I was never in on the busy signal thing, but I did do something
similar. Telephone numbers that had the suffix beginning with 99 were
designated as "official" numbers for internal phone company use. As I
recall, you could dial xxx-9929 and have a friend dial xxx-9930, and
the two of you could hold a conversation.
I also had a friend who discovered that old pay telephones used to use
the sound of the falling coins striking a bell to determine whether the
money was properly deposited in the phone. Every evening my friend
would take a cassette tape recorder with a recording of the sound of
the coins being deposited in the telephone and use it to talk to his
girlfriend! He never got caught.
Alan
WA2DZL
On Nov 13, 2004, at 11:13 AM, Jim Isbell wrote:
Speaking of cults. did you ever hear of the cult of folks that
communicated over the telephone on a bussy signal? I tried it once
and it worked!!
I cant remember just how it worked but I think you called a number
that was bussy and then you listened between the beeps for the voice
of another person. The other person had also called the busy number
and the two of you were then connected and could chat between the
beeps. That may not be exact, its been 10 years since I tried it.
What I never figured out was how the other person knew what number to
call, maybe it didnt matter as long as you got a busy signal. It was
sort of like a blind CQ, you never knew who you would get, just some
mysterious voice that appeared between the beeps.
I dont know if it still works or not.
On Sat, 13 Nov 2004 09:02:03 -0500, Alan Cohen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
It seems to me that the cult existed long before NPR ever reported it.
They certainly were not the ones who released a CD of number stations,
nor were they the folks on both sides of the Atlantic who bought the
the things. As noted here by others, people have spent many hours
logging the stations and writing about them.
As a boy, I remember reading Tom Kneitel's articles about them in
Electronics Illustrated. Conspiracy theories about the things have
been around for years.
So yeah, I would say that there was a cult of people who were into
numbers stations. It was interesting to learn that there are people
out there still discovering them.
Hats off to NPR for doing good radio!
Who knows? Perhaps some people out there found that report on number
stations interesting enough to buy a shortwave radio. A few may even
find their way into our hobby.
In any case, it is certainly a lot more interesting than the usual
radio fare. It sure beats the likes of morning drive blatherers like
Howard Stern and Don Imus, the right wing echo chamber of Limbaugh and
Hanity, the semi-automatic no-personality bad music juke boxes that
populate the FM band, and 99% of the other garbage on commercial radio
these days.
Alan Cohen
WA2DZL
On Nov 13, 2004, at 7:20 AM, Mark Foltarz wrote:
Funny how NPR and the liberal media freaks mentioned in the story
can take
something like a UTE such as a number station and turn it in to a
cult! I
remember when I actually liked listening to NPR. Even 'A Prarie Home
Companion'
has gone sour like a bad compost heap. Bummer.
Number stations were certainly used for clandestine applications.
But also
there are more innocuous uses. For example, maritime operators and
other
private industry used number groups to send company (i.e. private)
information.
Only intended recipients could decode the groups into anthing
meaningful.
One might contend "Why use such primitive means in this day of
computers?"
Have you ever worked in an office or other bureaucracy where you see
how
something could be done simpler or better? But no one in the office
wants to
change, or it takes a long time for something to change. This is the
same kind
of latency or inertia. Business usually has to repond a little
quicker
than
goverments.
Ultimately, sending number groups is real simple. The music you
hear at the
begining of some of the number groups is purposely poppy, sugar sweet
or just
plain annoying to make it easily recognizeable to the intended
audience.
Number ststions seemed to be more abundant before the end of the
USSR. So
was woodpecker jamming and 'over the horizon' radar jamming of SWBC.
I almost
miss the buzz saw sound blanketing parts of the spectrum. It was a
real
challenge to hear a station under such a barrage. Around 1989 it all
sort of
just stopped.
de KA4JVY
Mark
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page.
www.yahoo.com
______________________________________________________________
AMRadio mailing list
Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/amradio
Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.html
Post: mailto:[email protected]
______________________________________________________________
AMRadio mailing list
Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/amradio
Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.html
Post: mailto:[email protected]
--
JimIsbell
W5JAI
UV #257
CAL 27 #221
______________________________________________________________
AMRadio mailing list
Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/amradio
Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.html
Post: mailto:[email protected]
