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Old December 29th 06, 08:50 PM posted to rec.radio.amateur.homebrew
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Default How hard for a spy to receive 6855 or 8010 kHz?

Could a spy modify an AM radio by adding a few capacitors?

TIA
Clark KC7FGB

I read this:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...122801190.html

Messages to Spies Are Coded but Not Hidden
Over Shortwave, Anyone Can Listen

By James Gordon Meek
New York Daily News
Friday, December 29, 2006; Page A25

It turns out that anybody can tune in to the world's top spy agencies
talking to operatives. All you need is a cheap shortwave-radio receiver,
the kind available at any drugstore.

Tune it to 6855 or 8010 kHz.

On the hour, you might hear a girlish voice repeating strings of numbers
monotonously in Spanish. "Nueve, uno, nueve, tres, cinco-cinco, cuatro,
cinco, tres, dos . . .," went one seemingly harmless message heard last
month on a Grundig radio.

It was the Cuban Intelligence Directorate or Russian FSB broadcasting
coded instructions from Havana to spies inside the United States.

Turn the dial up to 11545 kHz, and you might hear a few notes of an
obscure English folk song, "Lincolnshire Poacher," followed by a voice
repeating strings of numbers. That's believed to be British Secret
Intelligence Service, MI6, broadcasting from Cyprus.

On 6840 kHz, you may hear a voice reading groups of letters. That's a
station nicknamed "E10," thought to be Israel's Mossad intelligence.

Chris Smolinski runs SpyNumbers.com and the "Spooks" e-mail list, where
"number stations" hobbyists log hundreds of shortwave messages
transmitted every month. "It's like a puzzle. They're mystery stations,"
explained Smolinski, who has tracked the spy broadcasts for 30 years.

While hobbyists guess at the meaning of each cryptic message or which
spy service sent it, it's no mystery to intelligence officials, who
confirmed the purpose is espionage.

The signals are too strong to be made by amateurs and are often on
licensed frequencies. The State Department once complained to the
Israeli Embassy in Washington that "E10" was blocking a U.S. broadcast,
a source said.

"I can't imagine who else would waste the time in front of a microphone
reading numbers" but a spy, said James Bamford, who has written about
intelligence. Bamford calls number stations "simple but effective" spycraft.

"It's extremely effective," agreed a senior intelligence official. "If
you have a one-time pad, the code can't be broken, and you can send out
dummy broadcasts as much as you want to confuse your enemy."

A "one-time pad" is the key to unlocking coded shortwave messages that
the CIA calls "one-way voice link."

It is low-risk because it's known only to the sender and the recipient
and used just once before being destroyed, said retired CIA officer Tony
Mendez.

Mendez said he would often imprint the code on microfilm or even a
cigarette paper. Once inside the target country, a CIA operative could
make a shortwave receiver out of simple materials. "The voices are not
real people," he added. "They're computer-generated."

A CIA spokeswoman declined to comment.

One-time pads and coded radio began in World War I, said Thomas
Boghardt, a historian at the International Spy Museum. Little has
changed since, judging by recent espionage cases involving shortwave
radios, including that of a man detained in Canada last month and
accused of being a Russian spy.

In Miami last week, Carlos and Elsa Alvarez pleaded guilty to lesser
charges after the United States accused them of spying for Cuba. A
prosecutor alleged in a court hearing this summer that they received
shortwave "messages in five-digit groupings." An FBI interview
transcript shows Alvarez admitted going into his bathroom "on Fridays to
listen at 11" for messages aimed at the couple, code-named "David" and
"Deborah."
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Old December 29th 06, 09:48 PM posted to rec.radio.amateur.homebrew
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Default How hard for a spy to receive 6855 or 8010 kHz?

Clark Magnuson wrote:
Could a spy modify an AM radio by adding a few capacitors?


Not well, but where can you buy an AM radio or capacitors anymore :-) ?
Or was this some hypothetical 1940's time-travel question?

A $10 super-el-cheapo pocket SW receiver from a discount store does
just fine for picking up numbers stations. Some but not all number
stations are CW or SSB and you'd need a BFO which is one step up from
the super-el-cheapos.

Tim.

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Old December 29th 06, 10:49 PM posted to rec.radio.amateur.homebrew
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Posts: 464
Default How hard for a spy to receive 6855 or 8010 kHz?

