ENIGMA 2000 Newsletter - Issue 27

March 2005
Articles, newsreports and Items of interest :enigma2000-owner@yahoogroups.com

Morse stations | Voice stations | Oddities | Polytones
Chirpsounders | Overall view | German branch | Numbers predictions
Jamming | Recycled AGI
Poor conditions | The Smokey Dragon (4/4)
News Items | Web sites | Stop press | Contribution deadlines
Index | E2K NL Home

German branch report

Last report of 2004

More events than logs – 5th report from the German Branch of E2K :

Hallo liebe Freunde der deutschen Branche von E2K (Hello dear friends of the German Branch of E2K), this time VERY late, unfortunately TOO late for EN 26, but not too late at all.

This 5th German Branch’s report might be read as a diary, although I don’t write diaries, I had some good reasons to do so, because in this period there are more events than logs to report.

First I want to thank my correspondents HendrikE2Kde from Aschaffenburg and DanielE2Kde from Muenster, who are also E2K members since some months. They mailed me about some events, which happened in November, and of course KopfE2Kde can report about some others in November and December. But chronologically:

November 8th:
DanielE2Kde reported about a satirical film in a German TV programme (not sure if it was “Phoenix” or another one) called “Der Westen leuchtet” (“The West shines”), in which he could hear a German numbers station (his description of this station sounded like a BND station, such as G14, G15 or G16; he only heard the numbers, nothing more – this time no imitation, but a real station). The film was transmitted on Nov 5th, and DanielE2Kde saw and heard it per accident. At 2314 UTC, he zapped into a scene, where he could hear the numbers station, and during this, there was imaged a hand on a sheet of paper, writing 5-FG groups. At the top of this paper, there was a little OTP sheet, which was small printed on transparent paper (ca. 5 x 4 cm). After that, a cut to another view of this scene, where Daniel could see the popular German theater/TV player Armin Mueller-Stahl, sitting in front of a small radio. He (Mueller-Stahl) took the OTP, and obviously he wrote the deciphered text directly behind the 5-FG groups (as far as Daniel could work it out so quickly). Most likely, the process of deciphering was presented in a shorter or easier way as it is in reality. Then there was the next scene. Daniel immediately looked into the TV newspaper and the videotext to find out more about this film; unfortunately it was not repeated. This satirical film about agents was produced in Germany in 1981/82. Here a description of the videotext:

“In order of the Ministry of State Security (Stasi) of the German Democratic Republic, Harald Liebe (played by Mueller-Stahl) has to check if the agent with the code name “Heinz” went over to the other site. Liebe learned during his training courses to move as normal as a citizan of the Federal Republic of Germany. But soon Harald is fascinating from “Heinz”, who changed his identity into “Dagmar Osterfeld”; also Harald is fascinated from the good way of live in the West.”

[Tnx to DanielE2Kde]

November 14th:
A log from DanielE2Kde: S06(?) on 8125 at 1714 UTC in AM in progress (missed the end).

November 17th:
On this day I came back earlier from work because of bad back pain. A good opportunity to go on the phone for myself and not let it do my answering machine. And it was worth enough to do so. Why? Because a man called Peter was on the other site of the line. He said, he works at a high German office, and he wanted to confirm OFFICIALLY, that the European CIA station, which is located in a forest area in the South of Frankfurt/Main in West Germany, isn’t sending any more since October, BUT it’s still in use! Charlie Barlow, a man, who worked at this station, told Peter, that the areal is cleaned regularly, the antennae are turned from one way to the other (so one day on the right, the next day on the left way for example), so that you can see, that they are still in use, although there are NO transmissions any more. Peter also told me during our speech, that he knows the former BND stations very well and “The voices are still in the ears”, he said, and it could be, that he has some recordings of them. He reads the E2K newsletters regularly, as he told me. Another proof, that our newsletters are also read by officials.

November 20th/21th:
HendrikE2Kde could find a strange signal at the beginning of the 2-m range. He believes, it was a MFSK signal. He attached the signal to me, and I forwarded it to Paul, who gave it into the ‘files’ section and called it “UNID file” there. Unfortunately, no one could find out what it is. It came several times on November 20th. Also Hendrik reported about a documentation, which came in Germany’s public TV programme ZDF. The title was “Feind hört mit“ („Enemy is also listening”). It dealt with activities of NSA/CIA in Germany and Europe. Twice, at its beginning and its end, they talked about the “Egelsbach Facility” and the numbers station, which was there in 2003. The way was shown by Mike Hoehn, who already made docu programmes about this subject earlier. [Tnx to HendrikE2Kde]

In that days (from November 21th till December 5th) I had an “out” time, because I had too bad back pain, so that I was at the QTH of my parents. Unfortunately, I couldn’t make many logs there, because there were heavy disturbances through local QRM, only some logs were possible, such as E10 JSR on 7540 with the nice “Chinese Music Jammer” in the background. The back was ill, but the “Kopf” still healthy, so that I could monitor an interesting feature in the “Deutschlandfunk” (DLF), who also produced our numbers station feature in 2003, as you remember.

