Numbers Stations


Numbers Stations.  I want to say that I’ve heard of them before, but recently they’ve popped up in a Fringe episode and in Uncle John’s Heavy Duty Bathroom Reader, and they’ve piqued my interest.  Ham Radio always seemed cool to me, and growing up in the 80’s there was a very USA vs. USSR cold war spy thing going on that feeds into my interest of these things.

The general consensus is that these number stations are broadcasting some type of code, most likely with a “one-time” pad which would make each code  impossible to crack unless you had the key.

What are they doing now though?  The cold war’s over, right?  What’s their use?  Spies are still out there & active, apparently.

The UJ article Numbers on the Radio is a really good read!  It lead me to search the internet and come across these recordings free for the downloading: http://www.archive.org/details/ird059

This kind of stuff fascinates me.  I’m definitely going to have to read more on the subject!