
Gerät 32620: the machine that powered numerous number stations - fanf2
https://blog.ardy.io/2020/8/geraet-32620/
======
lyx0
For anyone interested in number stations I can only recommend checking out
[https://priyom.org/number-stations](https://priyom.org/number-stations) as
far as I know it's one of the most complete online resources about them.

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flohofwoe
> What I find quite surprising: The keyboard and output of the device mostly
> uses English words. A bit unexpected for a device developed in eastern
> Germany for use in the Soviet Union; I would rather have expected Russian
> there.

This isn't all that surprising, the Lingua Franca for electronics and software
development in Eastern Germany was also English, not Russian (or rather a mix
of German and English, with much more German than the "Denglish" that is used
today, but for terms that didn't already have an established German word, the
English word was used, and I guess it was much the same in the Soviet Union).

If you browse through East German vintage computer manuals, there's a lot of
English used for "special terms" like "BREAK", "HOME", "ESCAPE" etc.

~~~
baybal2
A much simpler explanation of the phenomenon is that a lion share of digital
electronics made in the union was a direct copypaste down to documentation,
and UI

Russian language based domestic computing industry existed, but it has stopped
developing in early seventies, and by eighties was behind hopelessly, despite
being quite well adapted in civilian use.

Funnily, it was the union's military that was the biggest user of hardware,
and software derived from Western products, while civilians were left to use
obsolete stuff from sixties, and seventies. Even mechanical computers were
still around by the time of union's collapse.

~~~
flohofwoe
Not sure why you're downvoted, as this was a fact. If a country is behind, the
best way to catch up is to copy, there's nothing wrong with that (especially
since it was illegal for Western companies to sell computer technology into
the East, see COCOM [1]). And at least for basic elements like CPUs and other
microchips it would have been foolish to create parts that are incompatible
with the rest of the world.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordinating_Committee_for_Mul...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordinating_Committee_for_Multilateral_Export_Controls)

~~~
082349872349872
DEC even taped out their opinion:
[https://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/creatures/pages/russians.html](https://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/creatures/pages/russians.html)

The successor to COMECON streisands the fun stuff:
[https://www.wassenaar.org/app/uploads/2019/12/WA-
DOC-19-PUB-...](https://www.wassenaar.org/app/uploads/2019/12/WA-
DOC-19-PUB-002-Public-Docs-Vol-II-2019-List-of-DU-Goods-and-Technologies-and-
Munitions-List-Dec-19.pdf)

------
GekkePrutser
Interesting! I wonder what these were actually used for. Word on the street
was communication with spies using a one-time-pad or something. I'm sure it
was important or they wouldn't have built all this stuff for it. It wouldn't
have been for the "what are those soviets up to now???" effect :D

And the more esoteric explanations like triggering preprogrammed behaviour
(like the plot of Black Ops I refers to) are clearly nonsense. So I suppose it
must have been something like that, the comms with spies thing.

After all the mysterious woodpecker only turned out oto be a poorly
functioning OTH radar.

~~~
dunnevens
There was a woman in East Berlin, who needed rescue. I can't remember if she
worked with western intelligence, or if her husband did, but at any rate, she
was in trouble. West Germany (or the Americans) decided to help her escape. At
one point, she was given a pad. Told to turn her radio to a certain channel at
a certain time of day. Write the numbers down and decode them with the pad.

Long story short, she and her son managed to get through one of the
checkpoints into safety. Numbers stations were a key part of the plan because
regular communications would have been impossible.

There's one example of how it was used. It's a little funny to me how the
stations were quite mysterious to me, but they were just part of everyday life
for others. A necessary chore.

Wish I had a link to the story. Heard it years ago. If this story rings a bell
for anyone, and you have the link, I'd be forever grateful if you shared it.
It stuck with me for not only being a good Cold War story, but also for the
practical use of numbers stations.

~~~
andai
Was it Garbriele Gast?

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriele_Gast](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriele_Gast)

> After agreeing to help, Gast very soon found herself sent on an intensive
> spycraft course, including hands-on training with the latest in covert
> communications equipment. She was given a Stasi code name, "Gisela", which
> came with a false passport and a new handbag, incorporating a well concealed
> secret compartment. Back home in Aachen, every Tuesday evening at the same
> time she tuned into a shortwave radio station from East Germany and
> carefully wrote down a long line of numbers, read out in a monotone, without
> further elaboration, by a "radio presenter". When she decrypted the messages
> from Schmidt she found some were instructions while others were simply
> encouraging love messages.

