------------------------------------------------------------- - Secret Radio Frequencies - ------------------------------------------------------------- Sandwiched into the gap between the AM and FM dials are hundreds of secret communications frequencies - some so secret that no one owns up to them. The usual consumer gear - AM/FM radios, TVs, CB radios - brings in only a small portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. To pick up the secret signals, you need a shortwave receiver - and you need to know the unlisted frequencies. Allocation of radio frequencies is quirky. When you flip the TV dial from channel 6 to channel 7, you unknowingly jump over the entire FM radio band as well as such exotia as secret service communications and a special frequency designated for emergency use during prison riots. The U.S. government will provide information on unclassified allocations (those for the Coast Guard, Forestry Service, weather reports, etc.). But it is quiet about secret government frequencies and those of mysterious illegal broadcasters here and abroad. Many shortwave-radio hobbyists keep track of the secret frequiences, however. Their findings appear in such publications as the "Confidential Frequency List" by Oliver P. Ferrell (Park Ridge, N.J.: Gilfer Associates, 1982 [periodically updated]), "How to Tune in the Secret Shortwave Spectrum" by Harry L. Helms (Blue Ridge Summit, Pa.: TAB Books, 1981), and "The 'Top Secret' Registry of U.S. Government Radio Frequencies" by Tom Kneitel (Commack, N.Y.: CRB Research, 1981 [periodically updated]). These and similar publications should be consulted for the most up-to-date listings. The selection below includes only the most noteworthy or inexplicable broadcasts. Air Force One Many of the in-flight phone calls from Air Force One are not scrambled and can be picked up by anyone with a shortwave radio. You just have to watch the newspapers for information on the presidents travels and listen to the right frequencies shortly before landing or after takeoff at Andrews Air Force Base (when calls are less likely to be scrambled electronically). A presidential phone call is usually prefaced by a request for "Crown", the White House communications center. Air Force One uses several frequencies including those assigned to Andrews Air Force Base. Transmissions are on single, usually upper, sideband. These transmissions are usually secret, but the frequency numbers have long since leaked out or have been discovered independently. It is suspected that wire services and TV news operations monitor them for leads. The reported frequencies (in kilohertz) are: 6731 13201 6756 13215 8967 13247 9018 15048 11180 18027 In addition, 162.685 MHz and 171.235 MHz are secret service frequencies used for Air Force One communications. The White House staff uses 162.850 MHz and 167.825 MHz. Secret Service channel "Oscar", 164.885 MHz, is used for the Presidents limousine. Air Force Two uses the same Frequencies as Air Force One. Although everyone concerned must know that outsiders may be eavesdropping, conversations are often surprisingly candid. (shortwave listeners heard the White House staff urging Air Force Two back to Washington after the 1981 attempt on President Regan's life, complete with reports that then-secretary of state Alexander Haig was confusing everybody with his claim of being "in control.") No law seems to forbid such eavesdropping. Ironically, it is illegal (section 605 of the communications act of 1934) to reveal intercepted conversations to anyone else - that being regarded as the wireless equivalent to wiretapping. Even so, The New York Times has run snippets of Air Force One conversations. The Central Intelligence Agency The CIA and Other Government agencies with clandestine operations are believed to have dozens of authorized frequencies, which may be rotated as needed to throw off eavesdroppers off the track. Call letters are rarely used and several government agencies may share the same frequencies. A further, rather thin veneer of security comes from the use of code words. Government surveillance opperations use a common code: "Our friend" or "Our boy" is, of course, the person being followed. "O" is his office. "R" is his residence. A "Boat" is his car. Once apprehended a suspect is a "Package" and may be taken away to the "Kennel", the agents' headquarters. Does this fool anyone? Probably not. Some are so obvious that it's questionable if they're code words at all. Not all U.S. government broadcasts can be identified as to agency. Conversations are cryptic; letters to the Federal Communications Commission and Commerce Department bring form replys. These frequencies (in megahertz) have been identified with the CIA: 163.81 165.01 165.11 165.385 408.60 Note: I am only going to list a few of the many frequencies known. More can be obtained from the sources listed earlier or from the EXCHANGE [904] 878-4413 via modem. DEA - Drug Enforcement Administration (MHz) FBI - Federal Bureau of Investigation (MHz) SS - Secret Service (MHz) DEA FBI SS --- --- -- 163.185 120.425 162.375 (note that 163.535 149.375 162.685 the frequencys are 165.235 163.835 164.885 usually in bands. 