[Spooks] Mysterious Russian 'Buzzer' radio broadcast changes

Sun Aug 29 00:01:57 EDT 2010

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-08/25/russian-numbers-station-broadcast-changes

Mysterious Russian 'Buzzer' radio broadcast changes

By Duncan Geere 25 August 2010

The output of a mysterious radio station in Russia, which has been 
broadcasting the same monotonous signal almost continuously for 20 
years, has suddenly changed. 

Numbers stations are shortwave radio stations that broadcast 
computer-generated voices reading numbers, words, letters or Morse code.
 Their purpose has never been uncovered, but evidence from spy cases 
suggests that they're used to broadcast coded information to secret 
agents.

Over the past week or so, the output of one particular station that 
broadcasts from near Povarovo, Russia, increased dramatically. The 
station has a callsign of UVB-76, but is known as "The Buzzer" by its 
listeners because of the short, monotonous buzz tone that it normally 
plays 21 to 34 times per minute. It's only deviated from that signal 
three times previously -- briefly in 1997, 2002 and 2006.

In early August, a garbled recording of a voice speaking Russian was 
heard by listeners. A few days later, on 23 August at 13:35UTC, a 
clearer voice read out the following message twice: "UVB-76, UVB-76 — 93
 882 naimina 74 14 35 74 — 9 3 8 8 2 nikolai, anna, ivan, michail, ivan,
 nikolai, anna, 7, 4, 1, 4, 3, 5, 7, 4", before returning to its normal 
broadcasting.

Since then, a number of other distorted voices have appeared over the 
normal buzzing transmission, as well as knocks and shuffles, as if 
someone were moving things around inside the broadcasting room. It's 
believed that the transmission site has an open microphone, which 
occasionally picks up sounds from technicians working within the 
broadcast site.

Various fans of the station have begun the process of trying to decode 
the signal. Interpreting the numbers as co-ordinates gives a location in
 the middle of the Barents Sea, between Norway and Russia, where there's
 large scale oil and gas production, and where the Russian army plans to
 test anti-aircraft missiles in the near future.

Others suspect that it might be a transmission that signals the 
availability of another system -- like a dead man's switch, possibly 
even for Russia's Cold War-era Dead Hand fail-deadly system, which was 
to trigger ICBM launches if a nuclear strike from the United States was 
detected. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, it may have been 
repurposed.

The transmissions continue, and are being documented on the Wikipedia 
page for the station. If you'd like to help, it's possible to listen in 
yourself, as one fan has rigged up a web stream of the signal. It's 
currently very busy, however, so if you have difficulty tuning in, then 
try again later.

