The information concerning language and translation in the previous post regarding the Vietnamese numbers station has been double and triple checked and is as accurate as I can get it.
I wish I could say the same for the frequency and time log. I copied some stuff off a file name I'd given the recording, and made a major boo-boo. [Red face.]
Yes, the frequency is 10255, same one they always use. And the time is around 1600 UTC, 9 AM PDT, same slot as always. Actually, Token out on the desert has a 1604 start for this one, and there's no reason not to believe him, since I don't believe I ever put a time in my log.
Sorry about that. Thanks to Original Token for pointing out this rather embarrassing mess up. It's been changed in the previous post.
Showing posts with label viet nam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label viet nam. Show all posts
Friday, June 18, 2010
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Vietnamese Numbers Translated!
A native Vietnamese speaker, who has worked as a translator in the United States, has listened to my recording of the 10255 kHz ~1600 UTC "numbers" station.
This translation contains some new information. It also corroborates other details that were posted to the ENIGMA 2000 group.
Here's her report. Italicized numbers are for my own footnotes.
[1] The translator used by an ENIGMA 2000 member also said the voice was in a Northern dialect.
[2] Possibilities:
Đảo Sơn Ca, an island in the South China Sea.
Generic for Cay or Key (small island in a group).
Popular Vietnamese record label.
Someone's name, perhaps a singer.
[3] Google translates Hải Đăng as "Lighthouse."
[4] She translated it as "phone number." A colloquialism? Or is it really a standard "numbers" callup signifying a group or message router?
[5] There are indeed 71 groups in the message. I counted. Twice.
[6] This transmission was recorded on March 18, 2010. This is a further indicator that recorded broadcasts are repeated on subsequent days until the message changes.
[7] You have to listen carefully, and the number at the end really is different than the one at the beginning. I wonder if this is true for other broadcasts.
This translation contains some new information. It also corroborates other details that were posted to the ENIGMA 2000 group.
Here's her report. Italicized numbers are for my own footnotes.
I just listened to the audio. It sounds like they were making an announcement using coding. And I don't know exactly where it comes from but it's a Northern Vietnamese voice. [1] Here's the translation:
Sơn Ca gọi Hải Đăng năm hai năm ba (x9)
"Son Ca [2] is calling Hai Dang [3] 5253"
Số điện sông năm tám hai hai (x3)
"Phone number: 05822" [4]
Số nhóm bảy một (x3)
"Number of groups: 71" [5]
Ngày [?] ba chín số một trong (once)
"Date: 3/9/2010" [6]
Nội dung của đầu (x3)
"Content's beginning:"
[message in 5F groups, no repeat] 05711 21249 05433 56985.....12289
Sơn Ca gọi Hải Đăng năm năm năm eigh
"Son Ca is calling Hai Dang 5558." [7]
[1] The translator used by an ENIGMA 2000 member also said the voice was in a Northern dialect.
[2] Possibilities:
Đảo Sơn Ca, an island in the South China Sea.
Generic for Cay or Key (small island in a group).
Popular Vietnamese record label.
Someone's name, perhaps a singer.
[3] Google translates Hải Đăng as "Lighthouse."
[4] She translated it as "phone number." A colloquialism? Or is it really a standard "numbers" callup signifying a group or message router?
[5] There are indeed 71 groups in the message. I counted. Twice.
[6] This transmission was recorded on March 18, 2010. This is a further indicator that recorded broadcasts are repeated on subsequent days until the message changes.
[7] You have to listen carefully, and the number at the end really is different than the one at the beginning. I wonder if this is true for other broadcasts.
Saturday, June 05, 2010
Introducing the Utility Nerd
L.A. Times has a long article about a blogger in Santa Barbara, CA, who goes by "Scanner Guy." He writes rambles about stuff he hears on his police scanner.
I decided HF utility deserved its own recognition. Enter The Utility Nerd. Most of this blog's readers look for information, frequencies, and numbers, and they will continue to get these. For the rest - it's The Utility Nerd.
