a bit mysterious, so I told my dad to listen to it and I asked him what it was. The transmission ended in a minute and my dad, who looked really uninterested, told me it was something like a transmitter test. I remember I tried to tune to that station for several weeks, without any luck. It took me about 20 years to find out it was a number station (and what number station is) and there were a lot of other similar stations as well. And this topic still is for me still fascinating.
Cool that you still remember that
The same thing happened to me, but l live in Mexico near the California border. l discovered a station with a female robotic voice saying numbers in Spanish. I wrote some of them and many years later l found out about it. I was curious at the time but l never had a chance to ask to any adult what that numbers transmission was.
We are also - to the best of my knowledge - the only country that admitted its existence and purpose.
Yes, very interesting. A world not a lot of people know about.
@@communications23 We being Czechia?
I remember listening to number stations as a teenager 40 years ago. Always wondered who the transmissions were meant for. We knew they were cold war stuff but that was about all we knew. Great content Lewis, thank you for sharing 👍
As a kid I scanned the SW bands using the radio in a huge Grundig Majestic monophonic console. I'd heard every example you've played in this and previous vids. I knew they were secret messages. But I never knew who was sending them. Now I know. Thanks! :)
Same. My parents also had a Grundig Majestic console. I'd sit by that radio for hours tuning in shortwave stations as a child. I was mesmerized by the magic eye tuning indicator. Sadly, I sold it for $20 two weeks ago. It had (literally) rotted away in my parent's basement. A tube scrounger offered the cash and I took it.
@@nfalister2732 shoulda kept it
The Vernam cipher is definitely breakable if you're not very careful about how you use it. The Germans found this out the hard way in WWII when Bletchley Park broke their Lorenz cipher (the Brits called it 'tunny') using the Colossus. Vernam ciphers are subject to cracking by statistical analysis if the sender makes any error whatsoever.
"Any error whatsoever"? I think not. You can garble the encoding, and it's just as secure. You just need to guarantee that the codebooks are NEVER compromised, the numbers are TRULY random, and that NO page is used more than once.
@@cdorcey1735 Cues 10 hour mathematical debate on whether true randomness as distinct from pseudo randomness, is possible.
The German Vernam cipher methods were not cracked. Their "random" letter generator was cracked. They used mechanical wheels that output values that were difficult to predict, but still repeated. In essence, it was somewhere between a Caesar cipher and a Vernam cipher. They assumed the complexity of the system was sufficient, and didn't Any cipher can be cracked, given enough intercepted signals and poor random number generation. Even modern 256-bit encoding can be "cracked" if the number pairs are poorly generated. That doesn't mean that 256-bit encryption is considered "breakable".
@@musicalneptunian Modern pseudo random number generation done properly is quite secure. The key here being "done properly". An experienced programmer with a good understanding of mathematics could definitely develop a pseudo random number generator that by all accounts would be random. Don't get me wrong, I understand the argument of the mathematics behind it and most average programmers would not be capable of developing such systems, but there are definitely novel ways in which is can be done but usually requires a lot of computing power and a method of generator seeds that have absolutely no pattern or reason. Obviously a PRNG is gonna ultimately have some algorithm behind it, but if you can constantly be shifting that with seeds that are generated by systems that also randomly shift the seeds with THOSE systems ALSO being generated with shifting seeds from a strong source of randomness you will ultimately hit a final product that is nearly impossible to break. But again like I said, an average programmer is not gonna have the capability to do this consistently or probably at all. Most PRNG fails because the programmer made human errors, but an agency with highly experienced and highly smart programmers and mathematicians could absolutely develop a system that would be unbreakable. Also, there's more to it then number generators. You need to always have changing methods of handling the cypher text. You would also want each agent to have their own path to deciphering the code. This way, if one is compromised, the rest cannot be. Which of course requires a large amount of resources to be able to manage such a feat.
Sorry just couldn't resist to bite. It's just that most random number generation fails because of the human factor, not the computing factor. There's plenty of ways to get good random seeds that will always be unique without predictability, but using that seed effectively is the hard part, but spread that out many times over with multiple times in a row and you start getting some pretty strong results.
@@24680kong "...Any cipher can be cracked, given enough intercepted signals..." So true!