~~~
dunnevens
That sounds right. My memory is insisting it was an east-to-west rescue story,
but memory is a very fallible thing. I very well may have reversed it from the
actual story. Thanks very much for the link.

------
audiometry
Would love to have a bit of numbers station-related hardware. The weirdness
and mystery of These stations has teased me for decades.

~~~
CalChris
These days, it can be done with a Raspberry Pi:

[https://www.instructables.com/id/Broadcast-Your-Own-
Number-S...](https://www.instructables.com/id/Broadcast-Your-Own-Number-
Station-on-the-Raspberry/)

~~~
CrLf
Just be aware that using the Pi to broadcast FM like that (without additional
filtering hardware) produces a lot of noise (it doesn't just broadcast in the
intended frequency, but also a lot of harmonics) and may interfere with
legitimate signals.

Having said this, we used it for a challenge at a local conference last year
to great amusement. :)

------
teddyh
Note: “Gerät” is simply the German word for “Device”, “Machine” or
“Equipment”.

~~~
0xffff2
The article points this out.

~~~
teddyh
It does, but not very clearly, IMHO.

------
082349872349872
XRAY CLACKS OVERHEAD

seven seven six eight six

one seven fower two zero

six eight six one seven

fower six eight two zero

six seven six foxtrot six

fower two zero seven seven

seven two six foxtrot seven

fife six seven six eight

seven fower zero alfa xray

END

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spelunker
This is super interesting - I didn't know the machines that produced the
sounds for many numbers stations is well known and actually pretty impressive
for its time. Very cool!

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jacquesm
I remember these. The pronunciation of 'five' ("fuennef") alway stood out to
me. Listening to the wav file of the voice it's there exactly as I remember
it.

There were a lot of weird radio stations back in the day, plenty of them for
espionage and command-and-control purposes. Sleeper agents were - and probably
still are - a thing. Makes you wonder if there are still people lying in wait
living normal lives waiting for the right signal to kill some head of state.

~~~
gspr
Maybe instead of an AM broadcast from a big clunky transmitter, they're
waiting for a precisely worded seemingly innocuous HN comment…

~~~
082349872349872
The only other sound’s the sweep / Of easy wind and downy flake.

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vajrabum
I seem to remember seeing something of this sort of thing on Usenet in one of
the alt groups maybe 25 years ago. Just blocks of numbers if I'm remembering
correctly. I suppose that was less likely to be a government and more likely
to be college kids playing at spies but who knows.

~~~
schoen
There was a group called "alt.anonymous.messages". E.g.

[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/alt.anonymous.messag...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/alt.anonymous.messages)

It was mainly meant to be integrated with anonymous remailers as a way of
avoiding traffic analysis.

------
zxwx
Recordings of dozens of numbers stations:
[https://freemusicarchive.org/music/The_Conet_Project](https://freemusicarchive.org/music/The_Conet_Project)

~~~
XzetaU8
The Conet Project: Disc 5
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S5Xbb9_kVA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S5Xbb9_kVA)

------
ChrisMarshallNY
That's cool.

I remember seeing a story about that weird Soviet radio station with the huge
towers. Can't remember it exactly, but it was supposed to be a nuclear "dead
man's switch," or something like that.

~~~
GekkePrutser
That was probably the Duga radar at chernobyl. It was an over the horizon
radar (which never worked properly). There were more in other places but the
Chernobyl one is the only one left because of its location in the exclusion
zone. Nothing as sinister as a dead man's switch, it was meant to provide
early missile / bomber warning, but by the time it was operational it was
already superseded by satellites. And it had many operational issues.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duga_radar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duga_radar)

------
kwertyoowiyop
MAME emulation coming in 3, 2, 1...

~~~
pmachinery
Here's a javascript version:

[https://github.com/TomHetmer/sprach](https://github.com/TomHetmer/sprach)

------
person_of_color
Are there any stations still broadcasting?

~~~
na85
Some are. Perhaps the most famous is UVB-76[0]

[0] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UVB-76](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UVB-76)