----------------------------------------
> From: spooks-request at mailman.qth.net
> Subject: Spooks Digest, Vol 79, Issue 28
> To: spooks at mailman.qth.net
> Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2010 12:00:37 -0400
>
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> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Re: New voice tx buzzer? (Ryan Kirby)
> 2. S28 (russell0463 at yahoo.com.au)
> 3. Automated Spy Numbers Loggings (Spy Numbers Robot)
> 4. Re: New voice tx buzzer? (Nick Smith)
> 5. Information on V2a/M8a/SK01/Radio Habana Cuba ringing sound
> (Nick Smith)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2010 17:39:51 -0400
> From: Ryan Kirby 
> Subject: Re: [Spooks] New voice tx buzzer?
> To: Shortwave Spy Numbers Stations 
> Cc: Shortwave Spy Numbers Stations 
> Message-ID: <278A3CD6-07F9-4C92-9832-049215B29FCE at gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> V13 comes in very well on the hk radio on global tuners. I have a few recordings of it as well. The buzzer comes in well on the German ones unless conditions are poor. The issue with the buzzer is that it's honestly a very annoying freq to monitor 24/7. So I'm sure voice tx is more common than reported.
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Aug 27, 2010, at 4:08, Nick Smith  wrote:
>
> > Visit http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/spooks to unsubscribe from this list
> >
> > I agree as well. Looking back through the archives, I see a lot more discussion than there is now.
> >
> >
> > On to your question...
> > There is GlobalTuners, http://www.globaltuners.com/ .
> > You can control the radios shared on that to listen to numbers stations. I use it quite a bit.
> >
> >
> > If you'd like to hear something other than the easy to hear Cuban numbers stations in California, you might be able to receive some Asian ones such as V13 or V24.
> >
> >
> > Best regards,
> > Nick Smith
> >
> > --- On Thu, 8/26/10, pouncerspy at aol.com  wrote:
> >
> >> From: pouncerspy at aol.com 
> >> Subject: Re: [Spooks] New voice tx buzzer?
> >> To: spooks at mailman.qth.net
> >> Date: Thursday, August 26, 2010, 9:21 PM
> >> Visit http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/spooks to
> >> unsubscribe from this list
> >>
> >>
> >> You're right, John!
> >>
> >> I can't get The Buzzer here in California. Being able to
> >> hear a live -- or even delayed -- feed of it is really
> >> cool.
> >>
> >> I haven't been able to hear E10 in years, but remember how
> >> loud it was on trips to Italy and France, even in my little
> >> portable Sony.
> >>
> >> Any other links to remote numbers feeds? I would welcome
> >> them, and I'm sure others would too.
> >>
> >> Thanks, Mary Villano
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: john 
> >> To: Shortwave Spy Numbers Stations 
> >> Sent: Thu, Aug 26, 2010 3:39 am
> >> Subject: Re: [Spooks] New voice tx buzzer?
> >>
> >>
> >> Visit http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/spooks to
> >> unsubscribe from this
> >> list
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>> : http://www.metafilter.com/95091/4625-kHz
> >>> : http://uvb-76.blogspot.com/2010/08/august-23-2010-935am-pst-voice.html
> >>> : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UVB-76
> >>> : http://www.justin.tv/rampageturke#/w/340896016/4
> >>>
> >>> Remember when the Spooks list used to have something to
> >> do with this stuff?
> >>
> >> While the lists of logs are useful, discussions such as
> >> this are more
> >> interesting to relative beginners trying to gain experience
> >> in this field.
> >>
> >> Data is good. So is dialog.
> >>
> >> Thanks to all of you guys with experience who post
> >> information and
> >> observations.
> >>
> >> John
> >>
> >> ______________________________________________________________
> >> Spooks mailing list
> >> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/spooks
> >> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> >> Post: mailto:Spooks at mailman.qth.net
> >>
> >> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> >> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
> >>
> >>
> >> ______________________________________________________________
> >> Spooks mailing list
> >> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/spooks
> >> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> >> Post: mailto:Spooks at mailman.qth.net
> >>
> >> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> >> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ______________________________________________________________
> > Spooks mailing list
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>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2010 14:49:08 -0700 (PDT)
> From: russell0463 at yahoo.com.au
> Subject: [Spooks] S28
> To: spooks at mailman.qth.net
> Message-ID: <802212.66650.qm at web44707.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
>
> G day group i have been have trouble trying to copy the buzzer to but picked it up at 20.00utc low sig but my first copy on 4.625mhz usb
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: 28 Aug 2010 04:46:06 -0000
> From: Spy Numbers Robot 
> Subject: [Spooks] Automated Spy Numbers Loggings
> To: spooks at mailman.qth.net
> Message-ID: <20100828044606.64271.qmail at zais.pair.com>
>
> These loggings were submitted to the Spy Numbers Station Database on 2010-08-28 by westli, Simi Valley, California.
>
> Freq ENIGMA Day MMDDYYYY UTC Mode Comments
