Hey and welcome to the Priyom.org starters guide.
First let me assure you that to get into this hobby, you DO NOT
need to go out tomorrow and buy a €500 radio. There are cheaper
ways and even some FREE ways of listening.
I will run you though the different ways, with different budgets
that you may have, to get listening to number stations as soon as
possible!
€0 - If you are running windows, get yourself over to sdr-radio.com and
download SDR radio. This is a piece of free software that allows
you to access people radio's that they have put on line for other
use. There are many different ones and it is rare not to find one
of use. I will assume that if you have kept reading this that you
have down loaded SDRradio.
If not please do so now.... don't worry, I'll wait....go on, go
ahead... i can wait all night...
OK? so you have done it! good!
ok first thing you will want to do if find the tab on that top
end of the page labeled "AF OUTPUT"
Click that and then you will see a drop down menu in the top left
of the page. click that and set it to your sound-card. Some times
it comes set up, but i thought i best cover this as quite often it
doesn't.
Ok, next we will want to be selecting a radio to listen from.
First click "console" (its on the same bar as "AF OUTPUT"), you
will then see, in the top left, 2 buttons saying local or network.
For listening to other peoples, click network. A menu will then pop
up. Click browse. Now we have a choice of radios! You will want to
pick which radio to listen from depending on what you are trying to
catch. For european stations you will want to pick a radio from
europe (DUH!), though the american ones are much better for some of
the "other language" or "V" stations. If you are looking to catch a
european stations, select a radio around middle europe,
switzerland, finland kind of area. These ones are also great for
catching the buzzer (UVB-76 and also known as S28) and also some of the
other stationary frequency stations like the PIP (S30) and "The Squeaky
Wheel" (S32).
OK whilst on the subject of free radio listening and UVB-76.
Another free way of listening to this station (any Operating system
such as linux and Mac) is by downloading this file http://uk3-pn.mixstream.net:8026
This is a stream from one of our members in Estonia who streams a
live feed of UVB-76 24 hours a day! just download the file and open
is in anything like iTunes, Windows media or VLC player.
The other main way of listening to a radio for free (web based, so
any platform) is by signing up at http://www.globaltunners.com
These guys offer free radios in a similar way to SDR-RADIO, but a
little more basic. I personally started out on this website and i
cant thank them enough!
Ok now for a small budget
Before i start talking about receivers that you are going to pay
money for, may i please suggest you read the article on Choosing you
receiver.
€0-€50 In this budget, there are 2 radios worth looking at. They
are both small portable radios and are practically the same. These
are the "TECSUN PL600" and the "DEGEN DE1103."
Like i said, these 2 radios cost pretty much the same, work pretty
much the same, they just look different. Best bet is to shop around
and buy which ever you can fine cheapest. Now, with your own radio,
you will need your own antenna. The best one to start with is a
simple longwire antenna. This is just a long piece (long as you
want) of wire that goes either out of your window or its pinned up
around the ceiling, and will improve the reception of radio signals
greatly, compared to the little telescopic one thats built in. We
actually have an article on making this Long wire antenna. Both
of these radios do come with a 5m long wire antenna, you can use
this one, or i just prefer to make my own. Despite having some
really nice antenna's i still quite often use my 60m wire that runs
the entire perimeter of my garden :)
Ok this next section will help you find some interesting
frequencies so you can get on with actually listening to radio
signals from around the world!
I personally live in the UK, so I will be mostly listing european
signals, though i will get one of the american guys on the priyom
team to write a similar thing for across the pond.
Ok so first we have our basic things that you can generally hear
all over the world. They constantly spew out weather information
24/7 in a robotic, usually female voice. These are for pilots and
as I said, it just relays weather information to them. But you can
also pick it up from your shortwave radio! These stations are
called VOLMETS. I will list some common volmets below.
Shannon volmet (ireland): 5505/8957kHz
RAF volmet (England): 5450kHz
Tallinn volmet (Estonia): 4645kHz
rostov volmet (Russia): 11297/6617kHz
NY volmet (USA): 6604kHZ
These are generally in a mode called Upper Side Band or USB for
short. You will find this mode on your radio. Some radio's,
especially the cheaper ones, only tend to have SSB on them. Don't
worry you can still tune to these stations, its a case of turning
on ssb mode, and using a wheel on the side of your radio called a
BFO to tune it until it sounds right. It can be a bit fiddly but
with practice you will be able to do this without a problem.
Next up I will show you some very exciting things! Welcome to the
world of the UNKNOWN!
4625kHz... This is the frequency of the famous stations known as
UVB-76. Other names for this stations include The buzzer, MDZHB and
S28. This is a station that constantly buzzes 24 hours a day, and
is only interrupted by a voice coming over the broadcast (the
buzzer stops for this by the way) which then reads out some code in
russian. It repeats this code once more, then usually the buzzer
returns soon after. We done 100% know why this station does this.
There has been much speculation over the years from it being a dead
hand switch (remember this station was discovered during the cold
war.), communicating with spies or it being a military broadcast
(this theory carries most weight and is generally what is
accepted.)
The main interesting this about this station is that the russian
government refuse to acknowledge is existence! despite it almost
certainly being located within russia.
There are 2 other known stations that act in a similar way to
UVB-76. These are the PIP (Day time: 5448kHz, Night time: 3756kHz
AM mode) and the Squeaky Wheel (Day time: 5473, night
time:3828kHz)
I will put some recordings below so you can be sure you are
listening to the right station
-----
Ok so now you know about some of the mysterious stations... There
is a hell of a lot more!
Please check out out SCHEDULE for frequencies to listen to and
times. We try to make a schedule for any station that follows a
pattern. Common ones include E06, E07, S06, E25 and many many more!
Check out out LIST OF ACTIVE STATIONS for info on the stations that
have been active recently. These types of stations are unlike the
military ones like UVB-76, PIP, and Squeaky Wheel, as they transmit
code, usually written in 5 figure groups. We are almost certain
that these types of stations are transmitting to Spies. I know i
sounds like a conspiracy theory, but spied did and still do exist.
Not in the james bond, shooting bad guys kind of way, but in a much
more secretive way. We expect that most spies have very menial
tasks like keeping an eye on the movement of government vehicles or
counting the lights on at the MOD after dark etc etc.
These stations use a very clever yet simple way of encrypting the
information they are sending. This is called OTP (one time pad).
Its a way of sending information that ONLY the person with the
correct key can decrypt (If done correctly). We have spotted many
stations making mistakes, re-using pads (Which is a BIG no no if
you wish it to remain un-crackable) and giving away more info than
they intended. There has also been spies found to have these OTP's
in their possession, as well as shortwave radios and decrypting
equipment.
So to sum up. We know there are spies out there, waiting for these
messages. We know that intelligence agencies are sending most of
these messages. And in some cases we even know where they are being
sent from. What we don't know is what they are saying. Thats why we
need help! help from you! Join in! The more ears we have listening
to these stations the more chance we have of catching any mistakes
they make, and finally be able to crack these codes and find out
what the governments of the world aren't telling each other!
Ok well that will do for information on these number stations.
Please if you have any questions regarding radio's, shortwave,
number-stations, UVB-76 or anything we have talked about here,
please join our irc chat on our main page.
Thank you for reading, I hope this help!
Bowen
Bowen@priyom.org
