We seek to understand and document all radio transmissions, legal and otherwise, as part of the radio listening hobby. We do not encourage any radio operations contrary to regulations. Always consult with the appropriate authorities if you have questions concerning what is permissible in your locale.

Author Topic: New Book n Spy Numbers Stations Published  (Read 2537 times)

Offline m3ozp1

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 136
    • View Profile
New Book n Spy Numbers Stations Published
« on: March 01, 2021, 1812 UTC »
A new book on Spy Numbers Stations was published by Amazon Books. written by U.S. Radio Amatuer Ronald Milione W2TAP.

The book is called Secret Spy Radio Stations.
I have only just received it and haven't had chance to start reading it, but it looks interesting.  there are plenty of illustrations, and b/w pictures of the assumed locations of the Spy Stations.

The book is available from Amazon.

Offline Token

  • Global Moderator
  • DX Legend
  • *****
  • Posts: 2118
    • View Profile
Re: New Book n Spy Numbers Stations Published
« Reply #1 on: March 06, 2021, 1907 UTC »
I have this book and am in the process of going over it, may do a review of it eventually.

Short take from my first quick view, the book is a congregation of public web pages, in print form.  So far I have not come across anything unique to the book, and most passages that I have searched for turn out to be word for word, cut and paste, from various web sites. Most often without crediting the web site.

T!

(edit, my review of this book below)

"Secret Spy Radio Stations" Series 1, by Ronald Milione.

This is a book I have been looking forward to since I first heard it was in work.  Spy Numbers stations have been a secondary listening hobby of mine since I first heard such broadcasts in the late 1960's.  Books on the subject are few and far between, and so I look forward to any new non-fiction publications related to Spy Numbers.

I ordered this book as soon as I was aware it was available, and had it in hand 2 days later.  I was especially jazzed when I saw the "Series 1" in the title, hopeful that this was the first installment in a series of books on the subject.

To call the book a disappointment is to be kind.  It has much outdated and incorrect information, and it appears to be, in large part, copy / paste from various web sites and prior publications.

The book is a large paperback, about 8.5" by 11", and with roughly 220 pages of large type text, single picture per page illustrations, and various tables / charts.  I say roughly 220 pages because there is not a single page number in the entire book, so I have no idea how many pages it really is.

There is also no Table of Contents and no Index.

The first page is titled "Why this book series?  Here is why...." and then launches directly into the body of Simon Mason's publication "Secret Signals - The Euronumbers Mystery" (https://labyrinth13.com/Secret%20Signals.pdf ), minus the original title or author.  The first 12 pages of the book are word-for-word identical to the first 6 pages of Simons publication.  And no indication, at all, in those pages, as to the source.  There is no acknowledgment of Simons work until near the very end of the book, when it generically lists Simons publication as a source, with no definition of what parts of this book were related to Simons work.

The next 5 pages start with a two sentence paragraph which appears to be original text, and then launches into a word-for-word cut and paste from the Wikipedia entry on the Warrenton Training Center.  Several pictures are interspersed with the Wiki text that were not originally part of the Wiki entry.  The next several pages are primarily word-for-word copies from the Wiki entry on the Voice of Korea, although that segment does appear to contain several paragraphs of original text, interspersed with the Wiki copy.

Aside from added pictures, mostly from Google Earth, in the first 30 pages of the book there are less than 2 pages of original text, the rest is direct copy and paste, without cite, from sources such as Simon Masons "Euronumbers Mystery" paper, or from something like Wikipedia.  This is a theme that is repeated throughout the book, copy some source word-for-word, do not cite the original source, throw in a sentence or paragraph here and there with original text, and add some pictures from public sources. 

Because so much of the book is copy / pasted from other sources, without editing, it often contains information that is incorrect today.  For example, it discusses numbers stations in the present tense, and calls them "active", despite the fact that particularly station may not have been active for years.  It was when the copied paper or web site was published, but there appears to have been no effort to fact check any of the information presented.