---------
10255 kHz has been on all day. I do my Morning Viet Nam Check daily at 9:00 AM local, 1600 UTC. (Vietnamese "Lighthouse" numbers station, USB, somewhere in SE Asia.) Actually, I do it at 1555, because this guy is always early. 1557 or 1558 are typical. (REAL Utility Nerds are obsessive-compulsive about setting clocks to WWV. There is a BIG difference between 1557 and 1558!)
Lately it's been recordings of a really wired guy who sounds as if he's in an awful hurry to get through it. Shout-out to the agency responsible for these transmissions: Get a computer voice synthesizer, OK? There have to be cheap ports of DECTalk out there. Many of us miss Perfect Paul, and you can help us here. It would also force you to broadcast in English, and I'd have less trouble trying to get "Sung hai bos, hai dang, numnum numbai" translated.
(Don't laugh, several agencies have been known to follow what we're speculating about them. Really. I wouldn't lie to you.)
Now... this Viet Nam numbers guy. Shouldn't ENIGMA be giving this thing a designator, so I can stop calling it the Vietnamese Lighthouse Station, since that's probably wrong anyway? One native speaker seems to think "Lighthouse" is actually the station/ group/ whatever being called, not the caller.
The speculation over whether this was a shipping company started largely because there was a company, vessel, or something over there called Hai Dang (Lighthouse). Well, yeah. Viet Nam is a coastal nation. It's a little skinny thing sort of like a partially deflated California, with a lot of coast. It has MANY lighthouses. Something like 80 of them.
Their culture is as big on lighthouses as ours is. You know, we have a lot of references to lighthouses in our culture. They can mean beacons, guidance, leadership, enlightenment, divine grace, rallying places, protection from danger etc etc etc etc. Well, they have all these too.
It would be like saying that, since there has to be a Lighthouse Gospel Mission somewhere in the USA, that the Vietnamese numbers station is a religious broadcast. Wouldn't that be a hoot? Some cult in Westminster, CA might be frantically scribbling down numbers and looking for their one-time pads. But not likely.
Just saying.
I decided HF utility deserved its own recognition. Enter The Utility Nerd. Most of this blog's readers look for information, frequencies, and numbers, and they will continue to get these. For the rest - it's The Utility Nerd.
---------
10255 kHz has been on all day. I do my Morning Viet Nam Check daily at 9:00 AM local, 1600 UTC. (Vietnamese "Lighthouse" numbers station, USB, somewhere in SE Asia.) Actually, I do it at 1555, because this guy is always early. 1557 or 1558 are typical. (REAL Utility Nerds are obsessive-compulsive about setting clocks to WWV. There is a BIG difference between 1557 and 1558!)
Lately it's been recordings of a really wired guy who sounds as if he's in an awful hurry to get through it. Shout-out to the agency responsible for these transmissions: Get a computer voice synthesizer, OK? There have to be cheap ports of DECTalk out there. Many of us miss Perfect Paul, and you can help us here. It would also force you to broadcast in English, and I'd have less trouble trying to get "Sung hai bos, hai dang, numnum numbai" translated.
(Don't laugh, several agencies have been known to follow what we're speculating about them. Really. I wouldn't lie to you.)
Now... this Viet Nam numbers guy. Shouldn't ENIGMA be giving this thing a designator, so I can stop calling it the Vietnamese Lighthouse Station, since that's probably wrong anyway? One native speaker seems to think "Lighthouse" is actually the station/ group/ whatever being called, not the caller.
The speculation over whether this was a shipping company started largely because there was a company, vessel, or something over there called Hai Dang (Lighthouse). Well, yeah. Viet Nam is a coastal nation. It's a little skinny thing sort of like a partially deflated California, with a lot of coast. It has MANY lighthouses. Something like 80 of them.
Their culture is as big on lighthouses as ours is. You know, we have a lot of references to lighthouses in our culture. They can mean beacons, guidance, leadership, enlightenment, divine grace, rallying places, protection from danger etc etc etc etc. Well, they have all these too.
It would be like saying that, since there has to be a Lighthouse Gospel Mission somewhere in the USA, that the Vietnamese numbers station is a religious broadcast. Wouldn't that be a hoot? Some cult in Westminster, CA might be frantically scribbling down numbers and looking for their one-time pads. But not likely.
