This is a copy of The Numbers Racket CD-ROM, which I prepared back in 1998. I am presenting it here, unedited, for historical purposes. Obviously most if not all of the information is 'out of date' today, but think of it as a snapshot of what the Spy Numbers scene was like in the late 1990s.

Like what you see here? Help support my work by taking a look at my software , and buy something of interest :) It's all available for download before purchase, so you can try it out.

Enjoy!


Enigma Spring 1995 From the Spring 1995 issue of E.N.I.G.M.A


This is Channel Four broadcasting station in Taipei
by Jerod Pore

Every day, between the hours of 0930 and 1330, we West Coast
monitors of strange shortwave transmissions can tune into 8300
khz and hear what has been identified as "New Star Broadcasting".
We hear on this station a series of numbers read in Mandarin.  We
check the WRTH and find that slice of the spectrum to be under
utilized, with a time signal station in Japan at 8000 khz, some local
Peruvian stations at 8003 and 8065.  Local Mainland Chinese stations
at 7935 and 8007, more time signal stations from South Africa, Sri
Lanka and Brazil at 8461, 8473 and 8492, respectively.  South
American and Pacific Island illegal hams frequent the area in
question, as do a few utility stations, but there are no listed
broadcast stations at 8300.

More or less on the hour, usually on the half hour, and sometimes
on the quarter hour, we are treated to an unknown piece of music
featuring violin and flute.  Then we have a woman making an
enthusiastic announcement.  Another woman gives the station
identification, which includes the phrase that, at first sounds like
"New Star Broadcasting, Taipei".  Then, there is some more flute
and violin music.

For a couple of minutes this woman broadcasts something in
Mandarin, in the midst of which I was able to pick out the
occasional series of three-digit numbers.  After she is done,
the first announcer comes back on the air, saying something,
then begins to read a series of four-digit numbers, each four
digit set is read twice.  The numbers continue for varying
lengths of time.  At the end of each series, or the start of the
next series, the woman announces something, then starts the
next series of numbers.  This will continue for anywhere from
five minutes to half an hour.  When there is no reading of
numbers, there is a strong quiet carrier, and on the quarter hour
the music and station identification, another series of numbers,
quiet carrier to the half hour and so forth.

On other days, the numbers have continued for slightly more than
half an hour without a break.  At the end of the numbers, the
woman makes a more enthusiastic, almost revolutionary
sounding announcement.

One morning, I taped ninety minutes of transmissions.  A
friend of mine is from Taipei, and I enlisted her as a translator.
She is unfamiliar with the joys of selective fading, static, jamming
and such, so she could not put up with the entire tape, and
although she speaks the Taiwanese dialect fluently, we realize
that her translations may not be perfect.

My friend could not identify the music used to being the
broadcast.  The first enthusiastic announcement is:  "We are
ready to being transmitting".  The station identification is
"This is Channel Four Broadcasting Station in Taipei, Republic
of China, on 8300 khz".  The word "Broadcasting" is
practically the same in Mandarin as in English - "Station"
is close in both languages, and "Channel Four" could be
heard as an English "New Star".  The phrase "New Star"
has a lovely Chinese flavor to it.  We both understood how
easy it could be to mis-identify the ID.  During the
announcement broadcast times are given.

After the short music break, the announcement that contained
three-digit numbers is translated as, "We are sending telegrams
from the following units to the following units".  Each unit
was identified by a three-digit number.  Most, but not all of
the receiving units were also identified as being "in Japan".
My friend said that unit was the closest translation she
could come up with.

The phrase that prefaced each series of four-digit numbers
was translated as (with bogus numbers for purposes of
example), "We are sending a telegram from unit 123 to
unit 456 in Japan.  Unit 456, please prepare to receive.
The telegram contains 10 words."  The enthusiastic
woman would then read ten sets of four-digit numbers.
The phrase was actually much shorter than translated
here, but refers back to what was previously announced.

The "revolutionary" announcement at the end of the
transmission translates as, "This concludes our broadcast!
Thank you for receiving our telegrams!"  Perhaps she was
just happy to be finished with a twenty-five minute broadcast.

The key concept in all of this is the telegram.  In Taiwan, the
sending of telegrams involves the use of four-digit codes.  If
a telegram is sent over teletype wires, the operator translates
each ideogram into four-digit code.  The codes are then
translated back into ideograms at the receiving end.  This
allow the use of standard teletype equipment, or even Morse
code before teletype was readily available, to send messages
across the country.  When one received a telegram, the codes
appeared below the hand-written Chinese characters.

Now this is a very logical and legitimate explanation for
these broadcasts - the sending of telegrams to Chinese
speaking residents of Japan.  However, the translation raised
more questions than it answered.

First of all, the widespread installation of faxes and computers
with Chinese keyboards has made the coded telegram nearly
obsolete.  They are still sent this way, but they are becoming
rare.

There is an immense data highway running between Taipei
and Tokyo, the bandwidth of which is measured in gigabytes.
It seems archaic to resort to shortwave voice transmissions to
convey this information.  If it were necessary to use radio, why
use voice and not RTTY?  And if it is necessary to use voice,
why the four digit codes being used instead of just reading
the contents of the telegram?

If this information is being broadcast only to Taiwan and Tokyo,
why is the signal so strong on the West Coast of the United
States.

One could classify this as a utility station, so why the musical
introduction?  And why is that woman so enthusiastic at the
beginning and ending of each broadcast?

Channel Four is an interesting catch, and one can speculate
endlessly on its "true" mission.  My favorite guess is that
the broadcasts are intended for the authorities of the People's
Republic, to make them think that Taipei is communicating
with operatives on the mainland.  Beijing may protest, but
there is the cover of legitimacy about Channel Four . . . .

Back to the main New Star page

This is a copy of The Numbers Racket CD-ROM, which I prepared back in 1998. I am presenting it here, unedited, for historical purposes. Obviously most if not all of the information is 'out of date' today, but think of it as a snapshot of what the Spy Numbers scene was like in the late 1990s.

Like what you see here? Help support my work by taking a look at my software , and buy something of interest :) It's all available for download before purchase, so you can try it out.