Nineteenth edition of the N&O column / Spooks newsletter

(Date: Wed, 3 Nov 1999 00:07:49 +0100)

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Morse stations

M40/M53 - The Korean numbers series continues.......

Hideharu Torii has monitored M40/M53 for quite some time and sends us the following schedules and info. Thank you very much, Hideharu!

Schedules

Comments

This station has been observed for decades. The signal is very strong here in Tokyo. The station changes its frequencies in March, May, Sept. and Nov.

All stations transmit in A-2 mode but for CQ515 and CQ747. Messages are rebroadcast 30 minutes later except for CQ707/CQ909. The same messages are repeated for two days at the same time on the same freq. The speed of CQ747 is slower, compared with that of other CQ3f. In case of A-2 mode, carrier appears more than 15 minutes before the start of a message. CQ707 and CQ909 replace each other with frequency changes. CQ863 and CQ974 do so also. The station has at least four transmitters.

Hideharu says: "I believe the station is operated by the Research Department for External Intelligence, one of four intelligence units at the Central Committee of the Workers Party of Korea. North Korean agent Kim Hyun Hee, who was convicted for blowing up a KAL Boeing in 1987, belonged to the department. In "Now, As A Woman," the Japanese version of her best selling book, "The Tears of My Soul," she writes she received A-2 Morse coded messages while in Guangzhou, southern China, and Macao in 1985. She received messages at midnight on 10th, 11th, 25th and 26th of every month on 8050, 10300 and 16100kHz. The callsign of her group was CQ616 and her individual callsigns were 083, 914, 493 and 490. The English version does not mention this practice."

Interesting, Hideharu. I read the following in a 1997 report about the two DPRK spies who were captured in South Korea. They were also VERY well equipped. "Confiscated equipment used by the agents are as follows: 205 items of 10 different types of lethal equipment, including 3 hand grenades, 170 live cartridges, 4 poison guns, 14 poison needles, and 6 poison capsules; 94 items of 16 types of communications equipment, including 6 radio transmitters; code books; reagent bottles and paper for hiding letters; 4 forged identification cards; forged policeman's identification for emergency use; some 23 million won in cash, which is the remainder of some 30 million won they had received as operation funds; and explosion fuses found at Sim Chong-ung's residence." Wow!

More N.Korean CW numbers

More N.Korean numbers news from Hideharu:

North Korea operates another A-1 Morse code message transmission on 4700 kHz. The station appears irregularly on the hour between evening and early morning in local time (0900-2000 UTC).

The broadcast at 2100 in local time on June 2 was as follows:
VVV VVV VVV JVG JVG JVG DE BML BML BML
QSA3 QSA? QTC 626 QTC NR 626
28 19 0602 2100 302 837 BT
Then five-digit figures were transmitted and repeated again.
The broadcast ends with "K K".

19 means group count. 0602 means June 2 and 2100 in local time. It uses short zero's and is hand sent. JVG is the most logged. JVL sometimes appears. The frequency is North Korea's traditional one for numerical broadcasts including in voice.

HEP [M28]

Geoff reports that contrary to the note in the September N&O, HEP is still going strong on all frequencies. All four were logged, one after the other around 2315 UTC on 4th October.

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