[Spooks] MANH(A)TTAN Numbers Station Audio

[Fansome]

Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 21:11:57 -0500
From: Les Rayburn <les@highnoonfilm.com>
To: spooks@mailman.qth.net
Subject: [Spooks] MANH(A)TTAN Numbers Station Audio
 
The new original series by Chicago's WGN called "Manhattan" about the
project to build the atomic bomb is set in New Mexico in 1944. While
it's a great show, and compelling to watch, there is a hidden treat for
numbers station fans as two of the three episodes aired to date have
contained radio traffic from numbers stations embedded within the
soundtrack.
 
So far, I haven't been able to identify which stations are being
used--but they're more modern than the show's period setting. In the
first episode, numbers traffic in English is layered in with static, and
other noises to create a suitable "spooky" atmosphere while the show's
graphic opening sequence (which debuted in episode three) contains some
numbers traffic in German.
 
 
--
Les Rayburn, Director
High Noon Film
130 1st Avenue West
Alabaster, AL 35007-8536
(205) 621-7500
(205) 621-7505 FAX
(205) 253-4867 CELL
http://www.highnoonfilm.com

[Token]

The station was also heard during the credits in episode 2.  So far I have not heard enough of the station to actually say it is a numbers station, but there is definitely something repeated and static filled that could be numbers.

I did see a timeline faux pas in episode 3, "The Hive".

In one scene of that episode a character is listening to a record.  The record player is part of a console type radio, there were many such made in the right time period, the show is set in 1943.  The room is dark and there is a close-up of the radio dial as the character reaches for it and turns the volume down.  The dial is, as normal for these radios, backlit.  The dial is very clearly the center of focus in the scene.

It is a dual band console radio / phonograph.  The top band numbers are 88 to 108, the FM broadcast band.  The bottom band numbers are 55 to 170, or 550 to 1700 kHz, the AM broadcast band.

However, the 88 to 108 MHz FM broadcast band did not exist until near the end of 1945, 2 years after the time of the show, in 1943 the FM band was 42 to 50 MHz, and the radio used in the scene is a 1947 or 1948 model.

T!