In article ,
Clark Magnuson wrote:

Could a spy modify an AM radio by adding a few capacitors?


Possibly, but I doubt that it would work well if you started from a
standard US-type AM broadcast-band receiver. The frequencies that
this article speaks of are up in the HF band, roughly 10 times higher
than the AM broadcast-band frequencies, and these radios' built-in
loopstick antennas are not well suited to receive these sorts of
signals.

A spy in most Western countries could simply buy an off-the-shelf
AM/FM/shortwave receiver (very widely available).

Simple but very effective direct-conversion or superheterodyne
receivers (capable of receiving CW, SSB, and AM) can be built out of
"junk box" parts by anyone with a modest amount of training and
experience. Many of the popular QRP receiver designs could be tweaked
to receive on these sorts of frequencies with very little difficulty.

Now, if somebody had an old "7-transistor" AM radio (circa 1960
or so), it would likely be possible to salvage enough parts from it
to build a simple direct-conversion shortwave receiver.

I doubt that this would be possible (or at least not easy) for today's
highly-integrated IC-based radios.

--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Hosting the Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!
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Old December 30th 06, 05:39 AM posted to rec.radio.amateur.homebrew
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Posts: 22
Default How hard for a spy to receive 6855 or 8010 kHz?

Or the spy could just login to any of the dozens of SW receivers on the web
and tune to his/her favorite spy frequency.

But that's not romantic at all!


"Clark Magnuson" wrote in message
. ..
Could a spy modify an AM radio by adding a few capacitors?

TIA
Clark KC7FGB

I read this:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...122801190.html

Messages to Spies Are Coded but Not Hidden
Over Shortwave, Anyone Can Listen

By James Gordon Meek
New York Daily News
Friday, December 29, 2006; Page A25

It turns out that anybody can tune in to the world's top spy agencies
talking to operatives. All you need is a cheap shortwave-radio receiver,
the kind available at any drugstore.

Tune it to 6855 or 8010 kHz.

On the hour, you might hear a girlish voice repeating strings of numbers
monotonously in Spanish. "Nueve, uno, nueve, tres, cinco-cinco, cuatro,
cinco, tres, dos . . .," went one seemingly harmless message heard last
month on a Grundig radio.

It was the Cuban Intelligence Directorate or Russian FSB broadcasting
coded instructions from Havana to spies inside the United States.

Turn the dial up to 11545 kHz, and you might hear a few notes of an
obscure English folk song, "Lincolnshire Poacher," followed by a voice
repeating strings of numbers. That's believed to be British Secret
Intelligence Service, MI6, broadcasting from Cyprus.

On 6840 kHz, you may hear a voice reading groups of letters. That's a
station nicknamed "E10," thought to be Israel's Mossad intelligence.

Chris Smolinski runs SpyNumbers.com and the "Spooks" e-mail list, where
"number stations" hobbyists log hundreds of shortwave messages transmitted
every month. "It's like a puzzle. They're mystery stations," explained
Smolinski, who has tracked the spy broadcasts for 30 years.

While hobbyists guess at the meaning of each cryptic message or which spy
service sent it, it's no mystery to intelligence officials, who confirmed
the purpose is espionage.

The signals are too strong to be made by amateurs and are often on
licensed frequencies. The State Department once complained to the Israeli
Embassy in Washington that "E10" was blocking a U.S. broadcast, a source
said.

"I can't imagine who else would waste the time in front of a microphone
reading numbers" but a spy, said James Bamford, who has written about
intelligence. Bamford calls number stations "simple but effective"
spycraft.

"It's extremely effective," agreed a senior intelligence official. "If you
have a one-time pad, the code can't be broken, and you can send out dummy
broadcasts as much as you want to confuse your enemy."

A "one-time pad" is the key to unlocking coded shortwave messages that the
CIA calls "one-way voice link."

It is low-risk because it's known only to the sender and the recipient and
used just once before being destroyed, said retired CIA officer Tony
Mendez.

Mendez said he would often imprint the code on microfilm or even a
cigarette paper. Once inside the target country, a CIA operative could
make a shortwave receiver out of simple materials. "The voices are not
real people," he added. "They're computer-generated."

A CIA spokeswoman declined to comment.

