(Continued from page 32)
The woman had a very clipped, abrupt delivery - almost like a sergeant major barking out orders on a parade ground.
The actual messages had a simple format. After the musical marker the woman would shout out the headings for the five figure groups to follow, which was usually for three or four separate addresses. As:

These two stations, for decades daily broadcasters to thousands of presumed spies in the west, had finally signed off for good. At the time it seemed the unification of Germany would end the need for these broadcasts. But a quick scan through the shortwave bands proved this was not the case! As it turned out, the two stations I've described were the only ones with apparent connections to Germany which closed down. Many others were still sending coded groups. What was going on? Later, it turned out that the amnesty given by the German government to ex-members of the East Germany spy agency was not being taken advantage of to any great degree. Apparently only a few hundred of the former Stasi agents had turned themselves in.

But this left thousands of spies still at large, probably with their cover still intact and able to provide their new masters with priceless economic and technical information at greatly reduced cost. The alternative would have been for the KGB or whoever the new masters are to have to set up a new spy network which could take years to develop. By recruiting the former East German spies who were already in situ the new bosses would save a great deal of time and money. The KGB was probably the ultimate beneficiary of the spy's information anyway. The East German middleman had been cut out.

This was all not quite as straightforward as it seems, however. It turns out that the transmitter site for the two previously mentioned stations was a place called Wilmersdorf*, just outside Berlin. Now, of course, the site is in unified Germany and therefore cannot be used as a sender of coded messages to spies in the west anymore. The locations of the transmitters used for stations that continue to broadcast is another puzzle. They may be using more remote sites or perhaps transmitting facilities at embassies located in the west. Certainly some of the roofs of these embassies look like enormous antenna farms. These antennas are part of a communications system used to transfer information to and from the home country. All of this is quite above board and widely practised. It would, however, be relatively simple to hook up a voice machine, which, instead of communicating with home, would transmit coded messages to spies in the surrounding countryside. This would go some way toward explaining why so many monitors, on hearing numbers stations, have observed that the signals strengths were extremely high. I have often been amazed at the sometimes stupendous signals strengths involved, even when those from high power international broadcast stations were mediocre. The embassy explanation goes some way toward explaining this. It has also been said that mobile transmitters could be used. Anyone who has seen the antennas used by various countries' shipping might agree.

Update 2011:

*From Detlev in Germany :
 At the end of chapter 1 you have written." It turns out that the transmitter site for the two previously mentioned stations was a place called Wilmersdorf, just outside Berlin.� Wilmersdorf is a part in the middle of West-Berlin, you mean Wernsdorf, where the receiving station was, Zeesen was the transmitter site, remote controlled from Wernsdorf.

So what are the stations still in operation? Here is one. As suggested by the heading this station's marker is the "Swedish Rhapsody". It's the same tune that was once used by Radio Sweden as its interval signal. The version used here is not the famous Mantovani rendition popular in the 1950's, but a version played on a rather cheap-sounding music box. The music box plays the first couple of bars of the tune until five minutes after the hour. Then a very soft-voiced woman calls out the five figure group for a minute or so and then says "achtung" and goes into the five figure text. No group counts are given in the preamble and the number of headings seems to depend on the time of the broadcast. For example, every Saturday evening there are messages for three addresses. On other occasions, notably in the midweek period, the messages are intended for perhaps only one recipient.
The schedule:

Sunday at 1800, 2300
Tuesday at 2100
3850 - Tuesday at 2100
4779- Sat/Sun at 1900, 2000, 2100
4832- Tuesday at 2200
5340 - Saturday at 1900, 2000, 2100
5748 - Wednesday at 1600, 1700, 1800 Tue/Wed/Sun at 2000 Mon/Wed at 2200, 2300
6200 - Mon/Wed at 2200, 2300
6507 - Saturday at 1900, 2000, 2100
6901 - Sunday at 1400
8188 -Sunday at 0800
9457- Sat/Sun at 1000
11618 - Wednesday at 1300, 1400

Some of these broadcasts are, of course, repeats. For example, the Saturday 1000 transmission is repeated at 2000 on the same day and also on Sunday at 1000. In addition, the Saturday 1900, 2000 and 2100 broadcasts are all sent on three frequencies at the same time: 4779, 5340 and 6507. However, broadcasts running on three frequencies simultaneously, as this one does, are quite rare.

Another oddity are the 2200 and 2300 Wednesday transmissions on 6200 (which, incidentally, can be heard accidentally by people listening to the BBC World Service on 6195). The woman on this occasion pops up between the tunes and counts "1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-0" in German. On all other broadcasts the five minute period before the traffic is all music.

A very strange incident occurred one Saturday in June, 1990. At 2000 on 4779, 5340 and 6779 the musical marker played as usual and at 2005 the woman gave out the three headings which, on this occasion were 68803, 73719 and 20059. When the woman went into the five figure text for the first heading (68803) the groups were either 64646 or 46464! These two groups were repeated over and over again from 2005 to 2010 when the text abruptly changed to the usual random numbers. The five figure groups for the other two headings were also the usual random numbers. The repeat at 2100 produced the same things. Shortwave monitors who decode radioteletype signals will instantly recognise 6464646464 as the numerical equivalent of RYRYRYRY, which RTTY stations send as a test transmission.

This is the first multilingual station we shall look at. Its marker consists solely of the letter "N" sent in Morse Code CW, repeated slowly for five minutes. The station has been on the air for sometime and is still very active. Over the years it has appeared on many different frequencies at many different times. The station uses three languages: English, French and either Yiddish or German - probably Yiddish, as the numbers used resemble Yiddish more than any other station. 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-90 in Yiddish is: