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Gerät 32620: the machine that powered numerous number stations

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Re: Gerät 32620: the machine that powered numerous number stations

#61

Post by CrLf »

CalChris wrote: post #27
audiometry wrote: post #2

Would love to have a bit of numbers station-related hardware. The weirdness and mystery of These stations has teased me for decades.

These days, it can be done with a Raspberry Pi: https://www.instructables.com/id/Broadcast-Your-Own-Number-S...

Just be aware that using the Pi to broadcast FM like that (without additional filtering hardware) produces a lot of noise (it doesn't just broadcast in the intended frequency, but also a lot of harmonics) and may interfere with legitimate signals.

Having said this, we used it for a challenge at a local conference last year to great amusement. :)

Re: Gerät 32620: the machine that powered numerous number stations

#62

Post by formerly_proven »

flohofwoe wrote: post #19

> What I find quite surprising: The keyboard and output of the device mostly uses English words. A bit unexpected for a device developed in eastern Germany for use in the Soviet Union; I would rather have expected Russian there. This isn't all that surprising, the Lingua Franca for electronics and software development in Eastern Germany was also English, not Russian (or rather a mix of German and English, with much m…

This then seems to be specifically East German, since West German electronics were entirely self-sustained till the 90s or so, so the entire education and engineering used German and German only. (And oh-my, it's beautiful. Much more expressive than English EE jargon.) Computing, well they (Siemens, Nixdorf and some others) tried, and found their niches outside personal computing (Mainframes, industrial control systems).

Perhaps it was easier for them to get a hold on western/international electronics instead of West German stuff.

Re: Gerät 32620: the machine that powered numerous number stations

#64

Post by flatfilefan »

pvg wrote: post #37
jacquesm wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So far @textfiles has traced that quote back to '65, give him another hour or so and I fully expect him to come up with a fragment from the dead sea scrolls or some fragment in Linear-A hewn into a rock.

Heh, the last bit - that the Chinese part is a later modification I think I could have told you myself. I wouldn't be too surprised if there's a pre-WW2 variant of some sort. But I doubt it's actually a 'quote' with an origin you can pinpoint any better than many such aphorisms like 'we pretend to work and they pretend to pay us'. Googling the last bit took me to a reddit post in a socialism subreddit that questioned…

It really makes sense for Germany in this edition: The optimists in West Germany learn Russian the pessimists - Chinese.

Re: Gerät 32620: the machine that powered numerous number stations

#65

Post by grishka »

lb1lf wrote: post #58
flir wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wandered around the Polytechnic Museum in Moscow a couple of decades ago, thinking, at so many of the technology exhibits, "that looks reeeeeeaaally familiar".

-As did I, chuckling at the 'built with foreign documentation' label affixed to many of the exhibits, in particular in the consumer electronics exhibition. Chuckle turned to laugh when I looked at the replica H-bomb in the lobby before leaving - first, a label stating 'Replica. Does not contain explosives.' Beneath this label? Another, stating 'built with foreign documentation.'

I probably should visit this museum the next time I come to Moscow for whatever reason.

Re: Gerät 32620: the machine that powered numerous number stations

#66

Post by joelkevinjones »

gspr wrote: post #33
jacquesm wrote: post #32

I remember these. The pronunciation of 'five' ("fuennef") alway stood out to me. Listening to the wav file of the voice it's there exactly as I remember it. There were a lot of weird radio stations back in the day, plenty of them for espionage and command-and-control purposes. Sleeper agents were - and probably still are - a thing. Makes you wonder if there are still people lying in wait living normal lives waiting f…

Maybe instead of an AM broadcast from a big clunky transmitter, they're waiting for a precisely worded seemingly innocuous HN comment…

The sparrow flies at midnight
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