( Continued from page 35)
the band up to 10 MHz, on "outside band" frequencies very clearly and distinctly. It broadcasts a Skylark melody which is followed by groups of figures in Romanian. The transmission ends with the word terminat, terminat. There are several similar transmissions, however these usually are not interesting to DXers due to the closed nature of their activities."
Despite what the Soviet contributor said, the majority of these broadcasts do not contain any traffic in 5 figure groups or otherwise. The usual format is that the tune is played twice, which lasts until six minutes past the hour. A male voice in Romanian then says "terminat" three times and the tune is repeated twice again, followed by 'terminat, terminat" again. If traffic is being sent then a taped, real male voice reads but the five figure text in Romanian. These are "unu, doi, trei, patru, cinci, sase, sapte, opt, noua, zero." These sound like: "oonu, doy, trey, patru, sinch, sassay, shaptay, noah, zero." The numbers come after the two Skylark tunes and end again with 'terminat, terminat" repeated three times. It is certain that "live" announcers are used, as different male voices have been noted.
Again, over the years the schedule has changed, so this listing will inevitably contain some non-active frequencies. However, despite a lull after the Romanian revolution in late 1989, the station is now transmitting more traffic than ever!

3885 - 2200
4585 - 2000, 2200
5145 - 2000
5425 - 0000, 1900, 2000, 2100, 2200, 2300
5835 - 2100
5889 - 1800, 1900, 2000, 2200
6824 - 0400, 1800, 1900, 2000, 2200
6840 - 2100, 2200
7385 - 2000
8170 - 1900, 2000

PAPA NOVEMBER
Here is a case of "where to begin?" There are over 80 callsigns on nearly 40 different frequencies, all of which indicates a very big set-up. I can recall hearing these transmissions in the early 1970's and they certainly date back further than that. I remember tuning into a station in 1971 and being almost hypnotised by the strange interval signal (it is a different one now). It consisted of a female voice repeating "Papa November" over and over continuously with a sort of snake charmer's flute playing in the background. This went on for five minutes, after which a woman would start sending messages in five figure groups.

When I started to actively listen to number stations this was one of the first I studied. It is unique in that it broadcasts on four frequencies at the same time, but not simultaneously. By this I mean that there is a time lag between the four frequencies. It is as though four different machines are started, one after the other. Until 1989 real female voices were used, that is, a woman would be giving a list of German five figure numbers and she would sit down and read the whole thing out into a tape recorder. The tape could then be transmitted at the appropriate time. At the time of eventual conversion to a voice synthesiser machine, four different women were being employed in the mind-numbing career of number reading. More about them later.

The frequencies used are 2707, 5015, 7404 and 11108. The choice of frequencies is interesting as it insures that at least one will be propagated at any given time. As it happens, the schedule is designed to give a wide geographic coverage. The station transmits every day, even on Christmas, at 0000, 0030, 0600, 0630, 1200, 1230, 1800 and 1830. The transmissions on the hour are in the AM mode, whereas the broadcasts on the half hour are all in upper sideband.
These data suggest that maybe a world-wide operation is in force. After all, a station that transmits on four frequencies every six hours using both AM and USB is trying to get its messages through at any cost. On the whole this operation is very professional. The broadcasts begin precisely on the hour or half hour and very few mistakes are made. It is not totally perfect however. Here are two errors that have been noted: (1) when the stations were being converted to auto-voice on a few occasions both live voice and auto-voice messages were being sent out on the same transmission.

It was as though no one had told the female readers that they were being replaced by machines. They carried on, broadcasting on top of the auto-voice, thus making the whole transmission unintelligible. (2) On another occasion a sister station (DFD37 which is part of the same set-up - see below -) was being sent out over Papa November frequencies instead of its normal channel of 3370. This was final proof, if any was needed, that thy are all part of the same organisation. As will be shown later there could be some doubt about this. After all, DFC37 is, on the face of it, a legitimate callsign of the Federal German Republic (formerly West Germany). Indeed, certain publications have this and its twin, DFD21, in their listings as legitimate stations. Anyway, back to Papa November: as shown, the station is pivotal to whatever agency operates it and the format it uses reflects this.