I'd have been freaked the eff out if I'd been scanning through radio frequencies and found the Lincolnshire Poacher. Late at night, you're alone with your radio and out of the static comes that looped melody. Even right now, watching this video, knowing what it (probably) is still unsettles me. It's perfectly eerie.
It’s just a signature for the intended audience to be able to identify.
I would use this 😉
th-cam.com/video/SEXjCoJDbWs/w-d-xo.html
That one intrigued me. As a musician I can hear more than just the melody. I can also hear additional harmony frequencies too.
Probably part of its purpose.
I listened to these 'messages' many years ago picking them up on my shortwave radio - it was fascinating and a bit scary!
2:40 They thought "illegal to listen to" would appease the public's curiosity? Lol Probably increased the sales of SW by ten fold.
I absolutely love the number station series. So well researched and presented. I find it strangely captivating for some reason I cannot fathom.
Me too!!! I really wish I had one of these radios and could listen in...
I think it's so fascinating because it's not a conspiracy theory, but a very real spy technology that we're technically seeing out in the open
We know for sure that it is being used by the Queen, who is still secretly alive
There are some great sw radios that aren't very expensive. I bought a Tecsun PL330 for 100€ a couple of days ago, I've watched a ton of videos on it and you should be able to listen to all sorts of interesting stuff being transmitted. I'll get it in the mail tomorrow, cant wait to start my shortwave journey
@@assistanttrailerparksuperv6839 also heard that she is actually David Icke
To be fair, the biggest shock to me was mention of Latvia. Like we are not known for anything. 😂
Latvia is known for Mikrotik. Great routers by the way. But unfortunately I can't think of anything else.
@@joaopedroalbernaz Riga Tower?
@@anthonysibley1021 now I know Latvia for two things. Very beautiful the pictures I saw on Google. Going to read more about it. Thanks
Latvia is famous the World over for being the country who's spelling is closest to Labia 😂.
Latvia is know as being a rouge part of poland
When the government says that you shouldn't be interested in listening to something then that's when you 100% should be listening to whatever it is
The strangest numbers station I heard as a kid in the 1970s was a man speaking numbers into a microphone in Spanish, but after every group the transmitter would turn off then turn back on again to read the next group. Apparently he was using a regular push-to-talk AM transceiver, probably modified ham or CB gear. The amateurism of this station made me think it was run by a drug cartel or some criminal operation.
I love how the Lincolnshire Poacher lady sounds so cheery yet the the message could be to do god knows what nefarious deed. And it’s oddly romantic to think of that spy in the dingy hotel with a cigarette.. 😆
This is a good general introduction to number stations. New shortwave listeners will be amazed that they can find number stations using an inexpensive pocket radio they may already own. Thanks!
I found them with a 1940 tube radio. It was a pleasant surprise
How does one get into this hobby?
@Jim Warden I bought a sorta pocket sized shortwave radio from RadioShack back in 1988 for $79 and heard the numbers stations the first nite I turned it on.
I don't know why, but hearing numbers stations has always raised my hackles in a way that no other scary thing ever can. It's a visceral reaction that sets off my lizard brain.
me too--i literally listen to true crime podcasts to go to bed, but I can't listen to numbers stations in broad daylight without freaking out
The Cherry Ripe numbers station used a tune associated with a John Buchan spy novel. I really love that touch of honesty.
I know a former PIRA volunteer who ran a PIRA number station. Broadcasts were made to alert volunteers to engage in an operation. He was arrested during a broadcast.
Interestingly, the OIRA also used number stations. On some occasions their broadcasts mirrored Soviet broadcasts. Indicating KGB coordination which was not found with PIRA. The INLA did not run number stations to co-ordinate attacks.
The Oblique station (around 17:00) used the word 'fiver' - as far as I know, that's never been used in a phonetic alphabet - it was 'fiyuv' for 5, and 'niner' for 9. That grabbed my attention (ex-radioman here).
Air transport and military sometimes uses that.
Uk slang for a £5.00 sterling note
@@ciabok92 Not in the military. The whole point of pronouncing nine as ''niner'' is so that it can't possibly be mistaken for five if reception is very poor/lots of interference. That would nullify that.
