Lincolnshire Poacher Off Air

After decades of broadcasting, the Lincolnshire Poacher numbers station (E3 voice) has gone off-air. Numbers stations are used by intelligence agencies to transmit encrypted messages to agents in foreign countries. These shortwave stations send streams of numbers or letters by Morse or voice.

The Lincolnshire Poacher is probably the best know numbers station ever. Nicknamed after the English folk song that is used as introduction signal, each of its transmissions starts with repeating the melody and a call sign group, followed by a message of exactly 200 groups of five numbers, spoken by an electronic English-accented female voice. Every single day, each hour, from 1200 to 2200 UTC on different frequencies.

With its transmissions in voice and on such a regular basis, it was easy to capture with a small shortwave radio. The station apparently transmits from the RAF Akrotiri basis in Cyprus and is believed to be operated by the British Secret Intelligence Service. The reason for fixed number of 200 groups is probably that they always send numbers to keep the lines active and ready for use when required, and opponents who monitor the station won't notice any difference when message traffic changes or increases.

The station is inactive since the end of June 2008 and whether the station will reappear is unknown. It's Asian twin station, the Cherry Ripe has also gone off-air. I encourage the readers to help tracking the station and hopefully find out when and on which frequencies it comes back. Although a decrease of active stations is noticed since the end of the Cold War, intelligence work is far from decreasing in the current global situation, and numbers stations are still active and useful in some circumstances. The Lincolnshire Poacher is a true monument of Cold War spy stations and let's hope this mysterious station will get active again.

On my website you can find more information about these mysterious numbers stations, listen to some recordings and visit additional links. Download the BBC program 'Tracking the Lincolnshire Poacher' about numbers stations on Simon Masons Shortwave Espionage (archived page).

For those who want to help tracking the Lincolnshire Poacher, it was received very clear across Europe and the Middle-East. Its last known broadcast schedule was each day from 1200 to 2200 UTC on the following shortwave frequencies in Khz: 5422 - 5746 - 6485 - 6900 - 6959 - 7337 - 7755 - 8464 - 9251 - 10426 - 11545 - 12603 - 13375 - 14487 - 15682 - 16084

Update: it's reported that the Cherry Ripe is still in the air. Nothing heard of the LP for now.

Enigma in 5 minutes

Here's a pretty nice demonstration by Nadia Baker on how the Enigma cipher machine works. Nadia is a member of the Enigma School Project, to get students inspired in maths and code breaking. On Tom Perera's website you can view another 14 minutes video showing how the Germans used Enigma in the field. If you want to try it yourself, just download my freeware Enigma Simulator.

Nadia Baker & Enigma demo

President’s Daily Brief

U.S. President Truman

How does the US president gets his intelligence information in order to determine his policy and make the right decisions? In the wake of the Pearl Harbor disaster, president Truman (image) decided that all intelligence should be collected and centralized by one organisation and that the president would get a daily briefing. This was the beginning of the President’s Daily Brief or PDB.

In the August SpyCast, John Headley explains how the CIA keeps the president posted, and how the different administrations in the past had their own way to do this. John Headley, a former CIA officer, was editor for the PDB for many years and in this interview he reveals some nice anecdotes on how the former presidents preferred their PDB.

You can download the 25 minutes interview on SpyCast (25Mb)

The Cold War

Soviet SS-1 Scud
Tactical ballistic missiles

For some of the younger readers it's difficult to imagine what the Cold War actually was and some of the older readers have quickly forgotten some of the dark moments in our recent history.

 

Although the Cold War is often referred to as an almost-but-just-not war between the United States and the Soviet Union, it was far more than that, and nearly every country on this planet was affected by it. The Cold War was more than spies, nuclear missiles and submarines.

In Europe, the Cold War brought peace and - a bit of - stability for more than 60 years. However, the real face of the Cold War were the many not-so-cold wars, battled out in many Asian, African, Middle eastern and South American countries. Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Iran, Cuba, Angola, Somalia, Uganda, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, and so on. You name it. The list is endless. All of these countries have know many years of war or guerrilla fighting and political, economical or military influence by either the US or the Soviets.

Not surprisingly, many of these countries still suffer from many years of instability and violence, and the post-Cold War era has enabled many ethnic groups, once suppressed by the great powers, to come forward now and claim their rights, either politically or with weapons. Therefore, to understand what's behind the Afghan Taliban, Lebanese fractions or the Colombian FARC, to name a few, you need to know the past, and the Cold War influenced that past enormously.

Many books and web pages are written about the Cold War and one could easily get lost in that jungle of information. Fortunately, there are some very good sites that bring you the complete history of the Cold War in an orderly fashion.

 

The Cold War Museum has a clear time line, presenting the key moments of each decade. Inside the Cold War at the BBC History pages is also a good starting point. Lots of information is also found at the CNN's Cold War series and at the National Security Archive you will find some most interesting Cold War interviews about all aspects of the Cold War with many of the key players. There are several excellent podcasts about the Cold War. Three of them are featured in our Podcast Nuggets series. Higly recommended!

 

If you work your way through them, you'll get a much better understanding of today's conflicts. As we say, you need to know the past to understand the present. Therefore, know your history, or be doomed to repeat it! Unfortunately, it is easy to predict the future as humans excel in repeating their errors from the past.