Numbers station

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Numbers stations are shortwave radio stations of uncertain origin. They generally broadcast people reading streams of numbers, words, or letters (sometimes using a phonetic alphabet).

It is believed the broadcasts are a channel of communication to send messages to spies. This has not been publicly acknowledged by any government.

The voices that can be heard on these stations are often mysterious: mechanically generated; spoken in a wide variety of languages; usually female, but sometimes male or those of children.

Numbers stations appear and disappear over time (although some follow regular schedules), and their overall activity has increased slightly since the early 1990s.

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Suspected origins and use

According to the notes of The Conet Project (see below), numbers stations have been reported since World War I.

It has been speculated that these stations operate as a simple and foolproof method for government agencies to communicate with spies "in the field". According to this theory, the messages are encrypted with a one-time pad, to avoid any risk of decryption by the enemy. As evidence, numbers stations have changed details of their broadcasts or produced "special", non-scheduled broadcasts in response to extraordinary political events, such as the Russian constitutional crisis of 1993. Others speculate that some of these stations may be related to illegal drug smuggling operations.

Although no broadcaster or government has acknowledged broadcasting the numbers or has given a reason for their existence, a 1998 article in The Daily Telegraph quoted a spokesperson for the Department of Trade and Industry (the government agency that regulates radio broadcasting in the United Kingdom) as saying, "These [numbers stations] are what you suppose they are. People shouldn't be mystified by them. They are not for, shall we say, public consumption."[1]

Numbers stations are often given nicknames by enthusiasts. These nicknames often reflect some distinctive element of the station. For example, "Lincolnshire Poacher", one of the best known numbers stations (supposed by many to be run by MI6), plays the first two bars of the folk song of that name before each string of numbers. "Magnetic Fields" plays music from French electronic musician Jean Michel Jarre before and after each set of numbers. The "Atención" station begins its transmission with the Spanish phrase "¡Atención! ¡Atención!"

Although it is difficult to pinpoint the source of a radio transmission in the shortwave band, errors at the transmission site, radio direction-finding, and a knowledge of shortwave radio propagation have provided clues to some number station locations. For example, the "Atención" station is presumed to be from Cuba, as a supposed error allowed Radio Habana Cuba to be carried on the frequency.Template:Citation needed Whether the frequency of Radio Habana Cuba and the frequency of the "Atención" station merely interfered with each other or whether the operator of the station was listening to the radio and it accidently ended up on the air is unclear.

On some stations, tones can be heard in the background. It has been suggested that in such cases the voice may be an aid to tuning to the correct frequency, with the coded message being sent by modulating the tones, perhaps using a technology such as burst transmission.

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Formats

Generally, numbers stations follow a basic format, although there are many differences in details between stations. Transmissions usually begin on the hour or half-hour.

The prelude or introduction of a transmission (from which stations' informal nicknames are often derived) includes some kind of identifier, either for the station itself and/or the intended recipient. This can take the form of numeric or phonetic "code names" (e.g. "Charlie India Oscar", "250 250 250"), characteristic phrases (e.g. "¡Atención! ¡Atención!", "1234567890"), and sometimes musical or electronic sounds (e.g. "The Lincolnshire Poacher", "Magnetic Fields"). Sometimes, as in the case of the Israeli phonetic alphabet stations, the prelude can also signify the nature or priority of the message to follow (e.g. "Charlie India Oscar-2", indicating that no message followsTemplate:Citation needed). Often the prelude repeats for a period of time before the body of the message begins.

There is usually an announcement of the number of number-groups in the message, then the groups are recited. Groups are usually either four or five digits or phonetic letters. The groups are typically repeated, either by reading each group twice, or repeating the entire message as a whole. These messages are commonly thought to be encrypted with a one-time pad; hence, the contents of these groups are indistinguishable from randomly generated numbers or digits.

Some stations send more than one message during a transmission. In this case some or all of the above process is repeated, with different contents.

Finally, after all the messages have been sent, the station will sign off in some characteristic fashion. Usually it will simply be some form of the word "end" in whatever language the station uses (e.g. "end of message, end of transmission"; "ende"; "fini"; "final"; "konec"). Some stations, especially those thought to originate from the former Soviet Union, end with a series of zeros, e.g. "000 000"; others end with music or other sundry sounds.

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Transmission technology

Although few numbers stations have been tracked down by location, the technology used to transmit the numbers has historically been clear -- stock shortwave transmitters using powers from 10 kW to 100 kW.

During the Cold War there was ample evidence that the USSR used 500 kW transmitters on the other side of the Urals to reach agents in Western Europe.Template:Citation needed

Amplitude modulated, frequency agile Class-B (Push-Pull) modulated HF transmitters are the workhorses of numbers stations. Polyphase and PDM modulators were not used by numbers stations because energy costs were not an issue in the running of these stations.

This may change in the future with the introduction of Digital Radio Mondiale's (DRM) multimedia capabilities.

Each data service broadcast within the DRM multiplex is signalled in the SDC data field and has an 11 bit unique identifying code allowing for up to 2048 different data services. This data is subsequently transmitted as part of the MSC datagram.

A summation of DRM's data capabilities is available at this external link: [2]

The Deutsche Welle DRM PAD service has a data rate of approximately 800 bit/s. The MSC radio text data is sent out at a rate of 80 bit/s. For the transmission of messages to agents in the field, 80 bit/s is more than adequate.

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Popular culture references

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Music

In 1997, The Conet Project: Recordings of Shortwave Numbers Stations, a four CD set of recordings of numbers stations was released by England's Irdial-Discs record label.

Recordings of numbers stations sometimes find their way onto records by other musicians via sampling, such as Stereolab's song "Pause", Porcupine Tree's "Even Less", Chroma Key's "Even the Waves", or various songs by Wilco, whose album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is named after a message sampled on it. Pere Ubu's drummer Scott Krause is an avid fan of numbers stations, and has featured recordings in several of the group's songs. The track "On the Lamb" by 310, from the album Aug 56 lasts almost half an hour, and features samples from a numbers station throughout.

The Kraftwerk song "Numbers" is influenced by number station transmissions.

The reclusive Scottish duo Boards of Canada were influenced by numbers stations at an early age. The track Gyroscope on the Geogaddi album is thought to contain a sample of a child counting from the Conet Project.

The UK based group 65daysofstatic sample "The Lincolnshire Poacher" along with several other stations on the song "No Station."

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Film and television

Cameron Crowe also featured parts of The Conet Project in scenes of the movie Vanilla Sky. He said he used the station recordings to create a sense of confusion.

Numbers stations may be the inspiration behind the mysterious radio transmission in the Lost TV series.

A transcript of numbers from transmissions of the Lincolnshire Poacher station were printed on the set of a series of the UK TV Series: Mark Thomas Comedy Project

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See also

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External links

ja:ナンバーステーション

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