AN ELECTRONICS collector in Germany has created a series of videos showing us the actual hardware used in the at once ubiquitous and mysterious “spy numbers” stations emanating on shortwave from Cuba (even today) and from Eastern Bloc nations (during the Cold War).
Apparently the technology used by the ’80s consisted of digital voice samples on EEPROMs, and paper tape (of the same kind used in my high school computer lab circa 1972) for the actual encoded messages.
Back in 1989, some jokester put on a faux “spy numbers” station on 7425 kHz (and a few other frequencies) that sent messages read by an accented female announcer consisting of Mexican food items instead of Spanish numbers — “Attencion — taco… burrito… tamale… tamale… nacho… — final… final…” Hilarious.
Here are the six videos followed by the original author’s commentary:
THE FIRST SESSION this year of the weekly current events discussion Liberty Net on 75 meters was a big success and more thought-provoking than ever.
It looks like Net Control Station (NCS) W1WCR and company may well have the biggest year in the three-decade-plus history of the Net.
Here is a small sampling from the topics covered in this week’s discussions, along with the time when they took place (from the beginning of the recording in hours and minutes):
• There is no significant difference between Democrats and Republicans and the sooner Americans realize this the better. (33 minutes)
• Are you looking for a new political party? Perhaps White Americans should consider the Black Panther Party — substituting “White” for “Black” in their historic platform produces a most appealing document, proving that the desire for freedom and self-determination is universal. (39 minutes)
• The economic crash and “bailout” is really the looting of America: It wasn’t loans to low-income folks that crashed the economy. (45 minutes)
• What we really have is finance capitalism for most of us and socialism for the super-rich. America can rightfully be called the “billionaire bailout society.” (53 minutes)
