The Japanese Ad Guessing Game

The numbers are often superfluous, being merely a way for agents to find the station. The data itself can be transmitted in microburst packets, sounding like a bit of static.

DUPE? I recall this article alreay on Neatorama. But cannot find it using the search. I remember it because the graphic of the Russian looking robot was fantastic.

In the 80s I had a JVC radio/tape deck that included two short wave options. I had forgotten about that until now, but I'd sometimes stay up late at night and listen to those weird number broadcasts and wonder...

They are no mystery. Hams worldwide have found all the broadcasting towers for these things. Ours is in Warrenton VA just down the road fom the CIA.
Others are in Cuba and Eastern Europe.

Every now and then a mic is left on and you can hear the chit-chat in the native tongue in the background.
Done to death in Monitoring Times and Pop Communications.

Didn't Stereolab turn one into a song?

I'm not sure why, but numbers stations have always terrified me. UVB-76 especially...that one led two a sleepless night or two. I don't know what my real fear of them is in general, but I think my fear of UVB-76 was its involvement in the Dead Hand system.

@Meg

I remember there was a small kerfluffle on the internet just a few months ago when UVB-76 went silent for the first time in many years because of its supposed part in a dead hand system.

Are the numbers 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42, by chance?

Numbers stations have been a curiosity in my circle of friends for a few years. Fun stuff.

The Conet Project is a compelation of quite a number of numbers station recordings. Some odd and easy listening for when you're surfing the web.

Free for listening at archive.org
http://www.archive.org/details/ird059

I recall a big who-ha about UVB-76 going dark for a while, but I don't think it had anything to do with the Dead Hand system...unless, of course, Russia felt threatened enough by our dominating them in the Winter Olympics that they thought we were launching missiles at them.

It's known to be a manual station (basically a microphone held up to whatever the hell makes that terrifying noise) that's constantly manned, so even though they probably have backup generators and everything, if all the operations of the station take place in one area it's possible that there was a catastrophic malfunction or a massive human error. Or maybe the people staffing it hated the sound as much as any normal person would >_>

@Alex: I don't know about sterolab, but Wilco's album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was named after a snippet of someone saying "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" from one of these number stations that appears in one of their songs (can't remember which one). A podcast I listen to did a segment on it, but I can't remember which one that was either.

@Alex (again): It was NPR that did the segment as well...the link to the story is at the bottom of the above link, "music by the numbers stations"

AHA!! http://www.neatorama.com/2010/01/18/the-5-creepiest-unexplained-broadcasts/
Sort of a dupe article. I knew I had read this before.

@nolly

Exactly what I was thinking, lol

Their "Numbers stations are unlicensed, which makes it hard to figure out where they're broadcasting from." is really a bunch of malarkey. Doesn't take a whole lot of smarts to DF a transmitter on HF. Some years ago the Canadians had a Huff Duff (HFDF) site on Bermuda. Don't know if it's still there.

Why does the post headline have "Mysterious Numerical Radio Stations"? The link properly calls them numbers stations. Would be nice if article leads weren't made up of BS. There's no logical reason for doing so.