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This is nothing new. It's just a different medium of something that has been done since at latest the Cold War. Numbers stations have been used for DECADES. Broadcast something publicly over shortwave (or perhaps MW or LW) in a sometimes unending stream. It is garbage to anyone who doesn't have the means to decode it.

Famous Soviet/Russian UVB-76, "The Buzzer" where someone was sitting at a chair and pushing a key every second or two
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wcv_cGLjxCY

Chinese numbers station
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhpqZpfb03c

A C= decoding one being used in CW mode
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pawOMIlMfIw

Some being jammed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGxEnnzrwmc

Exactly ! Mod GP down .

Here is a good link to the analisys http://www.dxing.com/numbers.htm

You just post this drivel to distract people from looking into the facts behind my analysis of the "numbers stations".

You just post this garbage to distract people from looking into the facts behind my analysis of the "numbers stations".

Sounds a bit like an internet version of the "numbers stations".

DX at VHF and UHF frequencies is an atmospheric phenomenon TV/FM DXing.

Um yes you are right, the properties of a technology should be considered before it is deployed to solve a problem.

However, for the set of problems where the requirements include the ability to send a message and be sure, absolutly, that it has not been intercepted by a man in the middle, and may need to detect that someone is listening, then you
have a good match.

If you need to get a message through whether someone is listening or not, and have no need to know absolutly if someone is eavesdropping, then maybe this is not a good solution to your problem.

So yah, this isn't a panecea. But its damned cool.

Its like the point about military encryption. Sometimes you need to transmit data one way and need to be sure that the end points are obscured and that the message is not captured by the enemy.... so you get a short wave radio and transmit using a one time pad. (see Numbers Stations) Think of these as leaked secrets, you don't want the british spooks to find out the queens maid is relaying to you the details of overheard meetings do you?

Or maybe its troop movements. You don't really care if your enemy can decode messages that will tell him where you were planning to strike him if it takes him so long to decode it that the resulting message tells him where you struck him two days ago.

Its all a matter of application.

-Steve

Anyone into this hobby?

Indeed. But it can go the other way too. Last Sunday my father bought a second hand Yaesu FRG-7000 reciever, and was able to tune in on the 1.7MHz band used (illegally) by some old cordless telephones. It so happened at that time that one of my neighbours had such a phone, and was using it to make a call (some man and a woman talking). We ended up being able to listen in to their entire conversation in full. The people obviously did not realise that not only is it illegal, it is also horrendously insecure!

Oh yeah. I have a 1947 Hallicrafters S-40 shortwave radio. It's an *ugly* beast, but since I've replaced all the capacitors in it and realigned it with the original shop manual, man, it is stable and clean and it can suck in stations from anywhere.

I used to have a balanced rhombic antenna attached to it, and that really helped it. The antenna was aimed right across the American heartland from Ottawa, Canada, and it would pick up Aussie shortwave services without a problem.

Between my old Dodge Ram, my Hallicrafters radio and my old TI-99/4A, I can tell you for sure, they don't build 'em like they used to. [sigh]

The solar flare had nothing to do with this. What you are hearing is tropospheric ducting. Being a ham, the 2m and 70cm bands have had tropo the past two days because of the warm days and cool nights. I live near Philly and have been working stations further south then I do most of the time because of this. It has been very strong. This site dxing.com explains what tropo and Sporadic-E are. Tropo has nothing to do with the sun but Sporadic-E does. The distance between Philly and NC is kinda short for Sporadic-E. Also Sporadic-E doesn't last for long periods of time.

Why, yes, I have...

--Blair
"NSA N.B.: I'm kidding."