Spy Stations

[Reverend Recoil]

When I was in Iraq, I enjoyed listening to short wave broadcast.  Liberal, socialist, anti-imperialist propaganda was intriguing but my favorite broadcast was Major League Baseball.  On the hour and half hour, I could also pick up spy stations near the edge of several commercial bands.  The broadcasts were of a female voice reciting the phonetic alphabet in random order.  I have heard that they are broadcast out of Israel.  Does anybody know anything about these stations? 

[SHOOTALL]

Not really but back in the 60's and 70's I had a SW radio and there was a lady most of the time and every so often a man  that would say a phrase then repete it . This would go on for as much as half an hour . It was in English and always late at night . Both the man and woman  had strong accents . It was somewhat like a WW-2 movie where they sent messages to the French underground . To be honest i thought someone might be playing tricks when i first heard it but it went on for a long time . My radio got broken so i don't know when or if it stopped . Back then I heard other "sounds" on the radio not knowing what they were . Now i have SSB and can tune in on some of those odd sounds . I would think e-mail or sat phones would have replaced spy stations now .

[SHOOTALL]

what freq. do you pick them up on ? and time ?

[Reverend Recoil]

I don't remember the frequencies but they were heard late at night Baghdad local time.  It did seem kind of creepy at the time.  Maybe they were instructions to spy handlers or maybe just something to keep their opposite number up and worried.

On several nights, I copied some of it down but could not make any sense of it.  It could have been a one-time-pad code system.  It was not a message being read by a speaker.  It was a female voice that sounded like it was controlled by a computer program in the way the voice is with AT&T’s directory assistance.  Here is an example.  Imagine a droning, monotone female voice and you will get a good idea.

Message, message, message, message, message.
Group four, group four, group four, group four.
November, delta, sierra, alfa, echo, hotel, lima, bravo, quebec, uniform, papa, alfa, lima, tango, charlie, victory, foxtrot, delta, oscar, zulu, india, xray, hotel, juliet, mike, whiskey, sierra, november, lima, uniform, alfa, bravo, golf, ..................................... (This would go on for about 25 min.)
Message, complete.

[SHOOTALL]

That's wild , wonder who's side it was comming from ?
The ones years ago would be like the boy fell over , the boy fell over .the dog ran home , the dog ran home and on and on for 30 min or more . Never could make heads or tails of it .
 It cost alot to broadcast so it must be something to it . I have heard there are ships at sea that broadcast pirate stations and may have heard one or two but not sure . But with the ablity to block stuff these days it would almost seem like a waste of time.

[LAREDOBOB]

It use to be numbers, they would transmit them all the time.

[Slowpoke Slim]

We used that alphabet code all the time in the USAF. It was for secret traffic over radio broadcast. Basically, your code book gave you the alpha codes that were "current", and both the sender and receiver had the same code book. The sender would code the message, and send it as you've described it, and the receiver would use his code book to decode the message. The codes changed on a regular basis, and without the book, you had no hope of figuring it out.

It was only used for secret traffic, nothing "earth shattering". H*ll, they might have been sending the latest lunch request for the front line boys...

 

[FourBee]

I used the alphebet / numeric code in Vietnam in '68'.  It was a daily 3 page, 6 column, 25 line mission/casualty report consisting of friendly ordnance expended,  bunker/road damages/ livestock /enemy casualties.  Livestock was included because we had to pay for every waterbuffalo killed in battle.

[SHOOTALL]

Whats a buff cost ?

[FourBee]

$500

[SHOOTALL]

In 1970 prices thats more than prime beef

[FourBee]

Well the them it was their John Deere Tractor.  That's all they had to farm with.

[SHOOTALL]

My uncle got a good Ford NAA tractor for 600 .
I just can't see why we pay these things really .

[The Famous Grouse]

When I was in Iraq, I enjoyed listening to short wave broadcast.  Liberal, socialist, anti-imperialist propaganda was intriguing but my favorite broadcast was Major League Baseball.  On the hour and half hour, I could also pick up spy stations near the edge of several commercial bands.  The broadcasts were of a female voice reciting the phonetic alphabet in random order.  I have heard that they are broadcast out of Israel.  Does anybody know anything about these stations?

Just noticed this post. 

What you are talking about here are the infamous "Numbers station" broadcasts.

These strange broadcasts were first noticed in the 1950s and they have continued ever since.  HAM radio operators (and presumably intelligence agencies) worldwide have been trying to figure them out ever since by triangulating the broadcast location and by trying to figure out the code.

The short answer is that no one knows what these broadcasts are about.  Different types of these broadcasts have been triangulated as emerging in various provinces in the Soviet Union, places in the middle east, and I also believe some have been traced to somewhere in Central America.   

But they are proof that low tech is sometimes the best tech.  The broadcasts cannot be accurately traced and more importantly unlike a phone call or email the location of the intended recipient is completely unknown and cannot ever be known. 

The code could be a one-time cypher so as such it is practically unbreakable and to complicate things further the stations could be transmitting garbage most of the time to confuse anyone who is attempting to break the code.  Or they could be transmitting garbage all the time on certain stations, again to provide a situation where anyone who's trying to break the code would be unable to see the tree standing in the middle of the forest.

Grouse

[Scibaer]

if you do a google ( or some other engine ) search for spy or numbers stations, you will find quite a bit of information on them.
however, after listening to numbers stations and reading whats on the 'net' about them, i doubt that they are really spies, transmitting vital information.. though i cant say what thier motovation is , other then to try and tie up the band.

http://www.spynumbers.com/YosemiteSam.html
http://www.spynumbers.com/USSWbeacon.html

[BBF]

that communication could be commercial info passed on as well. I do remember the number stuff when I was a teenager( l o n g time ago) listening on a Grundig Radio.