Cold War number stations (239)

Cold War Conversations

Ian Sanders

Society & Culture, Documentary, History

4.8 • 758 Ratings

🗓️ 10 June 2022

⏱️ 78 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

You might remember listening to short wave radio during the Cold War and coming across weird transmissions of metallic voices reciting random groups of numbers through the ether. These are number stations, shortwave radio stations characterised by broadcasts of formatted numbers, which were being sent to spies operating in foreign countries. Number stations were used widely during the Cold War and we speak with Jo Reggelt. Jo has been working with Simon Mason who was a founding member of ENIGMA, launched in the 80s after identifying several of these stations. We discuss in detail the operations behind the transmissions and the stations themselves. You will hear some sample transmissions which Jo has kindly allowed us to use, including one with drunken Stasi officers serenading their agents after the opening of the Berlin Wall. We also detail a UK spy case that centred on capturing an agent red-handed listening to a numbers station. There’s further information including links here. https://coldwarconversations.com/episode239/ 0:00 Introduction 5:06 Overview of Number Stations 20:37 Role of Agents and Attempts to Jam Number Stations 29:51 Identification and grouping of number stations 35:20 Notable Number Stations: Lincolnshire Poacher and CIA, BND Stations 43:15 The Story of Czech Spy: Erwin Van Harlem 54:41 Number Stations in Non-Aligned and NATO Nations 1:02:26 History of South Tyrol and its Role in the Cold War 1:07:27 Impact of the End of the Cold War on Number Stations 1:12:25 Influence of Number Stations on Pop Culture Table of contents powered by PodcastAI✨ Now if you think there is a vast army of research assistants, audio engineers and producers putting together this podcast you’d be wrong. This podcast relies on your support to enable me to continue to capture these incredible stories and make them available to everyone for free. If you’d like to help to preserve Cold War history and enable me to continue to produce this podcast you can via one-off or monthly donations. Just go to https://coldwarconversations.com/donate/ for more details. Do join our Facebook discussion group where the cold war conversation continues between episodes. Just search Cold War Conversations in Facebook. Follow us on Twitter here https://twitter.com/ColdWarPod Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/coldwarpod/ Instagram https://www.instagram.com/coldwarconversations/ Support the project! https://coldwarconversations.com/donate/ Follow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/ColdWarPod Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/coldwarpod/ Instagram https://www.instagram.com/coldwarconversations/ Youtube https://youtube.com/@ColdWarConversations Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Cold War Conversations, the home of real stories of the Cold War.
0:06.3	When the 11 o'clock transmission goes out, instead of that cold-hearted speech machine,
0:11.3	it's a group of drunken Stasi officers singing Alla Minenensh, which means all of my ducklings.
0:19.7	This is Cold War Conversations.
0:23.9	If you're new here, you've come to the right place to listen to first-hand Cold War
0:28.8	History accounts. Do make sure you follow us in your podcast app so that you don't miss out
0:33.6	on future episodes. You might remember listening to shortwave radio during the Cold War
0:39.3	and coming across weird transmissions of metallic voices reciting random groups of numbers through
0:46.1	the ether. These are number stations. Shortwave radio stations characterized by broadcasts
0:53.4	of formatted numbers which were being sent to spies operating in foreign countries.
1:00.2	Number stations were used widely during the Cold War and we speak with Joe Regault of shortwave numbers.com.
1:08.4	Joe has been working with Simon Mason, who is a founding member of Enigma, which was
1:14.3	launched in the 1980s after identifying several of these stations. We discuss in detail the
1:21.7	operations behind the transmissions and the stations themselves. You will hear some sample
1:27.4	transmissions, including one of drunken
1:30.0	Stasi officers serenating their agents after the opening of the wall. We also detail a UK spy case
1:37.8	that's centred on capturing an agent red-handed listening to a numbers station. Now, if you think there's a vast army of research assistants,
1:48.9	audio engineers and producers putting this podcast together, you'd be wrong. This podcast relies
1:55.5	on your support to enable me to continue to capture these incredible stories and make them available to everyone
2:02.3	for free. If you'd like to help to preserve Cold War history and enable me to continue producing
2:08.9	the podcast, you can, via a one-off or monthly donation. Just go to Cold Warconversations.com
2:17.4	slash donate for more details.
	...

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