Sixth edition of the N&O column / Spooks newsletter

(Date: Fri, 25 Sep 1998 22:23:17 GMT)

"The Numbers Racket CD-ROM"

reviewed by

Bob Margolis
136 East Woodland Road
Lake Forest
IL 60045-1729

Romanian Gypsy violin music. A Czech military march. Hugo Alfven's orchestral piece, "Swedish Rhapsody." An old English folk song.

These melodies are some of the assortments of sounds that have been heard over shortwave radio for decades and serve to alert intelligence agents in the field that a coded transmission of groups of letters or numbers is about to be sent to them.

Over 100 of these sounds and coded transmissions have been gathered together for listening and studying on The Numbers Racket: A Compilation of SW Spy Numbers Stations, collected on CD-ROM by Chris Smolinski of Maryland, who has concentrated on these transmissions for many years.

The Numbers Racket serves as an excellent reference guide to "numbers stations" for first-time listeners as well as those who have heard them for years.

Many of the broadcasts have never been heard in North America as they were tape recorded mostly in Europe at times when propagation would not carry the signals across the ocean. Now the North American listener can share in the enjoyment of hearing these stations by the samples provided on the CD.

Upon loading the CD-ROM into the disc drive, the program looks for an Internet Web browser to read its hypertext-marked pages. The disc is readable on Macintosh computers and PC's using Windows. In the reviewer's case, the program opened in Netscape Communicator 4.5. The first page of The Numbers Racket gives a brief introduction to spy numbers stations, telling what they are, and a general description of their broadcasts.

The next page is the Table of Contents, which shows the "book" to be divided into three sections. Section One is "The Basics." It consists of eight chapters. Chapter 1 is an Introduction that goes into more detail in describing the numbers stations that were introduced on page one. Chapter 2 is Why Numbers Stations? Chapter 3 is How are Messages Sent?, and talks about codebooks, one-time pads, bogus messages, using Morse Code, voice, and tone series for transmitting coded messages in formats of 3/2-, 4- and 5-figure-groups. Strangely omitted from this chapter were 5-letter-grouped messages, and transmissions that use digital-data or RTTY for sending coded messages from, for example, the Russian FAPSI, the French naval and diplomatic stations, the Cuban foreign ministry, and the Argentine Navy.

Chapter 4 gives Terminology used to describe numbers broadcasts, including the sex of the reader, the language used, and formats of the messages. Chapter 5, How to Listen, tells when to tune in the numbers stations and in which frequency ranges they are found. Chapter 6 classifies the stations as identified by the European Numbers Information Gathering and Monitoring Association (ENIGMA), a club that was formed in 1992 to learn more about spy number stations. The breakdown is by languages and non-voice transmissions.

Chapter 7 talks about Morse Code stations, and chapter 8 is Station Families, which is chapter 6 sorted into family groupings.

Chapters 9 through 44 are in Section Two and describe individual number stations. The chapters are devoted to "The Babbler," "The Bored Man," "Bulgarian Betty," "The Buzzer," "Cherry Picker," "The Counting Station--The CIA," "Cuban Atencion Stations," "Czech Drums & Trumpets," "Czech Lady," "DFC37 and DFD21," "Fife Free," "Four Note Rising Scale," "High Pitch Polytone," "KKN50," "The Lincolnshire Poacher," "Magnetic Fields," "MOSSAD--Israeli Intelligence," "Mystery Beeper," "New Star Broadcasting Station," "NNN Station," "Oblique," "Old Phonetic Alphabet Stations," "OLX," "The Rasper (LINK-11)," "Ready Ready," "The Russian Man," "The Skylark," "Single Letter High Frequency Markers," "Six Tone Station," "Strich," "Swedish Rhapsody," "Three Note Oddity," "Two Letter Phonetic," "Whales/Backwards Music," "The Woodpecker," and "Station YT."

Section Three consists of chapters 45 through 51, and discusses numbers stations parodies and the Warrenton Training Center; provides other sources of information, a language guide, and a bibliography that lists books and magazines with articles about numbers stations; a tribute to "Havana Moon," who wrote extensively during the 1980's about numbers stations for hobby magazines; and a list of persons who contributed their information to the CD-ROM.

If you have any interest in spy numbers stations, then The Numbers Racket is a "must buy" for you. You'll find yourself referring to it often.

The CD-ROM can be purchased with credit card, check, or money order. If purchasing by credit card, the disc costs $25, which includes a credit card processing fee, postage and handling. Those living outside the United States who wish to use credit cards, can use the Kagi Online Order Processing system. Payment by check drawn on a U.S. bank, or a money order in U.S. funds, is $20, including postage and handling within the U.S., and $22 outside the country. Send checks or money orders to

Chris Smolinski,
4708 Trail Court,
Westminster,
MD 21158-1146,
U.S.A.

Online credit card users are asked to include their complete postal address for proper shipping, and an e-mail address, in case Chris needs to get in touch with you.