REAL LIFE NUMBERS STATION UPDATE.
I did not expect that I would be delivering this news to my audience. New numbers stations simply don't come to be in this day in age. However, for the sake of education, I wish to bring it to your attention as a real world example.
As many are aware, recently the United States and Israel deliberately killed Iran's leader. The political implications of that are extremely important, but not my focus here. Less than a few days following the attack, a new station appeared on 7910khz, USB mode.
When I first became aware of the station, I had imagined it would be more of a data station. Many modern shortwave stations simply transmit in the form of digital tones representing encoded data. A lot of these are used by Russia. I was extremely surprised to find that this station is not a digital station, but instead a spoken-word numbers station transmitting in Farsi.
Lets break this down.
- As previously stated, the station transmits on the frequency 7910khz [kilohertz]. This is where you tune in to listen.
- The station also transmits in USB [Upper SideBand] mode. This makes it ideal for transmitting across long distances—for instance, across the world.
- This station has been given the ENIGMA identifier "V32". Stations are grouped by spoken language, and so V is the prefix for stations in other varying languages that still use a Voice for their transmission. Hence the V.
- This station broadcasts at 02:00 and 18:00 UTC [Coordinated Universal Time]. This is when you tune in to listen.
Extremely little is known about this station. I will provide the Priyom page for the site, which is continually updated. Priyom is maintained by its community of radio and shortwave enthusiasts and is generally a reputable source.
If you yourself would like to tune in to this station when it airs, or any other station [such as UVB-76, "The Buzzer"] you can do so by visiting WebSDR.org. The top two SDR servers have a very broad span and should suffice for tuning in to this station. I typically use the topmost one.
And, for those interested in simply hearing this station's transmission without doing all that extra annoying footwork, I present you with a Very Very Long Video of an entire hour-long transmission from V32, captured both in audio and waterfall using WebSDR.
I am unaffiliated with this channel, but believed it would be informative to first-time listener. They provide a lot of information, for the little information we presently have, and it excites me that they captured the entire message.
Callsigns admin will reblog this post again for visibility in the morning. Contemporary world events on this subject are, again, incredibly rare. Despite the state of the world, I am pleased this has provided me a chance to show you, the audience, the real world application of the premise behind this blog and my creative idea.
Everyone stay safe out there.
ADMIN EDIT: I would like to point out that the LANGUAGE a numbers station is transmitting is NOT ALWAYS INDICATIVE OF THE TRANSMISSION LOCATION. We have No idea where this station is broadcasting from, especially with it being so new. Stations have been known in the past to transmit in a language not used by the transmitting party. Make no assumptions before there is evidence.
ADMIN EDIT 2: As a minor correction, "V32" is not currently an official ENIGMA designation, but rather a community designation mirroring the typical ENIGMA format. ENIGMA themselves have yet to issue any statement on this station. For now. Also, as an update, this channel has been the subject of intense jamming for the past couple of days. What that means is, some other party is broadcasting a loud signal over the same frequency to blot out the station's transmission. The jammer being used seems to be Iranian in origin, leading many to believe that the station itself is being used for a mission opposing Iran rather than broadcast by Iran themselves.
ADMIN UPDATE: ENIGMA themselves is using V32 as the designation, leading me to believe they made the designation themselves.
