Unusal Happenings with Inactive Stations

[shawnymillion]

Anybody see this article? Interesting.

http://investmentwatchblog.com/unusual-happenings-with-inactive-radio-stations-signaling-something-big-about-to-happen/

[JungeAusOstBerlin]

This is a month old, so I'm not sure if it's appropriate to reply now, but I felt the need to throw in my 2cents.

I wouldn't really consider Skykings or Emergency Action Messages as a numbers station, as they are a communications system for the American military. However, it could hint at the current state of the world right now calls for their air force to bring back old codes. There's the terrorists in the middle east causing havok there, it could be related to operations dealing with that.

[Token]

Encrypted messages on the HF-GCS network are not numbers stations.

This fiscal year the HF-GCS network returned to using random rotating callsigns.  This is not indicative of anything truly unusual happening, and they have done this in the past, this is simply a change of procedure.  A bit over a year ago they went from sending these messages with an ID of the source, Andrews, Offutt, McClellen, etc, to all ground originated messages, regardless of source, identifying as "Mainsail".  This is actually a return to what was done years ago.  And before that they used the rotating random callsigns.

So these "changes" just happen from time to time.  As with many things military, a new SOP can change how you do things.  And a new SOP might just be the result of one officers attempt to get his name recognized and enhance a FITREP.

As for one of these rotating callsigns that has not been heard in years, it is very unlikely this has any specific meaning.  I cannot speak to the specific callsign selection process for the HF-GCS network, but decades ago one system of selection of random, rotating, tactical callsigns involved a list of possible callsigns, many thousands deep, and a random selection of the "next" call to be used.  Eventually all callsigns would end up being reused, and because of the random selection a callsign could be used again in just a short time, or it might be years before that ones number came up again.

T!

[JungeAusOstBerlin]

Encrypted messages on the HF-GCS network are not numbers stations.

This fiscal year the HF-GCS network returned to using random rotating callsigns.  This is not indicative of anything truly unusual happening, and they have done this in the past, this is simply a change of procedure.  A bit over a year ago they went from sending these messages with an ID of the source, Andrews, Offutt, McClellen, etc, to all ground originated messages, regardless of source, identifying as "Mainsail".  This is actually a return to what was done years ago.  And before that they used the rotating random callsigns.

So these "changes" just happen from time to time.  As with many things military, a new SOP can change how you do things.  And a new SOP might just be the result of one officers attempt to get his name recognized and enhance a FITREP.

As for one of these rotating callsigns that has not been heard in years, it is very unlikely this has any specific meaning.  I cannot speak to the specific callsign selection process for the HF-GCS network, but decades ago one system of selection of random, rotating, tactical callsigns involved a list of possible callsigns, many thousands deep, and a random selection of the "next" call to be used.  Eventually all callsigns would end up being reused, and because of the random selection a callsign could be used again in just a short time, or it might be years before that ones number came up again.

T!

That makes sense! Thanks for your input.