Number Stations Revealed - Part 6 of 6: How To Operate The Machine Manually For Speech

Here's the actual machine behind all the various East-German numbers stations.
This is from a recording I made in May, somewhere in Germany.

This video is part of the following playlist on this channel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xkc_Ig87TnM&feature=PlayList&p=735C68C...

This machine pronounces, in a monotone voice, a string of numbers used by intelligence agencies for one-way shortwave radio communication with their agents in enemy countries.
This machine belongs to a German collector who has a vast collection of various spy-gadgets.
There were many machines of this particular model produced in East-Germany for usage within the DDR itself or other communist bloc nations, like the Soviet Union or Cuba.

In Germany (east or west) this machine was referred to as a "sprach/morse generator", which is German for "speech/morse generator".
In the previous videos I've shown you I mentioned that the speed by which this generator pronounces the numbers can be changed.
Hopefully this video will make it clear why sometimes there were seemingly different "German ladies" to be heard, where in fact it was the same voice but only played at a different speed/pitch.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• radio
• shortwave
• numbers
• station
• espionage
• spy
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• cryptography
• hva
• mfs
• stasi
• east
• germany
• german
• lady
• g6
• g06
• g8
• g08
• conet
• project
• enigma
• 2000
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[inspireit]

How did you get this machine? Any signs where and when it's manufactured and by who?

[PeterStaal01]

@inspireit

See my latest video, Number Stations Revealed - Final: Swapping datacards and the interior, for that answer.

[LiquidMoogle]

It's a bit funny that Eastern bloc intelligence agencies would use machines that are programmed in English even if there was a possibility to change the language of the speech samples.

[PeterStaal01]

@LiquidMoogle

I dont know if the Y/N really stands for the English "yes" and "no".

It would think not, but on the other hand it could make sense.

Maybe this solution was choosen because it was used within the entire Communist Bloc, which had as many different languages as countries.

Picking one language would, in that regard, make sense.

Is it really English? I don't know.

[filmnet]

@PeterStaal01 I have seen Soviet microcomputers in English, because Western designs were copied. Perhaps the GDR copied some computer from the West?

[PeterStaal01]

@filmnet

Thanks for the reply

That would make alot of sense.

It is well known that countries from the Soviet-bloc copied technology during the Cold War wherever they deemed necessary to try to keep up with the technological developments from the West.

[79898325]

Fucking rad!!

[LikaLaruku]

I'm gonna show this to Mr Harrison. We all know somebody who stubbornly believes something despite any evidence presented. Well Mr, Harrison obviously watched way too much Twilight Zone, because he believes these Number Station were recorded between WW2 & the Vietnam War & that the radio is picking up spy stations from the past. ::eyeroll::

[Ryoga2K]

@TigerMojo87 Upon seeing more of this videos, another way they could have put music and other stuff was in the machine itself, for example this machines can carry "symbols" that's were they put the word "END" and in the case of the atencion stations of cuba they put the word atencion in one of those other symbols, I guess that other countries could have devices with more memory that could record a whole melody or even internal tone generators that could be programmed.

[Ryoga2K]

@TigerMojo87 I guess the broadcast facilities were equiped like a normal radio station would, with a tape or another source to transmit the tune or ID and then they would tell this thing to "speak" both connected to a mixer.

[20122017]

nice little box you have :)

[LCduT]

@PeterStaal01 You can see 'yes' and 'no' printed on the buttons too, so presumably it was built for wide distribution. Do you know if the machines also handled the polytones - i.e. the 'XP' stations?

[TigerMojo87]

How did the broadcast it and how did they had music and other tones?