> Fernandez, who more than two decades ago published a four-CD audio compendium of hundreds of recordings from around the world called the Conet Project. It's considered the Bible for numbers-station enthusiasts.

The Conet Project is an interesting listen -- very analogue, Cold War-ish, and a bit sinister. Seems to be available on the Internet Archive at https://archive.org/details/The-Conet-Project

I wonder why they keep using a dedicated numbers station instead of embedding the code in a regular radio broadcast on a traditional channel? I'm sure that even before LLMs one could find a way to create a story where certain numbers / code words would be embedded without altering the underlying story too much. And they could probably get BBC / whatever station to air it. It would be a bit less inconspicuous to listen to BBC than to a dedicated numbers station, even if the message would be undecryptable either way.

Does this move around geographically ? Triangulating broadcast location is a well understood craft.

N 48.690438° E 9.086693°

So one slightly fascinating bit of number station / espionage radio lore is "RAFTER" an MI5 scheme cooked up by Peter Wright to detect the _receiver_ of the radio using emissions from the internals of the radio set (superhet mixing iirc)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_RAFTER

"We don't need NATO." But we do need our bases in Germany plz.

The location of this transmitter is a shortwave transmission facility within a US military base in Böblingen, 15 km southwest of Stuttgart, Germany. The coordinates:

48°41'26"N 9°05'12"E

https://www.google.com/maps/place/48%C2%B041'26.0%22N+9%C2%B...

If anyone is interested in further reading, this group are the world's leading experts on number stations (outside of intelligence services of course). They've done a detailed article on the new station, including recordings, technical mishaps, and analysis of why they believe the station is CIA run. https://priyom.org/number-stations/other/v32

> Considering the topical interest in this station, the Priyom team shares its further expertise regarding V32's attribution, beyond being transmitted from a US military facility. While this remains unconfirmed speculation, and not facts, a prime candidate for the operator of this station would be the CIA. Contrary to popular belief, US intelligence has not entirely moved away from numbers stations. Sources in the intelligence community indicate that the CIA provides extra training about numbers stations and one-time pads to clandestine agents assigned to locations with a very hostile operating environment, such as Iran or North Korea: it is envisioned as a last-resort means of communication with high-value sources. So according to this, numbers stations are actually still an institutional part of the CIA playbook. The war in Iran, and the Internet blackout installed by the regime, fulfill the very circumstances for which the CIA would have planned this.

> We already know that the CIA has a significant presence in Iran and involvement in the war, having provided crucial intelligence tracking Iranian leaders that enabled the assassination strikes that kickstarted the war. They most probably have had a network of infiltrated assets already in place and organized, ready to be reached through a numbers station if need be right when the war started - which makes the CIA a candidate for running V32 consistent with a legitimate intelligence operation. However, what we've observed from V32's operations - technical quirks and shifting formats - suggest that the technical deployment of the numbers station and shortwave transmissions themselves may have been a little rushed by the circumstances.

> Another noteworthy feature of V32 is how all its transmissions take place on the same frequency. Most other numbers stations in general are comprehensive operations targeting many different recipients in different countries, and making use of many different transmission times and frequencies suited to the particular signal propagation needs corresponding to all those areas. In contrast, the fact that V32 always uses a single, same frequency, at always two given times of the day, would be consistent with an operation that only needs to target a single geographical area: Iran.

Cannot believe they didn't write the frequencies. Incompetents.

Interesting. Some sort of sync signal?

Sounds like a CIA numbers station transmitting info to agents on the ground.

This reminds me of UVB-76[0], a shortwave military radio in Russia. It would be interesting know why they're using this method to communicate covertly rather than beaming down messages to a phone via satellite or something. I'm not an expert on radios, though, so maybe it's not as clunky as I'm imagining where an undercover asset is hauling around bulky equipment.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UVB-76

over / under it's just some kid broadcasting an encrypted Phish Prague 7/6/98 GHOST on repeat?

https://youtu.be/Q6cR7PEyzW4

Better source: https://www.rferl.org/a/mystery-numbers-station-persian-sign...

   For intelligence agencies,
   it is important to 
   communicate with their
   spies to gather intelligence,” 
   says John Sipher, a former
   US intelligence officer

Is Sipher really his name. Nominative determinism strikes again.

Sifr is also a valid word both in Farsi, I think. An Ironic and cruel pun.