November 29th/30th:
On these days the feature was transmitted at 1815 till 1900 UTC. Its title “Enemy observation – the radio in the focus of the MFS”. It presented the problems between East and West German radio stations with the Ministry of State Security (MFS) of the GDR, also known as “Stasi”. The programme was presented in the view of West Germany about East Germany – not the other way arround, so not neutral! Of course, they brought original recordings, also of old Soviet jammers. But the interesting thing for us came in the 2nd part on November 30th. As they reported about the way of a popular DLF redactor called Gerhard Fleischle, who worked at the DLF for more than 20 years, they described Fleischle’s contacts to the Stasi, mixed with an O-tone of G08 (last version from the 80s). You can also download this program on the pages of www.dradio.de. Search for the German title “Feindbeobachtung” in connection with “Deutschlandfunk”, and then you’ll find it (in German, of course). The redactor of this feature was the same man, who was responsible for the redaction of our numbers feature in 2003. He told me in a telephone call, that the feature from 2003 won the 6th range of the “Pre-Europe Award”, an award for the best features presented in a year (as far as I know). That’s a good success for us, I think. On my question about the origin of the numbers station in the “Enemy observation” feature in November 2004, the redactor told me, that it came most likely from the archive of the former RIAS Berlin, which now belongs to the “Deutschlandradio Berlin”. I asked our correspondent AndreasE2Kde from Potsdam, which is not very far from Berlin, to find out more. He gave me the address and phone number of a popular DX redactor, who worked for the RIAS for years. I hope, that I can bring you more about this subject in the next report, and if the RIAS has more numbers stations. - By the way: AndreasE2Kde now lives in Leeds/England, where he makes a students’ exchange at the university there. We from the German Branch want to wish him all the best, not only for 2005, but also for his studies in Leeds, and that he can contact our hobbyfriends in Europe’s leading country in the numbers movement!

December 7th:
After my healthy comeback to my Marburg QTH, I could log again. So the 3rd XP sked at 0740 UTC on 11464 can be confirmed by KopfE2Kde: ID=324, DK/GC 00294/00213.

December 12th:
Robert Wise was sending his first part of the “Spy Station Special” in his station “Hobart Radio International” in Tasmania/Australia (see E2K issue 26). After this transmission, which I downloaded and listened to, I wrote to him, stating, that I have a big archive of numbers stations, from which I could copy him a tape. He agreed, and so one of the next parts of this series will be produced by the “Kopf”!

December 22th:
Another log from DanielE2Kde: E07 on 6981 at 1803 in AM with msg, monitored in progress, ending at 1817 with “00000”, carrier went off immediately.

December 27th:
X06, monitored by KopfE2Kde from 1800 to 1810 on 6808 in LSB. After the signal, the carrier stayed almost half a minute, then it went off and nothing further heard. During the transmission I called HFD in Trier/Germany, so that he could fill it in his logs.

That was the report for this year. In 2005 we will go on with reports about events, logs and other news from the German Branch.

I wish you all “ein glückliches, gesundes und vor allem erfolgreiches neues Jahr 2005 in unserer Zahlensenderbewegung“ (a happy, healthy and especially successful new year 2005 in our numbers stations movement).

So for this year “Auf Wiedersehen” and good-bye

Jochen Schäfer, the “Kopf“ of E2K’s German Branch [Tnx Jochen for your effort here].

First report of 2005

We catch up with Jochen with the first German Branch report of 2005:

Hallo liebe Freunde der deutschen Branche (Hello dear friends of the German Branch),

For many people of Germany, 2005 is a very hard year, because of economic reforms to find a way out of the hard crisis, which is also a late follow of the “fast” re-unification in 1990, which of course was a political success, but the politicians didn’t think enough about the economic development of a re-united Germany. – These are the reasons, why many of us (including myself) had other sorrows in January as to log numbers stations. In February the logging situation was better, also some interesting monitorings and events are to report this time. We’ll end with a long, long list of loggings, made by a new correspondent from out of Germany.

The world-wide contacts are built up – but with difficulties

On January 10^th, I sent a cassette to “Hobart Radio International”, Tasmania/Australia, where I produced Pt. 2 and 3 of the “Spy Station Special”. Because of postal problems, the station doesn’t have the cassette yet! It’s really a great pitty, but

1. I asked the post about the reasons, why it’s still not there, and
2. if it’s not there till mid-March, I’ll produce a new version, but this time HRI shall get a digital one, which I can send to our Australian E2K member Rob, who’s working at the station. So hopefully, the program can be sent at the end of March. – “grrr Deutsche Post!”

