[Boatanchors] Odd signal on HF

[DWAVE35@aol.com]

This subject seems to show up on various amateur reflectors about every 3 or 
4 months. There are numerous books, articles in Pop Comm and Monitoring 
Times, and literally hundreds of web references devoted to Spy Numbers 
Stations.

Do a simple Google search for "numbers stations spooks" and you will find 
hundreds and hundreds of references. Most every country including the US 
sends its field agents such messages for both practice and real ops.

You will find these signals in the ham bands and out, on CW, AM, and SSB. The 
really bad audio signals have generally been from Cuba, but almost every 
country with agents in the field use these techniques. Some very good 
articles in some of the SWL publications pinpointed the source(s) of much of 
what is heard in the US to well known government communications 
installations. Don't bother the FCC or the ARRL with reports of intruders, 
they known of them for decades. The book "Puzzle Palace" by Bamford about the 
NSA has some sections devoted to covert comms such as this.

When you think about how inexpensive "one time pad messages" sent to a small 
HF SW receiver like a Sony or Grundig are and how many people carry radios 
like that on vacations, you can see what an effective message delivery system 
it is.

I've been hearing these stations for more than 40 years and I'm sure they'll 
be around for a long time to come. Many of the clubs devoted to Numbers 
Stations have extensive schedules that detail when and where you can expect 
to copy the transmissions.


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