HF Number Stations

[IanL]

Any HF buffs out there. I have been looking around the net for receivers HF kind and in doing so brought back some memories of number stations I used to hear when I was about 17 years old listening to HF. Doing a look up of these on google suprised me with what they were. Anyone else remember these stations that transmitted numbers on HF.

See URL

http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=the+lincolnshire+poacher+hf&btnG=Search&meta=&aq=f&oq=

Ian

[gary]

Hi Ian,

I spent considerable time monitoring some of these stations, including the five
digit stations in Spanish typically by a female voice, believed to have originated
from Havana. I was aware of their significance at the time and understood they
would be using one-time pads to communicate intelligence.

Some of the four digit Spanish transmissions were reputedly traced to the U.S.
National Communications System (NCS) training facility in Virginia known as
the Warrenton Training Center. See http://www.fas.org/irp/facility/warrenton_b.htm

I also regularly listened to the Lincolnshire Poacher and Cherry Ripe.

The numbers stations could sometimes prattle on for extended periods of time with
very lengthy messages.

Also interesting to listen to and somewhat briefer were the Skyking and Looking
Glass coded broadcasts to the US Strategic Air Command airborne B52's,
particularly on 6738kHz SSB. You can read a little about the significance
of Looking Glass here in this 1965 article from Time Magazine-
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,840526,00.html

[IanL]

Thanks Gary

It brought back great memories of scanning HF when i was a kid all thoses years ago. I used to transmit on the 25 to 30 mhz bands then got into HF when i had an ICOM 706 mk2. Hearing all the stations again makes me want to go back on. The Kenwood 2000 looks nice.
And the number stations. I always wondered what they were untill i tripped over a web site while surfing the net.

Cheers
Ian

[Kevnool]

I got 12 codans in my shed the older 10 channel type.

Sold 6 8525s

Sold 2 9313s

Now i collect sat phones have 8 in my shed.

Cheers Kev.