172.00 163.875 165.025 Search each band 172.20 163.985 165.085 for more.) 418.625 167.675 166.405 418.675 168.885 169.625 418.725 406.275 168.45 418.825 408.925 169.925 418.975 419.525 171.235 Morse Code Letter Beacons Dozens of low-power stations transmit only a letter of Morse code endlessly. No one, including government agencies and the International Telecommunications Union, admits to knowing where the signals are coming from, who is sending them, or why. "K" (dash-dot-dash) is the most common letter. Letters are repeated every two to five seconds, depending on the station. The stations never identify themselves. The frequency used for the broadcast shifts slowly with time, so this list is only an approximate guide: Frequency (KHz) Letter --------------- ------ 4,005 K 4,466 U 5,306 D and W 5,307 F 5,795 K 5,890 K 5,920 K 6,203 P 6,770 A and N 6,800 F and K 6,806 Q 7,590 W 7,656 W 7,954 K 8,137 U 8,144 K 8,647 F 8,703 E 8,752 K 9,043 K 9,058 U 10,211 U 10,442 E 10,570 K 10,614 F 10,638 K 10,644 D 10,645 F 10,646 R and K 11,156 K 12,151 K 12,185 U 12,329 U 13,328 U 13,637 F 14,478 K 14,587 K 14,967 K 15,656 U 15,700 U 15,705 U 17,015 D 17,016 C 17,017 F 17,018 UE and TA 18,343 K 20,456 E 20,992 O and C These stations broadcast mostly during the night hours of North America. They are most often picked up in North America, Australia, and the Orient. But because of the easy propagation of shortwave signals, no one is sure where they are coming from. An analysis in the Confidential Frequency List holds that the signals are coming from 25- to 100-watt unattended transmitters somewhere in the South Pacific. An alternate theory places the Morse code "beacons" in Cuba. It is known that there used to be a "W" station operating at 3,584 KHz, a frequency supposedly reserved for amateur use. When the American amateurs protested to the Federal Communications Commission about the interference, the FCC complained to the Cuban government. The staion disappeared shortly thereafter. Actually, all of the beacons must be presumed to be illegal. Shortwave stations are supposed to be registered with the International Telecommuncations Union; none of those listed above are. The purpose of the stations is as unclear as their location. A single letter conveys no information. There are legitimate navigational beacon stations, which broadcast their call letters. But such stations are registered and operate on fixed frequencies from known locations. Keeping location and frequency information secret would defeat their purpose. Maybe, then, the letter beacons are navigational stations operated for the benefit of a select few. Some think they are operated by the Soviet Union, in Cuba, for some military purpose. Still, the globe is crosshatched with legitimate navigational beacons. It is hard to see what further navigational aid the Soviets could expect to derive from their own secret network of beacons. It has also been suggested that the beacon stations are really teletype or other data transmission stations and that the Morse code letters are just a way of keeping the channel free between transmissions. A few of the stations started transmitting some sort of data - audible as a characteristic high-speed typewriterlike sound - in 1980. There are other ways of keeping a data channel open, though. Most radioteletype stations transmit the code for space between transmissions. (The radioteletype code is different from Morse code.) Finally, still others think the letter transmissions are themselves some sort of code. Granted, the letter can't mean anything, but some wonder if the precise length of the interval between the letters means somthing. Or the frequency shifts may hold the message. The number of Morse code letter stations seems to be increasing. Numbers Stations Well over a hundred "numbers" or "spy" stations have been reported, all rather closely following a pattern. On the typical numbers station, the announcer is - or seems to be - a woman. No one knows who the woman is or where she is broadcasting from. She speaks Spanish, German, or Korean. Save for a few words at the begining and the end of the transmission, the message consists of reandom numbers, announced in groups of five, four, or, rarely, three digits. As with the Morse code stations, the numbers stations are all on unauthorized frequencies. No government or organization owns up to the broadcasts; offically, at least, the FCC claims no knowledge of them. Many of those who have listened to the broadcasts carefully are convinced that the woman is in fact a robot. The voice has a mechanical ring, somtimes a click between each digit. It seems to be the same type of device used by the telephone company to give the time or to forward phone numbers. The exact format of the messages varies with the language and number of digits per group. With Spanish, five digit groups, for example, a typical transmission might be: Atencion 290 22...Atencion 290 22...Atencion 290 22 ...65438...34742...23453...23454...29584...24836... 