strangest thing on shortwave

just wondering what is the strangest thing you have heard on shortwave radio?
ive herd number stations,beeps and bleeps ect......
but have you heard anything straneger?

Nothing gets weirder than the number stations. This is a link to what's on at any given time:

www.spynumbers.com...

I've heard the odd bit of military traffic, but that's pretty rare. The weird sounding noises are usually just data transmissions. The weird 'slot machine' noises on 6447Khz for example are encrypted Japanese navy data traffic (don't ask how I know, I've just read a lot on this stuff!).

4625Khz has the Russian 'buzzer'. It's supposed to be a sort of 'dead mans switch' on missile silos or something - it's been constantly buzzing since either the 70s or the 80s, and never stops.

The crazy preachers are pretty weird too.

what is a "dead mans switch"?

reply to post by rikgrimsby


It's an engineering term - freight trains have one for instance. If the driver dies, and his leg lifts off the switch, the brakes are automatically applied to stop the train from speeding off the tracks.

I'm guessing in a military installation it could have another use - if everything gets taken out, there might be some system left that could still retaliate.

It's pretty theoretical, but there's not too many reasons to make a buzzing noise for 30 or so years.

yeh ive heard that buzzing sound last nite,when i heard it it was buzzing then went to another noise then started buzzing again very strange

I find it strange that the US stations are all religion based (except Voice of America) and other countries have programming about their culture and country.

If you really want to here something weird, listen to KJES's station ID. For some reason, they use little girls voices for station ID. It's very odd. They are on 7555 in the evenings.

Digital stuff has all kinds of strange noises. The world's (US, China, Russia, UK, France, Germany) military is trying very hard to find a way to broadcast on wide band frequencies in a "white" noise which would sound like normal static. Problem is, you can see the signal if you are using any sort of digital signal processing software. So, they try to overcome this by using a wider signal to spread out the power.

i heard on 8735khz ssb at 23.29utc a what sounded like a woman reading out a telephone number for a radio station???.this message was repeating over and over bits in english and what i think was spanish.dont know what it was but it was there all night 7/6/08.any ideas what it was

What kind of device do you all use to listen to shortwave, I have a shortwave radio, but it is a piece of garbage. Please help me out and tell me what the heck to buy, because I am confused as heck.

ive got a eton e5 shortwave radio.there pretty good

the women's voices reading numbers are old spy broadcasts. There were tons of them during the cold war; you still hear them but not as often.

Originally posted by rikgrimsby
i heard on 8735khz ssb at 23.29utc a what sounded like a woman reading out a telephone number for a radio station???.this message was repeating over and over bits in english and what i think was spanish.dont know what it was but it was there all night 7/6/08.any ideas what it was

What you heard was one of the mysterious "numbers stations."
Its secret code, but for who? Thats the big question. Depending on what area of the US you live in. Ive heard in Florida they pick up codes coming from Cuba, but are they to Cuba, or to spys in the US? One thing for sure is, they are creepy!

Originally posted by super70

Originally posted by rikgrimsby
i heard on 8735khz ssb at 23.29utc a what sounded like a woman reading out a telephone number for a radio station???.this message was repeating over and over bits in english and what i think was spanish.dont know what it was but it was there all night 7/6/08.any ideas what it was

What you heard was one of the mysterious "numbers stations."
Its secret code, but for who? Thats the big question. Depending on what area of the US you live in. Ive heard in Florida they pick up codes coming from Cuba, but are they to Cuba, or to spys in the US? One thing for sure is, they are creepy!

am not sure if this is a number station tho,its on nearly 24/7 and you can the word radio.its sounds like 'AD radio' they say.see if you can pik it up

If it sounds like a voice reading numbers over and over, then its a numbers station. Unfortunately I dont have a short wave radio, but we used to pick them up sometimes when we were kids. Strange!

no you can hear it say call us on ############ but this is reapting over n over n over ect........ with no let up.mybe it is a radio station giving its number out?.but its strange it keeps going on n on

Wow never encountered that one before. Good find. Have you tried typing in that number in google? If you can, post the number.

no not as yet but i thought of ring it......
what ill do is video(on my phone) and then try to upload it onto the net and then you can see it for your self

You have the Olympia Marine Radio beacon telling you what marine channels to use to activate the beacon for a radio relay. It broadcasts in Greek and English with numbers like 806, 1232, 1640, 2217. These are marine channel numbers not frequencies.

i dont think thats what i heared

Originally posted by rikgrimsby
i dont think thats what i heared

tho saying that them numbers are nearly the same.
why do they say 'call us on'?

the freq is 8735khz and the number they read out is 80622164022and17
it dose say sum thing about a radio and to call us on that number.sum in english and the rest in spanish(i think)......