Talk:Numbers station

Numbers station was nominated as a Warfare good article, but it did not meet the good article criteria at the time (February 1, 2016). There are suggestions on the review page for improving the article. If you can improve it, please do; it may then be renominated.

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Power numbers.[edit]

The article mentions somthing about being able to spot the cooling facilities of the transmitting stations on satelite photos. I strongly think that this is not the case.

A standard truck has a diesel engine producing some 200kW of output power at 30% efficiency. It has to dissipate some 500kW of power, and does so in the size of a big truck's motor.

"Big cooling tower" is something associated with a powerplant, working in the 500 to 1000 MW range. We're talking 0.5 MW for the transmitter, requiring 0.2MW of cooling power. -- Roger Wolff, april 16th, 2007. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.117.26.61 (talk • contribs) 07:38, 16 April 2007‎

List of stations[edit]

There is currently a dispute about whether a list of current numbers stations should be included. A discussion in the archive only got one comment that said include them if there is a reliable source. I think that the article is more useful with a list of examples. The list is not excessive in size. Many writings on numbers stations do have examples listed. But an anon thinks otherwise. Should we include the list of stations in the article? Graeme Bartlett (talk) 23:26, 8 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't exist on the page anymore, but there was a list a long time ago and it was taken down because this is a general article for numbers stations, a list of stations would have to be another page. Plus confirming their active isn't verifiable, as they change often. Shazepe (talk) 18:53, 9 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'm okay with a sourced list, and please provide a link to a policy or guideline that requires the list to be on another page. DonIago (talk) 15:10, 11 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I own one of the sites used as a source, and I can confirm a lot of the stations that are listed aren't active / don't exist anymore. That's the main problem, it's impossible to confirm their activity all the time. What would be better is a list of the most popular stations, that people are likely to know about - if you want examples on the page. Shazepe (talk) 15:23, 11 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to suggest a little bit of critical thinking towards the ENIGMA designator scheme that was heavily used in those past tentative edits. It may be the most widespread approach to listing stations, and the standard or default one - and a useful one, as there can be good reasons for identifying transmissions based solely on intrinsic elements (such as the voice's gender or language used), rather than outside knowledge about them; but maybe this approach is not suited for an encyclopedic context. The ENIGMA scheme is from another era, when that outside knowledge might have been harder to figure out: nowadays we have widespread access to online remote receiver networks that provide high-quality reception, digital or SDR technology that evidences characteristic spectral features, and even distributed TDoA to track the origin of transmissions in a few clicks!

Major numbers station operators use several language variants, with the same format, the same system, transmitted through the same transmitter from the same location to the same kind of recipient, differing only by the set of voice samples used: does it even make sense to consider and list these as different stations like ENIGMA does, rather than a single one? I don't think so! Especially not in an encyclopedic context. Should this Wikipedia article uncritically assume ENIGMA's point of view and practices? Would it even turn out actually helpful towards writing a good article?

ENIGMA designators certainly deserve mention in a classification section as a major scheme, used by researchers and hobbyists; but it's far from the only approach to identifying and classifying stations, and it should share the section with others that really should receive mentions as well, such as to begin with the pre-existing practices of naming stations by musical intro (Lincolnshire Poacher, Swedish Rhapsody...) or just by voice (English Man, German Lady). I'm amazed, in a bad way, at how the ENIGMA scheme, which is quite notable but still only hobbyist self-published material, is uncritically presented in the article as the sole normative source, down to copy-pasting the same old document enumerating all the language prefix definitions, down to even including irrelevant questionable prefixes like SK or DP. It looks to me like a failure of Wikipedia's neutrality policy.

Not only could that whole classification section be heavily edited and improved; the opinion I'm trying to convey here regarding how to best describe the set of existing numbers stations, is that what the article definitely does not need is another copy-paste of an ENIGMA-style designator list, curated or not. This is Wikipedia, can we think outside the box a little here? Maybe we could include some of this information as a world map of countries where numbers stations originate from: with different colors for active, inactive, putative/disputed, confirmed by official records... If there's a consensus that more major, active stations really need to be featured, maybe we could include actual recordings rather than just naming names?...

Another path: maybe some of the information hodgepodge already present in the introduction could be reworked and expanded into proper sections, containing properly sourced mentions of declassified documents, court cases or former spy testimonies that account for particular, characteristic instances of numbers stations. Contrary to popular belief there's plenty enough material, for example the article doesn't even mention yet the Anschlag spy case or Kim Hyon-hui! Don't you agree that mentioning this kind of sourced accounts, based in tangible reality, connected to official intelligence agencies, would be more valuable than mentioning the corresponding "XPA" or "M40" designators among an abstract list? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.64.25.168 (talk) 03:19, 30 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I found https://mobile.twitter.com/hypoprosexia is it possible it’s a numbers station as well? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.140.137.120 (talk) 18:31, 17 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It is not a station is it! It does send out numbers, but they differ from the style sent by numbers stations, which are normally fixed sized groups of digits. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 04:29, 30 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Additional Reference[edit]

The TV show "Hunters" also made a reference in Season 1 Episode 6.

Given the number of reference, maybe a bullet list ordered by date would be better?

Dudecorp (talk) 22:02, 24 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Please see WP:IPCV. An independent source noting the reference is required for inclusion. DonIago (talk) 03:01, 25 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

A huge list of mentions of these has been removed in the past. So the mention in a film/book etc needs to be supported by an independent reference. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 13:39, 27 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

References in media[edit]

Imagine if the article on Beer listed every book, movie, and TV show ever made where beer had a noticeable presence. Should we really have this sort of cross-reference/concordance? Seems like an indiscriminate list to me. Largoplazo (talk) 17:38, 27 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

WP:IPCV addresses this handily. We should only be listing items that have been discussed by third-party sources. DonIago (talk) 20:23, 27 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Could numbers stations be considered illegal?[edit]

Most numbers stations do not have a callsign. Radio stations need to have a callsign and a valid license or else the station is unlicensed and pirated. Can numbers stations be pirated stations in that case?

I also say this when the stations were likely broadcast to agents to decode numbers, which is illegal, which concerns me. 66.190.244.82 (talk) 05:07, 26 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Can you elaborate on how your concerns relate to making edits to the article? DonIago (talk) 06:35, 26 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Considering that number stations could be operated by intelligence officers (who work for the military), I would say that the government probably has an exception for government-related operations. Someone-123-321 (I contribute) 09:03, 30 January 2023 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Someone-123-321 (talk • contribs) [reply]