This is the most complete list of number station explanations I have seen yet. Thank you for uploading! Keep up the great work please.👏🏻👌🏻
Loving these videos, I listened to a few of these when I was a teenager and still have my SW radio from back in the 90s. I had no idea they were still around.
More good stuff Lewis! Maybe you mentioned it in one of your other videos, but one of the features of some Numbers Stations is that they transmit in AM and are/were strong so they could be heard on a normal consumer-quality SW radio that wouldn't look suspicious.
That was totally a thing, sometimes SSB+carrier as well. Audible on a normal radio.
@@fungo6631 sure, *nowadays* many shifted to pure SSB. But they did AM way into the times when SSB was the norm for utility voice transmissions. And they used full or reduced carrier even later for compatibility. There clearly has been an objective to allow for receiving equipment as unsuspicious as possible.
Also keep in mind that spooks aren't necessarily tech nerds - tuning a SSB signal using a late 80s/early 90s "world band receiver" with a BFO isn't trivial.
@@thes764 do you mean the SSB that can be used on CB transceivers?
I think Simon Mason’s work is worth a mention here, his short book “Secret Signals: The Euronumbers Mystery” is well worth a read and his excellent website was a goldmine of information on the subject. Now defunct, it has been archived so it’s still worth searching out. My own introduction to numbers stations came via E10 one evening while slowly trolling along the dial of an old Selena Vega B206 thirty-odd years ago. It seemed quite eerie.
Thank you - it was a shame when I moved house and lost the website - it took a long time to write it. 🙂
@@simonmason8582 My goodness, I didn’t expect a reply from the man himself! I can’t praise your work highly enough, it’s because of you and the old “Attention! 1, 2, 3…” segment in Short Wave Magazine I was finally able to understand what the hell was going on. I’m amazed your name doesn’t crop up more often in comments on this subject. Anyway, thanks again.
Simon! I’d love to chat with you if possible? Ringwaymanchester@mail.com
@@numberstation Many thanks for your kind words and well done with the fantastic channel!
@@RingwayManchester I'll be in touch soon to arrange a phone call at your convenience. 🙂
To add to the One-Time Pad: The advantage OTP has over other systems is that without the key, it is mathematically impossible to break them.
Modern cryptosystems, such as AES, are "only" practically unbreakable, but not mathematically perfect.
Mathematically impossible _if_ the pads really are only used once. (See also: Project VENONA)
If my memory serves right and it was true; that Russian buzzer, UVB-78, once had a female voice, that responded to her fans during a numbers broadcast. People had been talking about her on a internet forum that was for numbers stations and other SW stuff, that was monitored by the Russian intel community and they took note. I don't know if I would be honored or creeped out by it, if it was me listening that.
Yes it was "olga" the female voice who had been absent for some time. The forum was discussing her absence one day and apparently a user with a Russian IP address commented that she'd been sick. The next day she broadcast something to indicate that she was aware of their curiosity about her absence.
@@loganstroganoff1284 Yes, it was this one. Much obliged.
@@loganstroganoff1284 Do you have a link for this?
Any idea if this event was recorded and is available to listen to?
I can get a hold of some broadcasting equipment. I think I'll start my own number station! We'll keep the numbers between 30 and 90, just for the hell of it, and read them off in random order in sets of five. Every now and then it will be in Spanish. In between we'll run the vacuum cleaner.
How about a cat meow too?
“…not for public consumption…”, “…listening to these broadcasts is illegal.” Honestly, why do Brits let their government talk to them in this manner?
Listening to these always gives me the fucking chills. The songs followed by harsh female voices knowing they are sending spy messages. Something about it makes me skin crawl...
That calliope melody is very very sinister. The wow from the stretched tape just adds to it.
This channel gets better and better,
Just love it!!!
If by some chance a fan of the band Stereolab reads this, 13:44 of this video is the source of the looped sample in the song "Pause" from their 1993 classic album Transient Random-Noise Bursts with Announcements.