For example, the section on the Yosemite Sam oddity is written in the present tense, the book says "it transmits on four frequencies:" and then lists the Sam freqs.  For those not aware, Yosemite Sam was an oddity station that was active in 2004 and 2005, and the text in the book comes from an old write-up on the web, found here  http://www.spynumbers.com/YosemiteSam.html  The books entry on this station is word-for-word from that web page, including the colored text (light gray in the book) for the hypertext link to the .wav sound sample.


In one of the few more-or-less well cited entries in the book the author copied, word-for-word, the description text from a YouTube video of the Chinese Robot, VC01.  Including the YT channel disclaimer "Disclaimer:  Many of the radio reception recordings on this Youtube channel pertain to unusual, uncommon, unknown, or mystery signals that might be found on radio, both shortwave and VHF/UHF.  Among the subjects covered are numbers stations, utility stations, military transmissions (both in the clear and encrypted / encoded), aviation, maritime, ham radio, CB radio, radars, ionosodes, propagation beacons, ditters, dashers, whistlers, and just about anything else that might transmit, in any mode, USB, LSB, CW, Morse Code, FM, AM,FMCW, LFMCW, etc.  Think of it as SIGINT (signals intelligence) / COMINT (communications intelligence) / ELINT (electronic intelligence) lite, the hobby version.  All the recordings are made by me, most often at my home.  Although there are a few mysterious things to be found here, you will not find anything paranormal, extraterrestrial, spiritual, or mystic.  However, everyone can have their own interpretations of the sounds heard, make of it what you will."

Not sure what all that extra text has to do with VC01, or why it would be valuable in the context of this book.

The author uses ENGIMA IDs, such as E05, V07, V15, etc, as well as common nicknames, "Cynthia", "The Cuban Babbler", etc.  But never explains how such names or designations came to be, or, in the case of the IDs, what they mean.  Many of the basic concepts of the hobby are missing or glossed over.

All-in-all, the book "Secret Spy Radio Stations", by Ronald Milione, is a disappointment, at best.  It rambles, the format shifts around section to section, and there is no new or interesting data that cannot be found with a Google search.  Such a paper presented in highschool would garner a failing mark based on the blatant plagiarism alone.  This book is little more than a collection of web pages, bound and printed.  Interesting web pages, to be sure, but nothing more.
« Last Edit: March 07, 2021, 0712 UTC by Token »
T!
Mojave Desert, California USA

Offline Graphite

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 5
    • View Profile
Re: New Book n Spy Numbers Stations Published
« Reply #2 on: March 07, 2021, 1345 UTC »
Hi,
I have this book also and I agree with Token.
A lot of copy paste from Simom Mason, Lewis Bush and the internet. Nothing new...
Most of the black and white photographs are appaling.
But oke, it was cheap.
I do like the Lewis Bush book , Shadows of the state.
Nice quality and short historic information.
Graphite.

Offline sat_dxer

  • DX Legend
  • ******
  • Posts: 2315
    • View Profile
Re: New Book n Spy Numbers Stations Published
« Reply #3 on: March 07, 2021, 1908 UTC »
Looks like "Sir" Ronnie of 007 amazon fame has been around for some time:

https://www.facebook.com/pg/RonMilioneIsAPlagiarist/about/

This 2014 Blog page:
http://nsasecrets.blogspot.com/2014/09/nsa-texas-cryptology-center-expands.html

Is a direct copy from Cryptome.org:
https://cryptome.org/2014-info/nsa-tcc/nsa-tcc.htm

By one month!
« Last Edit: March 09, 2021, 2201 UTC by sat_dxer »
Most times & frequencies posted are only an approximation.

