# Question About Short Wave Radio Spies **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 19, 2006, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-short-wave-radio-spies/353382 "2006-04-19T23:01:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![jimmmy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/73ab20/32.png) [@jimmmy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jimmmy)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-short-wave-radio-spies/353382/1 "2006-04-19T23:01:40Z")
One of the very first Straight Dope Columns I ever remember reading was Cecil’s now classic column on the [mysterious coded numbers](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_330.html) being broadcast. Cecil says: _Interestingly, the volume of coded message traffic doesn’t seem to have dropped appreciably with the end of the Cold War. I suppose that only makes sense. Even if you were running fewer spies than you used to, you’d keep the code numbers booming out at the same rate so as not to clue the bad guys should you have the need to expand your agent roster in the future._ [snip] \*Clearly the time has come for a courageous subset of the Teeming Millions to get jobs with the world’s national security agencies, find out the whole story, and then clue us in. (I’d do it, but I’m tied up this week.) \* This was probably 15 or so years ago now. I wonder if in this age of the Internet these stations are still broadcasting and if the questions Cecil laid out were ever partially answered: - It’s reasonable to assume other folks besides the CIA are broadcasting code groups, too. But nobody will say publicly: (1) exactly who’s doing it; (2) whether private parties are involved (some suspect drug traffickers because so many messages are in Spanish); (3) where the stations are located (because of atmospheric reflection, direction-finding is difficult); (4) how many of the messages are real and how many are dummies intended to lull eavesdroppers; (5) who the intended recipients are (they can’t ALL be Cuban agents in the U.S.); and, of course, (6) what the messages say.\* ---
**Author:** ![MsRobyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/90ced4/32.png) [@MsRobyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsRobyn)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2006, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-short-wave-radio-spies/353382/2 "2006-04-20T01:25:54Z")
Some of these questions have been answered to a reasonable degree of certainty. [Simon Mason\*\* has documented and archived a number of these stations. Another good source of information is Chris Smolinski’s [url=“http://www.spynumbers.com/”]Spy Numbers](http://www.simonmason.karoo.net/page30.html) website. There are also newsgroups devoted to this topic. These two sites should get you started and answer most of your questions. Robin ---
**Author:** ![MsRobyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/90ced4/32.png) [@MsRobyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsRobyn)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2006, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-short-wave-radio-spies/353382/3 "2006-04-20T01:27:21Z")
Crap. That was some bad coding. [Spy Numbers](http://www.spynumbers.com/) website. Robin ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2006, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-short-wave-radio-spies/353382/4 "2006-04-20T03:43:30Z")
Here’s a site with recordings in MP3 format: [http://home.freeuk.com/spook007/](http://home.freeuk.com/spook007/) Fascinating stuff. ---
**Author:** ![DougC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@DougC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DougC)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2006, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-short-wave-radio-spies/353382/5 "2006-04-20T05:29:46Z")
- - - Somebody else asked about this before and I scanned a few pages from one book I have that mentions them. And lucky for you the pages were still up: [http://www.norcom2000.com/users/dcimper/assorted/inanities/radio\_wtf/secret.html](http://www.norcom2000.com/users/dcimper/assorted/inanities/radio_wtf/secret.html) …Save the webpage if you like it, it may disappear at any time… ~ ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2006, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-short-wave-radio-spies/353382/6 "2006-04-20T07:09:15Z")
> [@jimmmy](#): > > But nobody will say publicly: > > (6) what the messages say.\* 4 8 15 … could mean all sorts of things 😃