Reminds me of my youth, often listening SW radio and now or then stumbled on these number stations. Well, good to know others find/found them fascinating as well :)
Fascinating stuff, thanks for dedicating so much of your time to it! Your historic insights are always well researched and very interesting! Cheers, 73 from Northern Finland. 👍😎
I'll second that, there must be a lot of time put into research, hours of time dedicated to the task. 😎 👁 I remember picking some of them up on an old radio my parents had. It had so many bands on it, there was not a lot it couldn't listen into, but it weighed a ton. Reception was improved when a long wire aerial was added to it. As well as the tuner that was attached to the dial movement (as it were) there was also a box with two knobs sat on top of the radio, reception could be improved a lot with turning these knobs. I assume it was some sort of aerial tuner. At that time, I had no idea what these stations were, but it piqued my interest in radio back then. I did hear the Lincolnshire Poacher a few times. It was good fun finding them, when I found a German station my mother sat and repeated the numbers. That old radio was good fun, but the heat that used to come out of it was amazing, it was an old valve (tube) radio, make unknown to me. It had a speaker that plugged into it at the rear. If I remember, it had a battery that had to be charged up every year or so, depending on use. It was an old, heavy radio that crackled a lot, but it served us well. It had a far better sound than anything around these days when listening to normal radio.
@@BoB4jjjjs My father had a SW radio back in the 60s, and it too weighted at least 50 lbs. Lugging that thing around must have built some serious muscle. 😁
Thanks for this, really interesting. TH-cam threw this up completely randomly but it takes me back to being a kid in the late 70s, I remember hearing these stations broadcasting strings of numbers in Russian, German and Morse code on my grandad's radio. I always just assumed they were spy stuff. I remember one that used the old German phonetic alphabet (Anton, Berta, Caesar, Dora etc) which was quite cool - I only recognised it because I was a massive WW2 nerd as a kid.
They hold as much fascination now as when I first heard one in 1982 in over 40 years my intrest has never diminished ...and I get a real kick listening on a vintage set to them ... something like an old frg7... or a realistic dx 200... really takes you back to those cold war days.
Well done Lewis
The good old days when we knew who the enemy was... now the enemy seems to be within.
@@ohioplayer-bl9emThe enemy was always within. 😉
This thread. Chills.
Thank you for sharing this. My dad used to build valve radios and as a kid would be fascinated when he’d dial into the number stations, or pick up transmissions in rural wales of far flung places round the world.
I first heard about numbers stations as a kid and it’s become a perennial fascination for me. I tend to peer back in every so often and I’m always fascinated, and mystified, that some are still being broadcast and occasionally updated today. Even if their overall purpose is no longer a mystery, each individual station still has enough of its own mystery to draw me back in.
My first introduction to what a „Numbers Station” actually is! Many thanks for the informative video, and also for seeding a scratchy 4-bit rendition of _The Lincolnshire Poacher_ into my mind for the rest of the day! 📻🇬🇧🤣
Growing up in the 80s (The closing stages of the Cold War and the very real threat of _M.A.D_ ☢) there was a lot of fear over things like this at the time, but I can see exactly why numbers stations would be employed by all sides. They're broadcast-only, can be received without detection (If the operative takes care in who might overhear them - Potentially the whole street, if they're stationed in one of the DDRs infamous cardboard flats!) and the messages broadcast through them are designed to be both safe in the hands of - Yet entirely meaningless to - Anybody, including the enemy(s). If only a good many websites would take the same approach today! 🔐👍😉
It's interesting to see these are still employed today though, when there are other ways data or messages could be encoded in consumer-targeted transmissions. The order in which three specific songs might be played over a radio station could encode up to six (3 x 2 x 1) distinct values - Or three bits of binary information (With restrictions) - And with most radio stations now being globally accessible online (As well as keeping public records of what they've played) who knows just what information or instructions could potentially be being encoded in the playlists of _Greatest Hits Radio?_ ... 📻🇬🇧😉
but accessing one of those stations online using a commercial network in the country hosting the receiver could attract attention. The spys could be so deeply embedded in a false ID the sender wouldn't want to risk leaving this evidence trail
My gf has just started listening to greatest hits radio and they do seem to play the same songs over and over again, perhaps you're onto something!
Svetlana is a wonderful woman, I met her on tinder when i moved here to Cheltenham to start my new job - she's the most supportive gf I've ever had, it's refreshing to have someone who's genuinely interested in my work- a very geeky field.
This has been one of my favorite channels for a while now, and you really knocked it out of the park with this video. Once again I learn a few things on a subject I thought I knew pretty well. I just sent you some money on PayPal - but hopefully you'll do a Patreon or TH-cam membership or something else where people can do recurrent payments to you - because it's money well spent.
