ENIGMA 2000 Newsletter - Issue 10

May 2002
Articles, newsreports and Items of interest : e2k_news@hotmail.com

ENIGMA 2000 ARTICLE

This Issue we welcome Simon Mason back with another interesting account:

Hello again and thanks to ENIGMA for the opportunity to write another column. This time I would like to share with you some correspondence I had with a couple of DXers from Germany. One of them sent me some very interesting recordings of old stations, including the G20 Spruch stations. He kindly answered a few questions I put to him:

Q.
What did your friends think they (number stations) were and did they ever get spoken about in the news?

A.
As far as I remember, my friends agreed that these stations obviously carry information not intended for the public, most probably espionage. In the beginning I asked myself why secret services should use such an obsolete procedure - reading numbers in audio over shortwave - in times of encrypted radio teletype, computers etc. until I heard the explanation that the absence of suspicious high-tech devices is vital for a spy not to be discovered, which seems evident to me.

In autumn 1985 I zapped into a TV talk show with some expert for secret services as guest; the subject was an espionage affair in Germany in summer/autumn 1985. This was a rare case of numbers stations being mentioned and details about them made public! To my utter regret, it took me by surprise and I had no recording device handy and could only write some points in shorthand. Here are my notes in telegraphic style and translated in square brackets:

"Eiserne Jungfrau" [Iron maiden] (DFC 37, my own note) [did he mention this very station?] "Messages in groups of five numbers in the 49m band [which can be received] with a normal radio"

Secret Agent: [Has a] shortwave receiver with code table and IWOM (?) [This should be the one-time pad]

Construction of a transmission: One identification numbers group; Agent takes the corresponding set of numbers from the IWOM, calculates the difference (between the groups broadcast and the IWOM?), translates the difference with the CAESAR-letter-grid, e.g.:

6 = S

1 = H

89 = 8

94 = W etc.

-----

So this is largely identical with the description of a decryption procedure you give in your book.

I found yet another note: In the program "Top-Spione" broadcasted by ZDF (second German TV program) at November 11, 1994 the original (old) IS of DFC37 (5 tone rising scale, 5 higher tones rising scale, and vice versa falling scale) and the text "Es liegen Mitteilungen vor für..." were played. This was commented as having been a transmission by the BND (Bundesnachrichtendienst) in Pullach for their spies located in the GDR. Again, I was not prepared to record the program.

I did (and do) not read radio hobby magazines on a regular basis so that I cannot tell whether numbers stations have been mentioned in the magazines available over here.

German radio amateurs broadcast "Rundsprüche" (weekly bulletins about matters concerning HAM radio) on a regular basis (e.g. 7,099 MHz every Sunday at 11:00 local time). A remark in my logbook reminds me that the "Rhein-Ruhr-Rundspruch" reported repeatedly on a numbers station which intruded the 80m HAM radio band on 3,767 MHz and I received this station on January 16 and February, 12, 1984.

The Rundspruch dated February 12, 1984 reported that it transmits "endless groups of numbers in Czech language" "from 16:30 through 24:00 CET, which are repeated partially from 07:00 through 09:00 CET", according to my logbook. I guess this numbers station had to move soon since radio amateurs defend their frequencies fiercely... On February 18, 1984, I found the station on 3,225 MHz.

Q
Did your grandma say what they were?

A
To nearly everybody else close to me when receiving numbers stations, this was nothing but bothersome noise and not worth spending a thought on it. I only heard comments like "How can you hear this stuff? It's always the same" or "What's so interesting about it? You can't understand it anyway"

Q
Also, you said the Spruch OM did not sound German, could you say what sort of accent he spoke with?

A
Firstly, the reason for my assumption is the pronunciation of the following certain words and phonemes: "Sprüche" with U-Umlaut sounds like "Spruche" in German, i.e. the speaker does not pronounce the Umlaut correctly. All "ch" sound more accentuated (as in ch-h) and deeper in the throat than usual with German speakers. The letter "i" pronounced more like the german "j" or "y", e.g. "Drei" pronounced "Drej". The letter "e" pronounced wide open nearly like the German "ä" (a Umlaut), e.g. "Ende" as "Ändä". The text of the transmission contains something like "Tej Ein Zwo". There is no German word "Tej" and I needed some time to realize by the context that "Tej" should read "Teil" (part). If a German speaker speaks a cardinal number "1" he would pronounce it "Eins", not "Ejn" as the number station. Further, in the 5 digit groups the "1" sounds like "Ejn(e)" with a slight "e" ending sound.

So far for the unusual pronunciation, I could imagine that the speaker's mother tongue is a Slavic language, but I am no linguist. From comparisons of my logbook with your station descriptions, I found an entry for 5.447 MHz commented in my log with "Hungarian?" but now I know that it was most probably "Czech Lady"; so much on my own linguistic expertise... ;-)

I may be wrong, but I always wondered why there were so many stations using "German" numbers, even with speakers whose native language obviously is not German and with stations operated from outside (East and West) Germany.

Should it be part of the "cloaking" measures, or is German - with the modifications "Zwo", "Fünnef" and "Neuen" - simply the language which allows the best distinction of different numbers?

Another German DXer provided a small insight regarding accents:

G2(Swedish Rhapsody) I've never had a problem with identifying this voice as that of a grown-up woman. I always thought that she was of East German origin, because the "o" in "zwo" sounds very much like that pronounced by people from Saxony.

G12: (NNN) I've listened very carefully to these recordings. My conclusion is: YL 1 is standard German, YL 2 and 3 are AUSTRIAN German! The numbers you cite as Yiddish, well, they look extremely German. Yiddish is a little bit different, as far as I know. Especially "fuenef" can never be pronounced with an "ue" in Yiddish because this special German sound does not exist there. In Yiddish one says something like "fin(e)f" instead, but these ladies say "fuenef". And 9 is iN Yiddish "najn" (pronounced "nine") but all of the speakers say "neun" (pronounced "noin"), which is German. And YL 2 and 3 pronounce 3 as "drey" but standard is drei (pronounced "drie"), which you also find in Yiddish.

That's it for now, except that there is some exciting news- a former member of UK Electronic Counter Measures based in West Germany used to intercept «Magdeburg Annie» as his colleagues called it. He said that he has lots of old recordings and if he agrees, I will put them up on the website in the future.

Until next time.