Hello all,
This morning (May 28, 2012) I heard a Chinese language numbers station that I have not heard before live. Around 1408 UTC a carrier came up on 11493 kHz. The frequency was a little odd for a BC (broadcast) station so I parked an RX (receiver) on it to see what came about. This carrier went on and off several times before stabilizing at about 1412 UTC. Starting about 1414 UTC I heard broken audio on the carrier. The audio sounded like a YL (female) in Chinese language, but the audio was very bad, my assumption was a BC station with problems.
About 1415 the audio cleaned up, and it became clear it was a YL repeating the same phrases over and over in Chinese, I started recording about 1415:25. Each cycle in the audio ended with something similar to “oh sie”. At 1418:48 the last cycle ended with a different word.
The carrier continued with no modulation until 1419:08 when a different sounding YL voice came up in Chinese and started repeating a similar sounding phrase to the first half of the transmission. This message ended at 1427:07, 4 minutes and 59 seconds after it started. It also ended with a different word, as had the first message.
Looking at the ECL (Enigma Control List, a catalogue of known and designated numbers stations) and listening to audio examples I believe what I heard was V16. Each cycle ending in something like “oh sie”, 5 minute transmission (per message). The description in the ECL contains little other than that. The Enigma newsletters since 2000 (the oldest on the web site) say nothing about the station. Neither do any of the Numbers and Oddities / Spooks newsletters I can get hold of. I am still looking through the old Wunclub newsletters, but so far found nothing there either.
Here is a video of my reception this morning, it starts in the first message, includes the gap between the messages, includes the first minute or so of the second message, and then I jump to the last 45 seconds of the transmission.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gfiv_v3NzNwHere is an example courtesy of the Enigma 2000 web site, the note on the web site says it is 1977, but I suspect that is a typo:
http://www.brogers.dsl.pipex.com/enigma2000/samples/V16.mp3Another example from the Conet Project CD, released in 1997.
http://archive.org/download/ird059/tcp_d4_23_unidentified_chinese_station_irdial.mp3They sound like the same station to me.
This station has not been reported since before 2000. No idea if it has been gone all that time or just not reported. I know I stumbled on it completely by accident, was not even looking for a numbers station at the time.
T!
Mojave Desert, California, USA
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Dec 05, 2012, 0244 UTC.