One-time pads and coded radio began in World War I, said Thomas Boghardt,
a historian at the International Spy Museum. Little has changed since,
judging by recent espionage cases involving shortwave radios, including
that of a man detained in Canada last month and accused of being a Russian
spy.

In Miami last week, Carlos and Elsa Alvarez pleaded guilty to lesser
charges after the United States accused them of spying for Cuba. A
prosecutor alleged in a court hearing this summer that they received
shortwave "messages in five-digit groupings." An FBI interview transcript
shows Alvarez admitted going into his bathroom "on Fridays to listen at
11" for messages aimed at the couple, code-named "David" and "Deborah."



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Old December 30th 06, 01:14 PM posted to rec.radio.amateur.homebrew
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Posts: 1
Default How hard for a spy to receive 6855 or 8010 kHz?


Brian wrote:
Or the spy could just login to any of the dozens of SW receivers on the web
and tune to his/her favorite spy frequency.


Could you clarify this? You mean there are Web sites where
you type in an arbitrary frequency and hear what's being
broadcast on it?

--
Charles Packer
http://cpacker.org/whatnews
mailboxATcpacker.org



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Old December 30th 06, 08:46 PM posted to rec.radio.amateur.homebrew
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Posts: 5
Default How hard for a spy to receive 6855 or 8010 kHz?

asked:

Could you clarify this? You mean there are Web sites where
you type in an arbitrary frequency and hear what's being
broadcast on it?


http://www.dxtuners.com/

--
Gandhi

Lisa, if the Bible has taught us nothing else - and it hasn't - it's
that girls should stick to girls' sports, such as hot oil wrestling and
foxy boxing and such and such.


  #7   Report Post  
Old December 30th 06, 08:47 PM posted to rec.radio.amateur.homebrew
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Posts: 5
Default How hard for a spy to receive 6855 or 8010 kHz?

Tim Shoppa wrote:

A $10 super-el-cheapo pocket SW receiver from a discount store does
just fine for picking up numbers stations. Some but not all number
stations are CW or SSB and you'd need a BFO which is one step up from
the super-el-cheapos.

Tim.


Well, some numbers stations actually transmit modulated morse, so you
wouldn't need a BFO.

--
Gandhi

Son, when you participate in sporting events, it's not whether you
win or lose: it's how drunk you get.


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Old January 1st 07, 04:49 AM posted to rec.radio.amateur.homebrew
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Posts: 322
Default How hard for a spy to receive 6855 or 8010 kHz?

Dave Platt ) writes:
In article ,
Clark Magnuson wrote:

Could a spy modify an AM radio by adding a few capacitors?


Possibly, but I doubt that it would work well if you started from a
standard US-type AM broadcast-band receiver. The frequencies that
this article speaks of are up in the HF band, roughly 10 times higher
than the AM broadcast-band frequencies, and these radios' built-in
loopstick antennas are not well suited to receive these sorts of
signals.

A spy in most Western countries could simply buy an off-the-shelf
AM/FM/shortwave receiver (very widely available).

Simple but very effective direct-conversion or superheterodyne
receivers (capable of receiving CW, SSB, and AM) can be built out of
"junk box" parts by anyone with a modest amount of training and
experience. Many of the popular QRP receiver designs could be tweaked
to receive on these sorts of frequencies with very little difficulty.

Now, if somebody had an old "7-transistor" AM radio (circa 1960
or so), it would likely be possible to salvage enough parts from it
to build a simple direct-conversion shortwave receiver.

I doubt that this would be possible (or at least not easy) for today's
highly-integrated IC-based radios.

First, a "spy" is not going to need to build a radio. They will be
able to get their hands on something locally, or (as in WWII), they'll
be parachuted in with the needed equipment. And in this day and age,
with so many means of communication (and at least for the moment, no
all-encompassing wars), there are all kinds of mainstream means of
contacting spies without being tracked. Traditionally, spies were not
radio experts, unless their job was to accumulate information on
radio matters.

But, if someone really did need to assemble a shortwave radio, I
suspect it's far easier today than in the past. At the very least,
no more difficult than in the past.