Thank you so so much Paul!
Wow Paul just checked and thank you again so much. That’s so kind of you!!
Cheers for this, I've been fascinated since discovering these 9 yrs ago and how interesting radio is in general.
I’ve been fascinated with number stations most my life, love the video!
Brilliant as usual, your research is amazing. Thank you once again👏
I remember as a child using my grandads huge radio which had various shortwave bands, tuning into these strange noises tunes and numbers! Never knew what they were at the time, it was very fascinating!
Can some still be found using standard SW receivers? Is there a frequency list?
Thanks for this video 👍🏻
Absolutely love these numbers stations videos, thank you for the great content!
A local Manc band called 'Hostile Foreign Powers' did a song called Gongs & Chimes, sampling the famous East German numbers station with the voice of 'Magdeburg Annie'. Great track and video, search it on TH-cam!
You've inspired my daughter and I to get back into sw listening. Please keep going your doing grate.
You encouraged me to get my hand in my pocket and buy some new NiMH batts for my scanner. I was in Tesco's and going 12 quid for 4 batteries?? Great series loved it! 😄❤️
Why is your profile picture the Boeing logo?
@@NotADoctor558 Why is that your concern?
I rely on AA batteries for my radio-based lifestyle. I’m so obsessed about NiMh batteries that I charge them and line them up on a row on my nightstand like bullets
Thank you for your work. This is the first I have heard of number stations.
Sir , your videos are amazingly educational.
thank you for your contribution to science.
2:40:
How to get people to monitor a station: tell them they _should not_ listen because it's illegal.
It would be better to say that it is a poetry project funded by a private arts grant that wishes to remain anonymous.
The reason why number stations are in use today is the fact that internet data can be copied with easy with both start point and end point can be found. Data over short-wave can be listened to, but more difficult to figure out who is getting the data in question and what the data is (even if most of this has already been figured out today).
It's harder to find out the exact location of the broadcast. With Internet, someone can always find out where a message is coming from.
You can hide coded messages in innocent looking websites or websites that are regularly accessed by people that are not spies and access this websites from open Wi-Fi access points with spoofed MAC address not to mention there is also Tor ( onion routing) which was invented for hiding both starting point and end point.
@@xminusone1 while finding the location of the transmitter can be difficult, it's not impossible. But that's not nearly as important as knowing the location of the receiver. A numbers station transmitting in Cuba could be listened to by someone in Washington DC, or someone in Venezuela. With internet communication, even if the message is secure it's possible to find out who it's going to, and that can tell you a ton.
also - the use of a one time pad makes it impossible to decipher.
@@fungo6631 yeah but the location of the receiver is the important part especially if you’re in unfriendly territory
Have been fascinated by number stations for years now. Really nice stumbling across your videos on them. 👍🏻👍🏻
Thank you. Always great to learn about Europe's and USSR radio communications. It's interesting how many other countries seeming innocent were involved
Thanks for the great introduction into numbers stations - despite not being a ham, I've become slightly fascinated by the idea - even to the point of making a little art project out of generating my own fake numbers station audio.
Great documentary. I remember finding "counting stations" on the radio as a kiddo and although I didn't question what they were, I thought there was something mysterious and magical about them ♥
This video was excellent! So much research and planning, well done. I too have been intrigued with these stations for a long while and look forward to finding and hearing new ones. I wish Israel would bring back theirs. That is my favorite by far. I can regularly hear XPA and XPA2 at my home in Florida.
Used to listen to these years back as a small child not really knowing what they were. Only downside was it took me 3 years of school before I could count to ten correctly.
I spent 12 years in the 70's & 80's at FCO Hanslope park and often worked up at Gawcott TX out station along with Poundon & Cresslow sites
Marc In Bletchley G6XEG
I remember clearly receiving a numbers station here in Auckland New Zealand. This was in the late 80s and was at a time when I had a severe case of food poisoning. I remember because I was on the loo!!! The interesting thing about this station was that it was either in the VHF or UHF spectrum. I only know this as it had a handheld scanner at the time and my shortwave receiver was in my bedroom!!! I immediately knew what it was and noted it had a broad English (from England definitely not kiwi) accent. As I was ill at the time I didn't really think much about it and didn't know anyone else who listened like i did!
