Secretive 'Numbers Stations' Persist on HF:

For many years, unidentified radio broadcasts have been transmittingcoded messages, using numbers, such as "6-7-9-2-6 or 5-6-9-9-0." Eventoday, tuning across the HF spectrum typically will yield a "numbersstation," a mechanical-sounding voice (male or female) methodicallyannouncing groups of single-digit numbers for minutes on end. Accordingto Radio World http://www.radioworld.com/news-and-business/0002/do-shortwave-numbers-stations-really-instruct-spies/341024, you may have tuned into a spy agency's numbers station transmittingcoded instructions to their minions worldwide.

Numbers station transmissions typically consist of a voice "reading outstrings of seemingly random numbers," explained Lewis Bush, author ofShadows of the State, a new history of numbers stations. "These aresometimes accompanied by music, tones or other sound effects," he said.The Radio World article quotes Paul Beaumont, an associate editor ofEye Spy Intelligence Magazine http://www.eyespymag.com/, apublication dedicated to espionage and intelligence, "Voice (numbers)stations are known to be spy messages."

The article said that one of the best-known numbers stations was "TheLincolnshire Poacher," so called due to its use of "The LincolnshirePoacher" folk song played on a pipe organ as an identifier. Radioamateurs used direction-finding equipment to pin down the station'seventual location to an RAF base on Cyprus, the article said.

ARRL member Chris Hays, AB6QK, on the west coast, said this week thathe frequently hears a CW station on 7.163 MHz sending randomalphanumeric characters, each group terminated by one or more questionmarks.

Source:

The ARRL Letter