Number stations are shortwave radio stations that broadcast a series of numbers with no other instructions or indications of purpose. They are believed to be used to transmit secret codes and messages to spies, using encryption keys and “one time pads”. No country has officially admitted to using them.
Number stations are radio stations that use shortwave signals to broadcast broadcasts that primarily consist of a voice stating a series of numbers with no other instructions or indications of purpose. These various stations have been broadcasting for decades, with service dating back to post-WWII. The numbers spoken are usually repeated several times and listed in groups of four or five digits together. This has led many researchers to suspect that the stations are used to transmit secret codes and messages. Digital stations have been listened to in several languages, including English, German and Spanish, and while no country has openly reported using them, they are thought to be used to send messages to spies.
The first numeric stations were discovered by radio enthusiasts who were scanning various frequencies for similar ones that were broadcasting messages. These stations were first identified after WWII and appeared to use similar technologies and methods to those used during the war to transmit messages and weather reports between locations. Although various numeric stations have been identified and discussed using nicknames by researchers, numeric stations tend to broadcast on different frequencies at different times. There will often be a fixed schedule for these broadcasts, however, and similar methods used on different frequencies are often the mark of an individual station.
A broadcast on a particular numeric station usually lasts only a few minutes and often begins with a brief indicator that the broadcast is about to begin. One station, believed to be of British origin, uses a short excerpt from the English song The Lincolnshire Poacher, leading to this name being used to refer to the station. This is then followed by a voice reading groups of numbers. This voice is often female and based on the way numbers are read it appears to be a mechanized or computer generated voice. Each group of numbers is typically assigned several times, followed by a signal to indicate the end of the transmission.
Since no country has yet officially admitted to using number stations, there is still no official explanation for any of these stations. Number stations are believed to be used to transmit signals to spies, who have been given an encryption key to translate numbers into a message. Since these messages have not yet been deciphered by researchers, it is believed that they are using “one time pads”, i.e. digits used only once and therefore practically impossible to decipher. However, it is still unknown whether the number stations are used to send actual messages to spies or simply to create the impression of covert activity in a particular area.
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