The Buzzer • Hacker News Board

Re: The Buzzer

#41

Post by Achorny » Sun, Jun 06, 2010, 8:36 AM UTC

sabat wrote: post #29

ugh wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Skeptoid has a nice episode on number stations and also “The Buzzer” including audio samples: http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4107

Sorry, but I have to be skeptical about any show that declares itself skeptical. Skepticism isn't good science or good logic; it's just reverse religion. True science does not immediately believe or disbelieve. It investigates dispassionately.

"True science does not immediately believe or disbelieve. It investigates dispassionately."

You may not like the label they chose for themselves, but that's exactly what the skeptical movement advocates! (skeptoid included)

Re: The Buzzer

#42

Post by decadentcactus » Sun, Jun 06, 2010, 8:43 AM UTC

cool-RR wrote: post #39

What happens if you try to knock on their door? Did anyone try this?

Yeah I thought the same thing. It's not terribly far from major cities and it's been there for 30 years, somebody must have tried.

Re: The Buzzer

#43

Post by anujseth » Sun, Jun 06, 2010, 10:55 AM UTC

anujseth wrote: post #6

This is the sort of stuff that makes hacker news awesome. Thanks for posting.

Why does this keep getting downvoted ? I was fascinated by this article, I've never heard of this before and was expressing genuine excitement.

Re: The Buzzer

#44

Post by retube » Sun, Jun 06, 2010, 11:32 AM UTC

This is for ionosphere research, leverages doppler shifting of the broadcast signal.

http://elpub.wdcb.ru/journals/rjes/v10/2007ES000227/2.shtml

Scroll down to "Doppler Radio Sounding of the Ionosphere", note the broadcast frequency.

Re: The Buzzer

#45

Post by jokermatt999 » Sun, Jun 06, 2010, 1:06 PM UTC

sabat wrote: post #29

ugh wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Skeptoid has a nice episode on number stations and also “The Buzzer” including audio samples: http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4107

Sorry, but I have to be skeptical about any show that declares itself skeptical. Skepticism isn't good science or good logic; it's just reverse religion. True science does not immediately believe or disbelieve. It investigates dispassionately.

Listen to the show sometime. The guy actually does a pretty good job of doing the research, and is willing to admit when arguments "disproving" conspiracy theories don't work.

Re: The Buzzer

#46

Post by marcusbooster » Sun, Jun 06, 2010, 1:24 PM UTC

ErrantX wrote: post #2

I know quite a few interesting Wikipedia entries get posted here but this was a particularly fascinating one! I've spent the best part of an hour learning about numbers stations and fail-deadly game theory :) Great submission. On topic: does anyone have anything extra (link wise) about "The Buzzer", Google searches are mostly leading to conspiracy sites...

If you haven't heard it, The Conet Project [http://www.archive.org/details/ird059] is a collection of the numbers stations recordings. Pretty neat and eerie.

Re: The Buzzer

#47

Post by john2x » Sun, Jun 06, 2010, 2:00 PM UTC

L O S T

Re: The Buzzer

#48

Post by mr_justin » Sun, Jun 06, 2010, 2:43 PM UTC

marcusbooster wrote: post #46

ErrantX wrote: post #2

I know quite a few interesting Wikipedia entries get posted here but this was a particularly fascinating one! I've spent the best part of an hour learning about numbers stations and fail-deadly game theory :) Great submission. On topic: does anyone have anything extra (link wise) about "The Buzzer", Google searches are mostly leading to conspiracy sites...

If you haven't heard it, The Conet Project [ http://www.archive.org/details/ird059 ] is a collection of the numbers stations recordings. Pretty neat and eerie.

The Buzzer can be heard on disc 4, track 32 of the Conet Project. The entire collection is a free download.

Wilco's Poor Places uses a sample from track 4 of disc 1, which also gave the title to the album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.

Re: The Buzzer

#49

Post by pyre » Sun, Jun 06, 2010, 5:04 PM UTC

th wrote: post #38

Looks like either someone decided to play a prank or by some odd coincidence The Buzzer went offline just now: http://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/06/06/032235/Mysterious-Ra...

"Chances are, it's a power failure. The area reportedly had a significant storm yesterday. It's possible that the power failed and that they didn't have enough fuel or battery capacity or whatever to keep it running during an extended outage. That would also neatly explain why it reportedly came back and has reportedly died again."

http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1676500&cid=324...

Sounds like it might not be a dead-man's switch if it just takes a large storm to knock it out.

Re: The Buzzer

#50

Post by Scott_MacGregor » Sun, Jun 06, 2010, 5:37 PM UTC

cfpg wrote: post #40

Scott_MacGregor wrote: post #27

You are assuming it is a "Buzz" because that's what your ears "Hear" after it comes out of a speaker and after being processed by radio receiving equipment of a certain design. Perhaps the "Buzz" is not meant to be a sound anyone hears. Maybe it is something more like a dialup modem tone that is acted upon by something other than a shortwave receiver. Maybe there is more to this noise than just buzzing. Maybe the buz…

Aphex Twin style? http://www.bastwood.com/aphex.php

Very interesting. The old transmitters used to work on AM only, then they came up with SSB. Maybe there is an even deeper layer available that can be encoded. Like putting the entire Cat-In-The-Hat book on one of the cats whiskers in "Songs about my Cats". Isolate just one whisker and then run another process on it. Maybe use shades of color vs soundwaves. This is intriguing.