This is unique amongst number stations. As with other set ups, a 3 figure identifier is used, followed by a group count. The difference is in the daily workings of the station. Papa November has allocated to it a series of 3 figure identifiers which are specific to the station and are not used by any of the other stations in the network. After the callsign is sent a woman sends out the list of identifiers/group count, like this

PN 1800 25 JUL91:
824 4
695 13
771 11
372 12
525 10
717 8

824, for example, is the identifier and 4 is the number of groups. This is said as
"824 824 4 gruppen, 695 695 13 gruppen", etc. Alter the last heading the message for
824 would be sent which, in this case, is four groups of five figures, e.g. "12334, 12334,
89856, 89856, 29964, 29964, 13277, 13277 ende. Achtung! 695 695 13 gruppen" and so
on.
Now, this represents one transmission (at 1800 on 25 July, 1991). The next day a new message may have appeared. It will take the first place on the rota of messages, like this:

(new message) 543 12
824 4
695 13
771 11
372 12
524 10

Note also that the last message on the previous day's rota has dropped off the bottom. If we look at the rota for several days the picture becomes clearer:
SUN     MON      TUE       WED        THU       FRI      SAT       SUN
997 11   717 12   233 17    622 10     117 11   697 9   335 12   477 12
524 8     977 11   717 12    233 17     622 10  117 11  697 9     335 12
543 11   524 8     997 11    717 12     233 17   622 10 117 11   697 9
771 22   543 11   524 8      997 11     717 12   233 17  622 10  117 11
825 7     771 22   543 11    524 8       997 11   717 12  233 17  622 10
372 16   825 7     771 22    543 11     524 8     997 11  717 12  233 17
543 11   543 11   543 11    543 11     543 11   543 11   543 11  543 11

New messages appear daily and the old ones are discarded. This is not always the case, however. Notice the message 543 11. It is stuck on the bottom of the rota for a few days, perhaps for as long as three weeks. Also, message 233 17 joins it at the end. This sort of thing is a regular occurrence. Presumably the message is retained on the rota until the agent contacts the senders to say that the message has been copied. Then the heading will finally disappear from the rota. Certain identifiers have a tendency to stay around for a long time. For example, 543 messages can stay on a rota for several weeks. Maybe agent 543 or whomever cannot acknowledge easily so the message has to be repeated over a period of time.

Traffic analysis is easy with this station as the number of messages changes considerably. Sometimes there may be only five messages, at other times perhaps ten. Here is a selection of headings and group counts sent over the last few years. Perhaps the changes in traffic relate to events in the real world.

Note: The three figure number is the addressee, the one or two figures after the addressee is the group count.
21MAR90 16APR90 16MAY90 21JUN90 19AUG90 2DEC90
683 6           706 8        853 6       351 7      269 10    352 15
462 11         321 15       307 35     974 9      564 8     563 14
383 7           178 2         923 10    156 12     133 6     868 12
318 12          084 6         321 9      064 18    620 9      935 11
096 8           464 11        243 12     541 13    713 7      736 7
484 11          997 8          582 7     572 13
948 5           563 4           494 8
825 23        688 16
307 19        825 10

Note how the traffic varies. Also, some of the messages consist solely of two-five figure groups. For 20APR91 the traffic for addressee 484 was only 48285 and 36187. It is difficult to imagine what the purpose of such a brief message might be.

Addressees: Here are all of the addresses used by Papa November. The number of different addressees will give some idea of the scale of this station compared to other stations in the same organisation.
007/0 18/040/046/052/057/064/078/084/092/096
109/1 12/126/133/144/156/160/174/178/179/18 1/197
212/217/219/220/23 1/233/238/243/269/275/280/293
307/312/318/321/337/348/351/352/367/372/376/383/399
406/422/438/448/462/464/468/479/484/487/49 1/494
525/535/541/543/544/552/563/564/569/572/58 1/585/587/595
602/6 16/620/637/657/669/678/683/687/688/690/695
706/713/717/725/736/749/765/771/799
805/809/825/843/849/853/868/877/88 1/887/891
905/9 16/923/927/935/948/965/966/974/994/997

Of course Papa November is not listed in any available frequency list and its callsign is not issued by any telecommunications authority. However, there are two numbers stations, indeed, the only ones, that have, on the face of it, legitimate callsigns and these are discussed next.