How far away from Iriringi are you? Plenty of 'keeni meeni' from what used to the RNAZ Wireless Station visible from the Desert Road on way to National Army Museum.
@@g7vak We were living in Royal Oak, Auckland at the time. But it was absolutely FM and pretty sure UHF.
Thanks for another great video Lewis. Good to see new videos from yourself and Andy :)
Thanks for this series. As a newcomer to sw this has been very interesting, indeed. 👍
This really blows the dust off my dormant cold war paranoia .
Right???!
I had a cheap radio Walkman when I was a kid and in a certain part of the flat I’d get this weird ‘station’ that sounded like it was repeating one syllable over and over again really quickly. I’ve never forgot it and would love to know what caused it. I’m sure it wasn’t an actual station, but it was definitely odd
Somehow this ended up in my recomandations and i am so happy, as a kid is spent hours carefully scanning the SW bands, never knew what they were until now. Thanks for making this video, and its time for me to dive into a youtube rabbit hole
you have explained tons of queries I have had about my own radio and the odd static noises and dots and dashes I have heard as a child! Thx for clearing all this puff up with true info peace
I have been listening to shortwave for 70 years and still love the felling. The stranger the transmission the more interesting it is to listen to. Some of your pictures, well didn't fit in. BUT your monologues are very interesting. Thanks and can't wait for the next video. 73 Leo k1zek k
I agree with you, it’s fascinating. I close my eyes and let my imagination run wild. As to the pictures he admitted that at the start.
OTP systems don’t use a direct mapping like you mentioned because they need to be positionally variant, ie: the same cleartext needs to transform to a different ciphertext if sent at different times, to prevent known subtext or letter frequency analysis attacks. OTPs work by requiring that the length of pad consumed in enciphering be as long as the plaintext you want to encipher. Because you never reuse the pad, and you use a different map for each character every time it comes up, that’s what makes it unbreakable
So does each Pad have a date and time? Because if it only does time but still open to a frequency analysis attack since there is only 24 hours in a day, or they could do 10 minute intervals for 144 for combinations which at up to 24 hours if my head math is correct.
@@definty the pads aren't necessarily marked for a particular date or time. once you've used it, you discard the pad and use another one
@@voncheeseburger ahhh so you have to maintain the correct pad for each transmittion and the receiver side? Does this mean if one side missed a call they have to get rid of the pad? This explains how they can track the calls cycles. I wonder if you can break the past pads by looking through old news/intelligence/civil/geo political/spy news sources and try to peice together what pads could of meant. With LLMs out now the cost of going over all the sources above could reduce the cost of searching over the sources above. But I suppose the nature of the pad changing each message makes this impossible. I wonder what algorithm they use to create these random printed pads, I wonder if there are any old complete pad booklets online from the 50s/60s? I wonder what algorithm they assumed was secure back then be interesting to know if it's still considered random.
@@definty Yes, if a message was missed, they had to have a strategy to 'resynchronise' with a new pad. typically something like "if we haven't heard from you in 4 hours, skip to the next pad". If used correctly, a one time pad is *completely* unbreakable. its key is known only to 2 parties and once destroyed, can't be recovered. to the eavesdropper, the ciphertext appears to be complete noise, and they can't use any fragment of a key to do partial decryption or anything. They have been used since the 19th century and were especially well used during WW1. the algorithms were pretty simple to generate the keys IIRC. you can look up an ephemeral encryption method for more info. its the modern equivalent that uses public key cryptography to encrpyt a key which can be used to perform symettric key crypto, and at the end of the message all the keys are discarded.
Superb again Lewis! i always try and tune into one or two if i’m at work and we have an HF set.
Back in late 1960s Early to mid 70s ,I had a tube type Hallicrafter all band radio. I would turn into all kinds of stations just to see what was there. In those days the bands were full and one of my favorites was ship to shore or ship to shop transmissions. The receivers on the old tube types were superb. And with only a long wire antenna could turn in the world.