Thirty years ago, magazines were full of simple superhets based
on standard AM radios. Some would rework the front end
circuitry to tune a shortwave band, and the fact that ICs are
used rather than transistors isn't likely to make that really difficult.
I can remember in 1971 when RCA introduced the CA3088 AM radio IC,
and QST ran an article pointing out how it could be used. Obviously
not the best choice, but an IC instead of transistors isn't likely to
make a worse receiver. The limitations would come from image rejection
and lousy selectivity (and maybe lack of IF gain), and those were
all there with transistor based radios.

Others would strip off the front end tuned circuits, and simply use
the AM broadcast receiver as a 455KHz IF, building a mixer and oscillator
to feed into it.

And of course, many would add a converter to an existing AM broadcast
radio. Sacrifice one radio to build a converter for another. Then
you get double conversion, which would be a good thing given the
common 455KHz IF for most AM broadcast radios. For best results, use a car
radio for the radio, since they often have better selectivity and of course
are well shielded compared to portable AM radios with their loopstick
antennas. Need a BFO? Those can be tossed together easily with a
transistor off some scrap board, and an IF transformer from a scrap radio
(and I seem to recall some using ceramic filters as the frequency
determining element in a BFO, and if those work, they are easily available
out of scrap radios, compared to ceramic resonators).

ICs may offer better performance. Since transistors in an IC are
cheap, they may be more likely to use a balanced mixer. Grab an IC
out of a radio, and you've got your mixer (and you have a choice of
the mixer from the AM or the mixer from the FM section). Some have
put together SSB receivers out of narrow-band FM receiver ICs (they
simply ignore the FM detector), and someone used merely the mixer
out of a more complicated receiver IC for a direct conversion receiver.
A lot of FM broadcast radios use IF strip ICs that don't allow for
separate use of the IF amplifiers from the limiters, but I've stripped
at least one car radio that offered up an MC1350 IF amplifier.
For that matter, use the FM IF strip as a quasi-synchronous detector
for AM, or if it's of the right design, feed a BFO into the limiter
input and you've got your product detector.

Find a CB set, and you get better IF selectivity, and many will be
double conversion. Retune the front end, and replace the synthesizer
with a tuneable oscillator. Get really lucky, and the garage sale
will offer up an SSB CB set, for even narrower selectivity and of
course CW/SSB reception with no mods.

Circa 1942, you'd have far more trouble getting parts. Oh, I
suppose there were more local electronic stores, but there was
hardly any consumer electronic equipment. Nowadays it's really really
common. And that supplies so many useful parts.

Michael VE2BVW

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Old January 1st 07, 01:17 PM posted to rec.radio.amateur.homebrew
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Default How hard for a spy to receive 6855 or 8010 kHz?

On 1 Jan 2007 03:49:31 GMT, (Michael Black)
wrote:


Thirty years ago, magazines were full of simple superhets based
on standard AM radios. Some would rework the front end
circuitry to tune a shortwave band, and the fact that ICs are
used rather than transistors isn't likely to make that really difficult.
I can remember in 1971 when RCA introduced the CA3088 AM radio IC,
and QST ran an article pointing out how it could be used. Obviously
not the best choice, but an IC instead of transistors isn't likely to
make a worse receiver. The limitations would come from image rejection
and lousy selectivity (and maybe lack of IF gain), and those were
all there with transistor based radios.

Others would strip off the front end tuned circuits, and simply use
the AM broadcast receiver as a 455KHz IF, building a mixer and oscillator
to feed into it.


Using a standard IF is a bad idea if you are a spy, since the local
oscillator is going to be at a standard offset of known number
stations.

According to the "Spycatcher" book, MI5 used local oscillator leakage
to track down spies already in the 1950's. Thus, if standard IF is
used, at least shield the oscillator very well and use some RF stages
to isolate the antenna from the local oscillator.

The police in some countries use the local oscillator radiation to
detect illegal speed trap radar detectors.

Paul OH3LWR

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Old January 1st 07, 05:06 PM posted to rec.radio.amateur.homebrew
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Default How hard for a spy to receive 6855 or 8010 kHz?

This is the 21st century!

All one needs to do is post a seemingly ordinary message (like this one)
in any newsgroup (like one dealing with Disney movies). Use the public
library and a pre-arranged name. Bingo! The message appears near
instantly all over the world, and in convenient, printer-friendly format.;-)

Even easier on the receiving end. Come on guys!

Chuck

----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Unrestricted-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups
----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =----
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