22334...34635...10202...19375...34653...23457... 12345...94532...24643...27543...14795...24568... 75744...74755...87194...63549...Final,final. Broadcasts are during the night hours of North America and seem to start shortly after the hour. After the "Final,final," the transmission stops. It is claimed that a given transmission is repeated a few minutes later on a slightly different frequency. There seems to be no escaping the conclusion that the messages are numerical code. The second number (22 in the example) - is the number of digit groups in the message. There dosen't seem to be any demonstrable significance to the first number although it probably has some signifigance. Some think it is an identifying number for the sender or the receiver. It may also indentify the code used if there is more than one. Note that the numbers above are only random (except for 22) and were never really broadcast. The four-digit transmissions in Spanish are different. A three-digit number (perhaps that of the sender or receiver) is repeated several times, followed by the digits 1 through 10. ("uno, dos, tres...") and a string of Morse code dashes. the word "grupo" is followed by the number of four-digit groups to come and repeated once - for example, "Grupo 22, grupo 22." The message - groups of four Spanish numbers - follows. At the end the voice says, "Repito grupo 22," and the message repeats. The station goes off the air after the repeat. Any attempt to explain these broadcasts is complicated by numbers broadcasts in other languages. There are also broadcasts in German, Korean, and English. Occasional transmissions in Russian, French, Portuguese, and even Serbo-Croatian are reported. Somtimes a male (mechanical?) voice reads the numbers. The female robot voice doing English language broadcasts is often described as having an Oriental or German accent. Typical of the uncertainty surrounding numbers stations are the reported English messages prefaced with a female voice saying "Groups disinformation" and ending with "End of disinformation." Perhaps the voice machine has a bad rendering of "This information." Still other stations transmit messages consisting of letters from the phonetic alphabet (Alpha, Bravo, Charlie...). Some spice their broadcasts with music, which ranges from ethnic tunes to wierd tones that may or may not conceal a message. Reported frequencies for numbers and phonetic-alphabet stations include: F/M = Female/Male S = Spanish R = Russian F = French E = English P = Portuguese C = Czech SC= Serbo-Croatian G = German Frequency Male language (KHz) Female --------- ------ -------- 3060 F S (All are numbers stations 3090 F S unless otherwise noted) 3365 M SC 4640 M S 4642 F F 4670 F S&E Numbers & phonetic 4740 M S&P Interlude from Aida 4770 F G 5020 F S 5075 F S 5110 M C Slavic musical interlude 5812 F S 6770 F S 6790 F S 8875 F S 9040 F S&E 9345 F S 9450 F E + Musical tones 9463 F S 9950 F S 10450 F K 10500 F G 10532 F S 11545 F G 11618 F G 11635 F S 13320 M R 14947 F G 14970 F E + Beep tones 23120 F G 30050 E 30250 E 30420 E 30470 E Whatever is going on, it's a big operation. Harry L. Helms' "How to tune in the shortwave spectrum" has a list of sixty-two stations that includes only those with a female voice reading five digit codes in Spanish. Much time and effort are going into the broadcasts. Some numbers stations transmit on the upper sideband rather than using amplitude modulation (AM). Signals are usually strong. Because of ionospheric reflection, they can be picked up over most of the globe. This makes direction finding difficult. Two explanations are offered for the numbers stations. It is rumored that some of the stations are communications links in the drug traffic between the United States and Latin America. If so, Spanish is the logical language. The numerically coded messages could tell where drops are to be made, how much to expect, and other minutiae that would change from day to day. Weak support for this comes from some amateur direction finding, which seems to place many of the Spanish broadcasts Somewhere south of the United States. But even those who subscribe to this explanation agree that other numbers stations, probably most of them worldwide, are