I was hoping it was the following day's lottery numbers. It cost me a buck to find out it wasn't that.
Very odd. During the height of the CB craze in the '70s I recall hearing about one city where someone who had "special" issues was apparently given a radio just to keep him busy. He would be chattering on it constantly tying up the frequency and as far as I know was never located. Perhaps it is something like that here, perhaps not. Tune across the whole radio spectrum and all sorts of strange sounds pop up; hobbyists are able to ID some of them, but others nobody ever figures out.
A very interesting conversation, and the website mentioned, https://www.numbers-stations.com/ definitely has a lot of information. If anyone runs across the 1983 book Big Secrets it has a good discussion on what was known at the time about this topic as well as other odd signals. The book is a fun read too, such as a long chapter on what is likely to be in Coca-Cola.
While its debatable whether it qualifies as a true clandestine "numbers station", the last couple of nights the well known Israeli Navy transmitter callsign 4XZ, allegedly in Haifa, has been loud and clear here in FL on 6607 kHz. The ITU Morse code transmission of various types of message at times include Q-codes (QTC) and what appear to be standard abbreviatons. Five character code groups are a mainstay too. Here is a sample clip taken between ID's at about 0325Z Oct 2 2020. On a different note, I've begun wondering about all those SSTV images being broadcast by RS0ISS. Perhaps not only tributes to Cosmonauts, are they also a cover vehicle for sending agents clandestine messages via steganography?
Great Topic & Posts The first known use of numbers stations was during World War I, with the numbers transmitted in Morse code. kC3PBI - following day's lottery numbers - I WISH - WOULDN'T THAT BE GREAT . Hi Hi.
When I was in the Navy we called these "Number" stations, "RI", for "Russian Elicits". Some no doubt were Russian but not all. Of course these broadcasts went out to spies. Still a pretty good system for activating a "sleeper" hidden anywhere. Hey, you old timers remember the "Sky King" broadcasts out of Omaha Nebraska? Surprised we are all still around considering the hair triggers on those systems. Trivia question....what is POE in this context?
The Cold War was an interesting time. That was the peak of the "numbers" stations and other shortwave transmission oddities. Now, not so much!
There is also spynumbers.com which has an IRC chat along with some schedules. It can be fun to track them. They are also a good indication of propagation. --KD7YVV