I first read about numbers stations in one of William Poundstone's Big Secrets books, and the sheer mystery chilled me to the bone. I wish I'd had your video back then! A succinct, matter-of-fact explanation is just the antidote to fear that teenage me needed. (Not that global military conspiracies are too comforting, but they're better than whatever creepy stuff my subconscious was pointing to.) As it happened, early internet sites and the Conet Project CDs made these stations familiar to me years ago (and I even caught one live on the air once!). But there are still some recordings of them I can't listen to after dark without shivering (High Pitch Polytone, eek)!
I'm sure I heard some of those transmissions at an Orb concert back in the 90's ;)
Thanks to my Dad and his JVC boom box that had short wave capabilities. We went searching the dial one night and came across some wild stuff, he didn't know much about them but I do remember recording them onto cassette. justneed to take the time to go back and find it. Later from Mark Gunderson AKA Evolution Control Committee I learnt about the CONET PROJECT.
I first heard about these strange transmissions from the late, great Art Bell show, but, I’ve been listening to SW radio since I was young, thanks to my brother, I still have the old National SW radio in my basement, needing tubes, ha, good luck finding them, my brother put copper wire on the roof in a W pattern, bring in the whole world. I have a portable one from CCrane radio with a decent antenna, haven’t listened in awhile but I will when the weather clears up. Wow!
Thanks very much for this great look at numbers stations. It truly is a fascinating subject, and perhaps especially because the technology isn't obsolete. Cheers!
Another quality video Lewis,well researched content thank you.
Well done on this vid. Any amateur who gains this level of understanding due to their own dilligence and fascination should be applauded. I worked on classified comms stuff during the cold war amongst other things but not anything this crude and fascinating !
Have any of you played the game "Signalis?" It came out this year and incorporates numbers stations into the gameplay. Its a pretty spooky game and its what got me back into researching number stations. I haven't finished the game yet but the station I found sounds like the swiss station you showed, exactly! Its also in the trailer for the game!
Yes i mainly played it because of the radio transmission i heard in the trailer, did not waste my money, absolute banger of a game
i was like oooh cool new game
then i read
"sci-fi anime horror"
yeaaaaaahh im out. stop it with the anime you have no idea how many chomos sit in that thread
I've never heard of number stations before this video, listening through I instantly put Signalis and these stations together. The short jingle followed by the distorted female voiced operator reading out number strings... wow, it's so eerie just like the real deal
Actually one of the more curious things I can remember hearing on MW back in the early 80’s was this repeating three letter group of slow morse code the radio in my dads car often picked up. I thought it may have been some sort of navigation system for aviation but now I’m not so sure as the middle of the three groups of dots n dashes was a group of four. I’ve often tried hunting for this broadcast today but to no avail and the car radio is long gone now (as is the Mk1 Escort it was mounted in) so haven’t got a clue. But I can clearly remember the grouping of three dots, four dashes and finally 3 more dots…… and it repeated day n night. I did wonder if it was ever something to do with the old VLF transmitter station at Hilmorton, Rugby. One of many strange signals that got me hooked in SW listening and building my own home brew SW receivers in my mid to late teen years. Despite times moving on and many of my favourite international broadcast stations long moved away from HF broadcasting stations to streaming services it’s reassuring to know there’s still much life in HF DXing yet!
I am a pilot. There are NDB's (non-direction beacon). These are simple cheap navigation beacons used in aviation. The aircraft are equipped with ADF receivers. They are still around, but I think are being slowly taken down. The beacons sent a morse code identifier constantly. For example, there is one near me in Akron, Ohio with the identifier AK (.- -.-) broadcast every few seconds on a continuous loop. I am not sure this is what you heard. In the US they are (were) on low frequency. AK is 362 Kz. That does not really fit what you described.
@@ianbutler1983 As a youngster I would scan the LF band and sometimes found a new beacon. The local airport tower had it's number listed in the phone book and I would phone them to find out where my new signal was coming from. I'm not sure how high in frequency the beacons go, but a lot of old AM receivers actually tuned down to around 500kHz, well below the dial markings.