In April, the BBC will transmit a program about numbers stations. For this program, some people of our movement will be interviewed, such as Paul, the E2K moderator, Simon Mason and “the Kopf”. Akin Fernandez from Conet is in contact with the BBC journalists, who also emailed me. It’s planned, that someone from BBC comes to Germany and interviews me at my home QTH, because of my big archive of numbers stations. But also here there are difficulties: Akin told me, that it could be difficult to fly to Germany for the BBC people because of the costs. But in the first March week, I’ll get new information by Akin, what’s happening. Hopefully it can be worked out with a “trip” to Germany, because it would be a very interesting program – not only I say that, but especially Akin. – Keep your fingers crossed!

Logs, events and monitorings in February

We begin with an X06-station, which was heard in the early February at one day (not sure about the date, it could be Feb 8) at 0800 UTC. It was a very long transmission, which came on a freq between 7500 and 8000 kHz. Because the signal was too weak to record and I couldn’t find out the freq because of this weakness (it was only receivable for me on the SABA recorder, not on the Sony receiver), I didn’t report the group about it. But thanks to Sandra from Germany, who phoned me to inform me about this X06 catch; she’s the youngest of my X06 assistents.

E10: Also in these days (concretely on Feb 8), Israel and the Palestinians worked out a cease fire in the Egypt city of Sham el Sheich. In these days many anomalies were monitored on the usual E10 freqs, which else transmit “dummy traffic” like “VLB2”, “SYN2”, “CIO2” or string msgs. But in the evening of Feb 8, many of us could monitor real group msgs (21 groups for “VLB”, “SYN” and “CIO”. “SYN” was audible – very loud and clear here in Germany – on 6930, “VLB” on 6370/4360 and “CIO” on 4165 kHz. These discoveries were VERY interesting for us, and we were thinking about any conclusion between the cease fire agreement and these messages. For myself I can say, that I am not sure, if it’s really the first time to discover real group messages with the Ids “SYN”, “VLB” or “CIO”. It could also be, that in my big cassette archive there is some recording also with such msgs. This time I was not fast enough to record these 21 group msgs.

In the following days, the usual “SYN2”, “VLB2” and “CIO2” transmissions were heard VERY often on the usual freqs, and not only 5 minutes long from H+45 till H+50, but whole hours long. For example on Feb 20, “SYN2” was VERY long on air. KopfE2Kde monitored and recorded it from arround 1900 till 2100 UTC, DanielE2Kde on Feb 21 from 0100 on. Also reported by him one day later (Feb 22) on 2330, this time only with a few single “SYN2” calls. This was also reported from other hobbyfriends out of Germany, who sent it via group. I got the 6930 SYN2 signal loud and clear, Daniel’s signal was often very weak.

XP: The most skeds of February can be confirmed by KopfE2Kde, who often recorded them – as usual with a very good signal (S9+).

Two further voice station logs: DirkE2Kde, Schluechtern, reported, that he heard V2 (or V2A) on 3927 kHz in DSB on Feb 16, arround 0400 UTC, but in progress. It ended with “Final final final”, so that we could find out, that it was one of the Cuban stations.

DanielE2Kde, Muenster, reported a G06 on Feb 20, 2200 AM in progress. The msg ended at 2208. Freq: 4440.

Morse stations from Switzerland

At the end of this report, here is a long, long list of Morse loggings, made by our new correspondent FritzE2Kch, Zuerich. He’s especially monitoring the Morse stations, but very often, how the list will show you:

L o g s J a n u a ry / F e b r u a ry 2 0 0 5

[Note: This station was also reported by Thomas R. in Bielefeld/Germany on Feb 21 in the daytime on different 5 MHzchannels (at least 5267.5 and 5345 kHz), as he reported to the Spooks list. – Kopf]

Many thanks to FritzE2Kch to this long list of Morse loggings. Also many thanks to the other correspondents for their work.

Until the next report, “Auf Wiedersehen” and “good-bye” Jochen Schäfer, the “Kopf“ of E2K’s German Branch

[Tnx Jochen]!

PLEASE NOTE ALL GERMAN BRANCH LOGS SHOULD BE READ IN CONJUCTION WITH ANY WRITE UP ON A PARTICULAR STATION THAT APPEARS IN THE BODY OF THE NEWSLETTER.

Morse stations | Voice stations | Oddities | Polytones
Chirpsounders | Overall view | German branch | Numbers predictions
Jamming | Recycled AGI
Poor conditions | The Smokey Dragon (4/4)
News Items | Web sites | Stop press | Contribution deadlines
Index | E2K NL Home