> -------- ------ --- ---------- ---- ----- --------------------
> 5898 M8a Thu 08262010 0500 MCW 5f cut nums: 40601 10161 21501 Good sig.
> 12134 M8a Thu 08262010 1400 CW 5f cut nums: 08241 84621 88241 Weak sig. Heavy QRM.
> 13380 V2a Thu 08262010 2000 AM SSYL atencion: 87822 28802 60061 Very weak sig.
> 8135 M8a Thu 08262010 2300 CW 5f cut nums: 83002 10472 56512 Weak sig.
>
>
> The Spy Numbers Database is an effort to create as complete a record of Spy Numbers Station transmissions as possible. You can submit your loggings to the database, and search the database.
>
> Details are available at http://www.spynumbers.com/numbersDB
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2010 22:14:00 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Nick Smith 
> Subject: Re: [Spooks] New voice tx buzzer?
> To: Shortwave Spy Numbers Stations 
> Message-ID: <481382.33194.qm at web112814.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
>
> Every now and then, I'm able to hear various Russian stations in addition to E10 from Massachusetts. All are very weak, however.
>
> On the topic of Asian stations, I've heard V24 on the Colorado radio before. It was very weak as well. I haven't tried listening for V13 on it, but I know there are people in California who have heard it.
>
>
> Oh, by the way, Ryan, if you are who I think you are, the recordings I gave you when we were both listening to V13 on GlobalTuners should be named V13, not V24.
> Please excuse me if you are not the Ryan that I'm thinking of. :)
>
> Best regards,
> Nick Smith
>
> --- On Fri, 8/27/10, Ryan Kirby  wrote:
>
> > From: Ryan Kirby 
> > Subject: Re: [Spooks] New voice tx buzzer?
> > To: "Shortwave Spy Numbers Stations" 
> > Cc: "Shortwave Spy Numbers Stations" 
> > Date: Friday, August 27, 2010, 10:39 PM
> > Visit http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/spooks to
> > unsubscribe from this list
> >
> > V13 comes in very well on the hk radio on global tuners. I
> > have a few recordings of it as well. The buzzer comes in
> > well on the German ones unless conditions are poor. The
> > issue with the buzzer is that it's honestly a very annoying
> > freq to monitor 24/7. So I'm sure voice tx is more common
> > than reported.
> >
> > Sent from my iPhone
> >
> > On Aug 27, 2010, at 4:08, Nick Smith 
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Visit http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/spooks to
> > unsubscribe from this list
> > >
> > > I agree as well. Looking back through the archives, I
> > see a lot more discussion than there is now.
> > >
> > >
> > > On to your question...
> > > There is GlobalTuners, http://www.globaltuners.com/ .
> > > You can control the radios shared on that to listen to
> > numbers stations. I use it quite a bit.
> > >
> > >
> > > If you'd like to hear something other than the easy to
> > hear Cuban numbers stations in California, you might be able
> > to receive some Asian ones such as V13 or V24.
> > >
> > >
> > > Best regards,
> > > Nick Smith
> > >
> > > --- On Thu, 8/26/10, pouncerspy at aol.com
> > 
> > wrote:
> > >
> > >> From: pouncerspy at aol.com
> > 
> > >> Subject: Re: [Spooks] New voice tx buzzer?
> > >> To: spooks at mailman.qth.net
> > >> Date: Thursday, August 26, 2010, 9:21 PM
> > >> Visit http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/spooks to
> > >> unsubscribe from this list
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> You're right, John!
> > >>
> > >> I can't get The Buzzer here in California. Being
> > able to
> > >> hear a live -- or even delayed -- feed of it is
> > really
> > >> cool.
> > >>
> > >> I haven't been able to hear E10 in years, but
> > remember how
> > >> loud it was on trips to Italy and France, even in
> > my little
> > >> portable Sony.
> > >>
> > >> Any other links to remote numbers feeds? I would
> > welcome
> > >> them, and I'm sure others would too.
> > >>
> > >> Thanks, Mary Villano
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> -----Original Message-----
> > >> From: john 
> > >> To: Shortwave Spy Numbers Stations 
> > >> Sent: Thu, Aug 26, 2010 3:39 am
> > >> Subject: Re: [Spooks] New voice tx buzzer?
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> Visit http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/spooks to
> > >> unsubscribe from this
> > >> list
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>> : http://www.metafilter.com/95091/4625-kHz
> > >>> : http://uvb-76.blogspot.com/2010/08/august-23-2010-935am-pst-voice.html
> > >>> : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UVB-76
> > >>> : http://www.justin.tv/rampageturke#/w/340896016/4
> > >>>
> > >>> Remember when the Spooks list used to have
> > something to
> > >> do with this stuff?
> > >>
> > >> While the lists of logs are useful, discussions
> > such as
> > >> this are more
> > >> interesting to relative beginners trying to gain
> > experience
> > >> in this field.
> > >>
> > >> Data is good. So is dialog.
> > >>
> > >> Thanks to all of you guys with experience who
> > post
> > >> information and
> > >> observations.
> > >>
> > >> John?
> > >>
> > >>
> > ______________________________________________________________
> > >> Spooks mailing list
> > >> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/spooks
> > >> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> > >> Post: mailto:Spooks at mailman.qth.net
> > >>
> > >> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> > >> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > ______________________________________________________________
