Talk:Radio

Numbers stations

Do they deserve a page of their own - see [1], and [https://www.numbers-stations.com/ 'and many others' (including the other place). Anna Livia (talk) 18:32, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

They're not conspiracy, pseudoscience, or authoritarian. The media tries to play up their supposed mysteriousness — but they are actually kind of boring messages between government employees (e.g. "we are updating the old policy to the new policy", "go to this office and pick up this file", "do you have the TPS reports done yet?" etc.) Millennium Scallion (talk) 18:36, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

There are a range of websites at varying angles to reality - eg [2], [3], and [4].

Perhaps a section on this page covering the topic would suffice (and even for this person if not too obscure). Anna Livia (talk) 19:08, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for those websites. They strike me as unsuccessful attempts to stir up fear and get clicks. AFAIK, there are many examples of ex-spies revealing the boring details of the system; i.e. "I would listen on such and such a frequency at such and such a time and copy down the letters/numbers and then decode them to read messages that were mostly routine project updates". I'll have to look around to see if I can find those sources. Millennium Scallion (talk) 19:21, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

As I said - a mention that they exist and that most of them serve purely routine purposes despite attempts by some people to talk them up would probably suffice. Anna Livia (talk) 23:46, 14 November 2018 (UTC)

Numbers stations are still active on the shortwave bands today, though much diminished since the peak of the Cold War. They are primarily used by governments to send messages to spies in the field. Here in the USA, spy transmissions from Cuba are heard daily and tracked by several hobbyist organizations. Cuba's current numbers stations use a mixture of blocks of numbers spoken by a computer generated voice, and a digital mode with a sound reminiscent of old school dial-up modems. Several years ago, The Conet Project released an annotated multivolume CD collection of off-air recordings of historical numbers stations. That collection is public domain and can be found on the net in several places. It is known that the Cuban numbers stations today originate from the transmission facilities of Radio Havana Cuba, since they've made several gaffes over the years that have given up their location. In the Cold War past, most of the numbers stations were assumed to be operated by host governments at secret facilities. The subject is fascinating and somewhat missional here, given the historically mysterious and generally spooky nature of the transmissions, which spawned a number of conspiracy theories. However as pointed out above, there's really nothing too mysterious about them — they're just governments sending messages to their spies. Cosmikdebris (talk) 00:49, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

Probably should go at a section in shortwave rather than radio, since that's where they transmit. I could even steal paraphrase most of Cosmikdebris description. Millennium Scallion (talk) 03:27, 15 November 2018 (UTC)

'Radio' was the most logical point to start the discussion.

Some things are RW missional because of their 'oddness.' Anna Livia (talk) 09:33, 15 November 2018 (UTC)