21–30 of 128 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My father regailed tales of his college years where it was a game to have a HAM radio operator start broadcasting and to have teams try to find where they were hiding, first. More challenging? Not really. It does require multiple boots on the ground to do it.
Presumably doing it locally within a known few mile radius is different from nation-scale broadcast areas bounced from god-knows-where?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My father regailed tales of his college years where it was a game to have a HAM radio operator start broadcasting and to have teams try to find where they were hiding, first. More challenging? Not really. It does require multiple boots on the ground to do it.
This seems to be a common treasure hunt game conducted by HAM clubs.
This reminds me of UVB-76[0], a shortwave military radio in Russia. It would be interesting know why they're using this method to communicate covertly rather than beaming down messages to a phone via satellite or something. I'm not an expert on radios, though, so maybe it's not as clunky as I'm imagining where an undercover asset is hauling around bulky equipment. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UVB-76
Like the article says, satellite messages can be traced while radio is broadcast to everyone so it's impossible to find out who's listening. Shortwave radios are also cheap and widespread, so it's easy to get one anywhere in the world and if your house gets searched, it won't be suspicious if you have one.
I always hear this in discussions about number stations, but I don't think this is true in the US. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen a general consumer "shortwave radio". Unless the regular AM band counts, which seems to be medium wave.
I wonder why they keep using a dedicated numbers station instead of embedding the code in a regular radio broadcast on a traditional channel? I'm sure that even before LLMs one could find a way to create a story where certain numbers / code words would be embedded without altering the underlying story too much. And they could probably get BBC / whatever station to air it. It would be a bit less inconspicuous to liste…
I wonder why they keep using a dedicated numbers station instead of embedding the code in a regular radio broadcast on a traditional channel? I'm sure that even before LLMs one could find a way to create a story where certain numbers / code words would be embedded without altering the underlying story too much. And they could probably get BBC / whatever station to air it. It would be a bit less inconspicuous to liste…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Like the article says, satellite messages can be traced while radio is broadcast to everyone so it's impossible to find out who's listening. Shortwave radios are also cheap and widespread, so it's easy to get one anywhere in the world and if your house gets searched, it won't be suspicious if you have one.
> Shortwave radios are also cheap and widespread, so it's easy to get one anywhere in the world I always hear this in discussions about number stations, but I don't think this is true in the US. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen a general consumer "shortwave radio". Unless the regular AM band counts, which seems to be medium wave.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Presumably doing it locally within a known few mile radius is different from nation-scale broadcast areas bounced from god-knows-where?
If you can receive a shortwave signal, you can triangulate the source.
Two receivers of the same signal may not be from the same proximate source. One could from the original antenna the other from a reflection. Both could be reflected but by different reflectors. Even if the proximate source was the same for both the receivers, triangulation might yield the location of a virtual image of the original source.
BTW I am just going by geometry and may be way off because radiowaves behave quite differently compared to visible light.
One might need effectively the inverse of beamforming to nail it.
This reminds me of UVB-76[0], a shortwave military radio in Russia. It would be interesting know why they're using this method to communicate covertly rather than beaming down messages to a phone via satellite or something. I'm not an expert on radios, though, so maybe it's not as clunky as I'm imagining where an undercover asset is hauling around bulky equipment. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UVB-76
Phones usually contain the hardware for radio too, so making sure agents have some set of models for that doesn't sound bad. Even if you had to use a dedicated one having a radio at home isn't that conspicuous? Or in a car, etc