> > >> Spooks mailing list
> > >> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/spooks
> > >> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> > >> Post: mailto:Spooks at mailman.qth.net
> > >>
> > >> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> > >> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
> > >>
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > ______________________________________________________________
> > > Spooks mailing list
> > > Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/spooks
> > > Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> > > Post: mailto:Spooks at mailman.qth.net
> > >
> > > This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> > > Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
> > ______________________________________________________________
> > Spooks mailing list
> > Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/spooks
> > Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> > Post: mailto:Spooks at mailman.qth.net
> >
> > This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> > Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
> >
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 5
> Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2010 22:16:30 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Nick Smith 
> Subject: [Spooks] Information on V2a/M8a/SK01/Radio Habana Cuba
> ringing sound
> To: spooks at mailman.qth.net
> Message-ID: <948436.98585.qm at web112804.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> Almost a year old now (October 2009), but in the interest of adding content, here is something I wrote. I originally sent it to the ENIGMA2000 group, so that's why you'll see references to "e2kfiles."
>
>
> Information on V2a/M8a/SK01/Radio Habana Cuba ringing sound
> I use a Ten-Tec RX320D and an indoor antenna that is a few feet longer than 100 feet (30.48 meters) and used Baudline ( http://www.baudline .com/) for analysis of the frequencies and tone length.
>
> Ringing:
> Ring high tone : 777.10 Hz
> Ring low tone : 621.83 Hz
> Ring tone length : 0.0700 Seconds
> Ring tone High-Low cycle length : 0.1400 Seconds
> Ring High-Low rate : 7.1428571 Hz
>
> Unknown low tone : 466.55 Hz
>
> [Note: Frequencies and times were measured with a cheap internal sound card. They are probably not totally accurate.]
>
> With this information, I've made a simulation of the ringing. It is available here: http://eepromeagle.dyndns.org/e2kfiles/ringsimulation.wav
>
> The ringing will sometimes be longer or shorter than usual. However, I have not checked the length of each ring to see if a certain ring length corresponds to a certain number (like the XP stations, but with time instead of frequency).
> By ear, the tones themselves seem to stay pretty much constant in length somewhere near the measured 0.0700 second length, and it's the number of times the high-low (or low-high) cycles repeat that changes. Listening to my recordings, in one of the rings, the length of the first tone in the ring sounds like it is shorter. I'm not sure if this was an error when I was recording or if it really was shorter.
>
> There is often a really low tone (the "Unknown low tone" as specified above) that is sometimes present with the ringing and will sometimes stop and start. This could be just RFI, but I thought it'd be worth mentioning.
>
> I saw something about this on the list, but on 2009-10-21 at 04:48UTC on 6000kHz, I heard the same ringing sound on Radio Habana Cuba. I made two recordings of that: http://eepromeagle.dyndns.org/e2kfiles/RHCwRing-6000kHzAM-20091021-0448UTC.wav and http://eepromeagle.dyndns.org/e2kfiles/RHCwRing-6000kHzAM-20091021-0455UTC.wav .
>
> I also made a good recording of SK01 with very loud ringing (some QRM though) on 2009-10-13 at 09:33UTC on 5930kHz AM, which you can find here: http://eepromeagle.dyndns.org/e2kfiles/SK01-5930kHzAM-20091013-0933UTC.wav (warning : it is almost 150MB. I recorded it with a sample rate of 48000 kHz even though I was using a filter that appears to filter off anything above 4.5kHz)
> I might have recorded it in SSB and forgot to change the filename (my radio is around 53Hz off frequency in SSB without correction). I think I had the radio tuned somewhere around 53Hz below 5930kHz to correct for inaccuracy though.
>
> Here is another one with loud ringing as well as the low tone (you can hear it make a "dah-dit-dah" noise near the middle) 2009-10-13 at 09:32UTC on 5947kHz LSB: http://eepromeagle.dyndns.org/e2kfiles/SK01-5947kHzLSBaAM-20091013-0932UTC.wav
> I did switch modes near the middle of the recording, so there are some loud beeps. It was recorded in LSB, not sure if I corrected it or not.
>
> I may have written down the frequencies and times incorrectly for the recordings since I probably mistyped some of the filenames. I normally keep logs with accurate data that are separate from the recordings, but when trying to switch frequencies and start more recordings fast, it was kind of easy to make mistakes.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> ______________________________________________________________
> Spooks mailing list
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> Post: mailto:Spooks at mailman.qth.net
> -
> Visit http://www.spynumbers.com/ for complete information about Spy Numbers Stations
>
>
> End of Spooks Digest, Vol 79, Issue 28
> **************************************