Want to Listen to Spy Broadcasts? Here’s How. The strange transmissions of shortwave numbers stations, by Matthew Gault

Hidden among the squelch and whine of the little used shortwave radio band, mysterious stations broadcast unbreakable code.

Yosemite Sam threatens to blow the listener to smithereens before switching to a different frequency. An upbeat woman delivers nonsensical strings of numbers in Mandarin. A repeating broadcast of a nursery rhyme breaks only for a child to read numbers in German.

These are the numbers stations—a radio station on shortwave that broadcasts some sort of repetitive noise followed by strings of numbers. Amateur tech geeks first identified the stations after World War II. No one is sure what their purpose is.

That hasn’t stopped anyone from speculating. The most popular theory is that the broadcasts are used to transmit coded messages to spies and the military. Shortwave is easy to broadcast globally, hard to trace and free of commercial traffic.

Spies or military personnel tune into the frequency at an appointed time and use a one-time pad to decrypt the message. The spy then destroys the pad and goes about their mission. Anyone else listening hears a random string of numbers with no context.

Listening to numbers stations was once the hobby of a small margin of the population. Only those with shortwave radios and patience to tune them reaped the benefits of the strange broadcasts.

Now—thanks to the Internet—anyone can listen.

The University of Twente in the Netherlands maintains web-based shortwave radio anyone can access here. The interface is simple. Just input the frequency you want in the box below the graphic.

To get an idea of what frequencies to check out, head over to Priyom.org—an international group researching intelligence and military communications via shortwave radio. The site maintains a schedule of active shortwave stations and catalogs interesting activity.

From War is Boring

Also from Lifehacker: How to Listen to Real Spy Broadcasts Right Now

The Conet Project - Recordings of Shortwave Numbers Stations

For more than 30 years the Shortwave radio spectrum has been used by the worlds intelligence agencies to transmit secret messages. These messages are transmitted by hundreds of Numbers Stations.

Shortwave Numbers Stations are a perfect method of anonymous, one way communication. Spies located anywhere in the world can be communicated to by their masters via small, locally available, and unmodified Shortwave receivers. The encryption system used by Numbers Stations, known as a one time pad is unbreakable. Combine this with the fact that it is almost impossible to track down the message recipients once they are inserted into the enemy country, it becomes clear just how powerful the Numbers Station system is.

These stations use very rigid schedules, and transmit in many different languages, employing male and female voices repeating strings of numbers or phonetic letters day and night, all year round.

The voices are of varying pitches and intonation; there is even a German station (The Swedish Rhapsody) that transmits a female child's voice!

One might think that these espionage activities should have wound down considerably since the official end of the cold war, but nothing could be further from the truth. Numbers Stations (and by inference, spies) are as busy as ever, with many new and bizarre stations appearing since the fall of the Berlin wall.

Why is it that in over 30 years, the phenomenon of Numbers Stations has gone almost totally unreported? What are the agencies behind the Numbers Stations, and why are the eastern European stations still on the air? Why does the Czech republic operate a Numbers Station 24 hours a day? How is it that Numbers Stations are allowed to interfere with essential radio services like air traffic control and shipping without having to answer to anybody? Why does the Swedish Rhapsody Numbers Station use a small girls voice?

These are just some of the questions that remain unanswered.

Now you will be able to hear this unique and extraordinary phenomenon for yourself, as Irdial-Discs releases THE CONET PROJECT: the first comprehensive collection of Numbers Stations recordings released to the public.

More here

and official site here