Here in Minnesota there was a NDB station, a non-directional navigation beacon, on 262 Kilohertz. The car radios of the 1950's and 60's had an intermediate frequency of 262 KHz, pure coincidence. If the car radio had marginal antenna filtering, or if you took off its bottom cover, in this area you'd hear a faint morse code identification. 24/7. Those low-frequency beacons are 90 year old technology and have many drawbacks, like no good in rain or in snow static, and a pain to home in on, and GPS is so much more reliable and accurate, so NDB's are slowly being phased out
@@georgegonzalez2476 The FAA moves slowly with these things. GPS is indeed far better but so far isn't allowed for primary instrument navigation although some (many?) GA pilots are using it that way. Personally I think they don't like GPS because they don't control it. No government agency likes losing their power.
Awesome video. Thanks for posting it. Has anyone in the current era found any one-time pads from many decades ago and seen which old radio station recordings involved that particular cipher?
I used to listening to them back in the early to mid 1970s. Will have to look for them.
The Lindolnshire Poacher is currently my ringtone. Those who know, know.
I’m still looking into it but my great grandfather was some kind of radio operator for the British military way back when. Apparently he was pretty well versed in this kind of thing.
Really enjoyed this.... thank you! I used to be a keen SW listener, generally at night in bed!! World Harvest Radio, Radio Canada International, Radio Moscow, Voice of Turkey, VOA etc., etc... My best was Radio New Zealand. Saqdly so many are gone now.... I'll look forward to watching more of your postings. I'll give you the Golden Numbers!!
This rabbit hole is deep
Thanks for teaching
"It's illegal to listen to them" - well how was anybody supposed to know that?
There's a movie based on this called The Numbers Station and it was also used as a plot device in an episode of Covert Affairs.
The Swedish Rhapsody recording is also used in Banshee Chapter.
@@punkgift no idea what Banshee Chapter is, to be honest!
Fun fact to G02, the little jingle it played was the EAS alarm in Berlin when the soviets invaded.
As a 13 year old in 1985 with no computer or internet, SW radio was an audio way of understanding the world. I and others came across numbers stations and didn’t know what they were until much later on. A wonderful way to explore the world.
If I was 13 old teen back in 1985, I would build my own computer, modem and call to BBS in Fidonet (arrived in 1984) 😅
I used to love listening late at night to SW too, but I don't remember numbers stations. Instead I listened to Radio Moscow, Radio Prague, Radio Vilnius, Radio Stockholm - which I could also get on MW sometimes, even remember tuning in to it on the car radio while waiting for my Dad who was in the bank - and I think the Voice of America and Voice of Japan.
A great secret. With decades of these existing, how do we not have many folks coming forward with locations, details, etc.? For folks who say many big conspiracy theories don’t exist because it would be too hard to keep them secret, I guess this is an example of how that’s not always true ;)
There are. There are whole internet forums dedicated to these things.
Admitting you were a spy could still get you in trouble, even though the Cold War is over. If that weren’t the case, you’d probably hear a lot of fun “war stories” from former field agents.
VERY GOOD Videos!! Maybe in the next video you can explain one thing about Number Stations. Why are the groups of numbers or letters are in groups of "5". Why five, way not 6, 10, 12 or something else. Again... GREAT VIDEOS!!!
Would it help in working through a One Time Pad of blocks of 5 characters
@@Tgspartnership Who is to say that they used all 5 characters in a block of five? 🤔
It's just a convenient number for someone to remember long enough to write down. Any more than 7 digits becomes difficult for people to remember, and anything less than 4 would take longer to transmit.
Groups of 5 are common in the code world. It's just enough to provide considerable information yet short enough so you can remember each group long enough to write it down or type it out.
It's great that they are still around. Long live numbers stations!
73 M7TUD
Brings back a lot of memories. Used to hear them all the time when out to sea.
The female voices sounded pretty hot😅
Lonely nights out on the ocean right?
@simonh6371 Yep😂 , those night shifts got long.
Interesting that of the Polish stations, the Swedish Rapsody one, was broadcasting in German 😮
I wish I had recorded that stuff back in the days of the Licolnshire Poacher - which I considered essentially "spam" back then. Thanks & 73 Lewis! or shall I say 000 000?
I've worked on the site at 12:00 (thinner tower on the left)! Crazy that they can be recognized
Loving the number station's stuff Lewis, cheers 🍻
favorite channel as a kid, listening to it in the attic of my house on an old Telefunken, pretending to be an American secret agent on a secret mission, with a plastic gun in my pocket and old war documents of my grandfather.