Offline ChrisSmolinski

  • Administrator
  • Marconi Class DXer
  • *****
  • Posts: 31106
  • Westminster, MD USA
    • View Profile
    • Black Cat Systems
Re: New Book n Spy Numbers Stations Published
« Reply #4 on: March 07, 2021, 2204 UTC »
I thought I recognized some of the text in the book. Then I realized I originally wrote it.  :)
Chris Smolinski
Westminster, MD
eQSLs appreciated! csmolinski@blackcatsystems.com
netSDR / AFE822x / AirSpy HF+ / KiwiSDR / 900 ft Horz skyloop / 500 ft NE beverage / 250 ft V Beam / 58 ft T2FD / 120 ft T2FD / 400 ft south beverage / 43m, 20m, 10m  dipoles / Crossed Parallel Loop / Discone in a tree

Offline Dave Richards

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 96
  • Oakland, CA
    • View Profile
    • Ham Radio (and occasionally Part 15) Blog
    • Email
Re: New Book n Spy Numbers Stations Published
« Reply #5 on: March 07, 2021, 2220 UTC »
Has anyone seen his QRZ listing? He has put his entire professional resume on it, including a list, beginning with PhD, of all the qualifications he supposedly has. It is a very long list. He seems oddly eager to "prove" himself. If he really is as accomplished as his QRZ page suggests, he would have no need to plagiarize. Something doesn't smell right. I don't like it when people take other's work and pass it off as their own.

Token, Graphite, and anyone else who has read it - I hope you'll seriously consider leaving an candid review.
Oakland, CA
(SF Bay Area)

Offline Graphite

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 5
    • View Profile
Re: New Book n Spy Numbers Stations Published
« Reply #6 on: March 08, 2021, 0749 UTC »
@ Token, maybe you can place your review also on Amazon?
And who is the mysterious French woman (Marie?) on the ID card at the bottom of the Erwin van Haarlem story?


Is this our guy?
https://independent.academia.edu/ronmilione/CurriculumVitae
« Last Edit: March 08, 2021, 1223 UTC by Graphite »

Offline Token

  • Global Moderator
  • DX Legend
  • *****
  • Posts: 2118
    • View Profile
Re: New Book n Spy Numbers Stations Published
« Reply #7 on: March 08, 2021, 1720 UTC »
@ Token, maybe you can place your review also on Amazon?
And who is the mysterious French woman (Marie?) on the ID card at the bottom of the Erwin van Haarlem story?


Is this our guy?
https://independent.academia.edu/ronmilione/CurriculumVitae

That is the fake ID card, in the name of Marie Suzanne Imbert, for Marie-Madeleine Fourcade, a leader in a large spy ring operated by the French Resistance during WW II.

And yes, that is the author of the book in question.  He certainly likes to throw "classified" and his army.mil email address on things in the public view.  I wonder why he uses an army.mil email address as his "primary" (on both his resume and QRZ pages), even though he works for PSEG-LI?

T!
T!
Mojave Desert, California USA

Offline Graphite

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 5
    • View Profile
Re: New Book n Spy Numbers Stations Published
« Reply #8 on: March 11, 2021, 1336 UTC »
Thanks, that is an impressive lady!

Offline gdog63

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 2
    • View Profile
    • Email
Re: New Book n Spy Numbers Stations Published
« Reply #9 on: April 11, 2021, 1431 UTC »
Is Harware a Typo? QRZ page = WTF?

Offline East Troy Don

  • DX Legend
  • ******
  • Posts: 1371
  • "If you can't convince them, confuse them" Truman
    • View Profile
Re: New Book n Spy Numbers Stations Published
« Reply #10 on: April 12, 2021, 0009 UTC »
"If you steal from one author its plagiarism.
  If you steal from many, its research"

  --  WILSON MIZNER --
« Last Edit: April 12, 2021, 0013 UTC by East Troy Don »
Primary: Yaesu FRG-7700  Secondary: ICOM R75 Tertiary: Grundig  750. Tecsun PL-990X, Tecsun PL-880 . Malahit DSP SDR V3,  Alpha Delta  SWL Sloper antenna. : Also, 1940 Mantola am/sw tube. CountyComm GP-5/SSB hand held, Tecsun PL-380 ,et al.  QTH: EAST TROY WI  USA.  Sea Level: + 320 meters .  75 miles (but not far enough) NNW of Chicago