engaged in espionage - governmental or organizational communication with agents in the field. Which government? The Spanish stations are usually heard between 7:00 PM and 6:00 AM Eastern Standard Time. The night hours are best for clandestine broadcasting as weak signals propagate farther. So the spanish language broadcasts are probably coming from a time zone not far removed from Eastern Standard Time (the EST time zone includes the central Caribbean, Columbia, Ecuador, and Peru.) On the basis of signal strengths and broadcast times, it can be similarly be postulated that the German Stations are coming from Europe, or maybe Africa, and the Korean stations are coming from the Orient - oddly enough. As far as the Spanish stations are concerned, suspision points to Cuba. In 1975 U.S. listeners reported muffled radio Havana broadcasts in the background of the Spanish stations. A station at 9920KHz is said to have used the same theme music as radio Havana. But then there are American ham radio operators who swear that the spanish stations must be in the United States. "How to Tune the Secret Shortwave Spectrum" tells of listeners in Ohio who reported four digit numbers stations coming in stronger than anything else on the dial execpt for a 50 kilowatt broadcast band station a few miles distant. Similar reports come from the Washingtom, D.C., area. Probably the simplest of all the many possible explanitions is that the Spanish stations are opperated by Cuba for the benefit of Cuban agents in the United States. The Radio Havana Broadcasts in the background would have been a mistake. The engineer was listening to radio Havana and forgot the mike was on, or maybe radio Havana and some of the numbers stations share facilities and the signals got mixed. The local quality broadcasts heard in the U.S. could be Cuban agents reporting back to Havana. Each agent would have his own mechanical voice setup. Not that you can carry around a 50000 watt transmitter in your pocket. The actual explanation may not be the simplest, though. According to Helms, some shortwave listeners believe that the four and five digit number transmissions are totally differnt opperations. The four digit transmissions, at least some of which seem to originate in the United States, may be the work of the U.S. government. Only the five-digit transmissions may come from Latin America - and may be associated with local governments or U.S. foreign agents. Harry L. Helms speculates that the United States may have faked the radio Havana background just to divert suspission from an American espionage operation. Any glib explanation of the numbers stations is further challenged by another incident Helms cites. An unnamed listener was receiving a five digit numbers broadcast in Spanish. At the end of the broadcast, the station accidentally (?) stayed on the air, and faint female voices were heard reading numbers in German and English. If the report was accurate, then the numbers stations could be the work of one worldwide operation. Choice of language could be arbitrary. Whatever his or her native tounge, an agent need only need learn ten words of, say, Korean in order to receive a numerical broadcast in Korean. No one willing to talk has broken the code or codes used for the transmissions. If the codes are sophisticated enough it may be pointless to even try. A random four or five digit number added to each number in the group will scramble the code. The numbers would have to be agreed upon before transmission. If a different number is used for each number block and if they are not repeated it is mathematically impossible for outsiders to break the code. At 3820KHz there is a four-note electronic tune. At 12700KHz there is a plaintive, twenty-one-note, flutelike melody. At 15507 KHz there are beeps. The EXCHANGE serves as a message base for exchanging information dealing with radio frequencies. If you wish to post the frequencies from your area (confidential or not), get frequencies for other areas, post sample broadcasts, reveal the coding method or purpose of these broadcasts, or just talk to a friendly bunch of guys and gals feel free to call. The EXCHANGE : (904) 878 - 4413..24HRS..300/1200/2400 baud (Modem only, of course) Special thanks to William Poundstone Another file downloaded from: ! -$- & the Temple of the Screaming Electron ! * Walnut Creek, CA + /^\ | ! | |/\/^\ _^_ 2400/1200/300 baud (415) 935-5845 /^\ / @ | \/_-_\ Jeff Hunter, Sysop |@ \_| @ @|- - -| \ | | | /^\ | _ | - - - - - - - - - * |___/_\___|_|_|_(_)_| Aaaaaeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! / Specializing in conversations, E-Mail, obscure information, entertainment, the arts, politics, futurism, thoughtful discussion, insane speculation, and wild rumours. An ALL-TEXT BBS. "Raw Data for Raw Nerves."