Decades ago I was an avid DX (e.g.shortwave) radio listener / band-scanner / radio ham. At that time, of the “cold war”, tining around the short waves revealed strong German language stations on unusual frequencies starting with four rising notes on a slightly violin-sounding crude electronic synthesizer. This was followed by a woman (dubbed by some as “Magdeburg Annie”) reading five-figure number groups, apparently to spies. Intriguingly, the german numbers were read in some kind of non-standard form, which my german teachers at school could not recognize. To me they sounded like “zvo” (zwie/two), “fun-ef” (funf/five) and “noi-hen” (noin/nine), and maybe another one “trinnif” that I never figured out. I wondered if these were nautical german pronunciations, but now it seems they were East German spy number-pronunciations. So guess that puts my German teachers in the clear!
Anyhow, in a burst of nostalgia, I now want audio copies to use as ringtones on my phone. Google [numbers stations] revealed the following sites linking to downloadable audio recordings (mp3 and wma files):
- http://www.simonmason.karoo.net/page30.html
- Links to audio recordings, a commercial CD archive (used in musical works e.g. by Moby), and many lovely little stories and anecdotes, including various sides of the argument about whether or not the pirate radio station RNI ever sent numbers (for whatever reason).
- Leads on to more recordings at:
- http://www.damninteresting.com/number-stations/