Just saying.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Vietnamese Numbers Mystery Continues
The latest ENIGMA2000 newsletter #EN58 has some great stuff in it regarding the mysterious numbers station that broadcasts short 5F messages daily around 1600 UTC (plus or minus three minutes), in Vietnamese.
ENIGMA2000 notes, on page 3, that their Vietnamese speakers have been unavailable. One is in Viet Nam. Funny they should bring that up. That's where mine is too. There's a big Vietnamese community in SoCal, and so I'll keep at it.
(A post on UDXF mentioned that a different (as in available) Vietnamese speaker has listened to one of the many recordings in existence. They thought the radio announcer's dialect sounded northern, maybe the Hanoi area.)
Page 11 has an excellent research result sent to ENIGMA2000 by a California listener who goes by Token. He's done a lot of grunt work on this one. He's out on the (quiet) desert with good equipment, knowledge of how to use it, and my dream antenna - a rhombic pointed at Asia. I could sort out the Japanese fishery fax in a hurry with one of THOSE puppies up in the air, dominating our entire suburban neighborhood, with poles sunk into neighbor's flower gardens, keeping lightning away from everyone's houses... but that's not important now.
He mentions that a shipping company might not have a lot of reasons to repeat a broadcast 30 times. I tend to agree that, until we get something definitive, it's safest to assume it's some kind of encrypted transmission sent to or from Viet Nam, for the purpose of passing coded information of a highly sensitive nature to an unknown person or persons whose identities are not for public knowledge.
Either that, or someone who listened to Conet once too often.
More when we get it.....
ENIGMA2000 notes, on page 3, that their Vietnamese speakers have been unavailable. One is in Viet Nam. Funny they should bring that up. That's where mine is too. There's a big Vietnamese community in SoCal, and so I'll keep at it.
(A post on UDXF mentioned that a different (as in available) Vietnamese speaker has listened to one of the many recordings in existence. They thought the radio announcer's dialect sounded northern, maybe the Hanoi area.)
Page 11 has an excellent research result sent to ENIGMA2000 by a California listener who goes by Token. He's done a lot of grunt work on this one. He's out on the (quiet) desert with good equipment, knowledge of how to use it, and my dream antenna - a rhombic pointed at Asia. I could sort out the Japanese fishery fax in a hurry with one of THOSE puppies up in the air, dominating our entire suburban neighborhood, with poles sunk into neighbor's flower gardens, keeping lightning away from everyone's houses... but that's not important now.
He mentions that a shipping company might not have a lot of reasons to repeat a broadcast 30 times. I tend to agree that, until we get something definitive, it's safest to assume it's some kind of encrypted transmission sent to or from Viet Nam, for the purpose of passing coded information of a highly sensitive nature to an unknown person or persons whose identities are not for public knowledge.
Either that, or someone who listened to Conet once too often.
More when we get it.....
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
10255 Vietnamese Numbers Continue Daily
The Vietnamese numbers station on 10255 has settled into something of a routine. First callup is usually right at 1558 UTC. Perhaps someone's clock is a bit off. Transmissions are repeated, but on an irregular schedule. Today, we had three repetitions right together. This seems to be the most common.
The signal is very strong (S9 +10 dB today) on the West Coast, conditions permitting, and weaker in Europe.
This is one of the more compelling "numbers" finds in quite a while. It's daily, on 10255 kHz USB. We really need a speaker of Vietnamese to hear the recordings and figure this out. My own recording has been sent to Monitoring Times and will appear on the magazine's web site at some unknown time in the future.
The signal is very strong (S9 +10 dB today) on the West Coast, conditions permitting, and weaker in Europe.
This is one of the more compelling "numbers" finds in quite a while. It's daily, on 10255 kHz USB. We really need a speaker of Vietnamese to hear the recordings and figure this out. My own recording has been sent to Monitoring Times and will appear on the magazine's web site at some unknown time in the future.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
New Vietnamese Numbers Station on 10255!
A new "numbers" station has begun regular broadcasting on 10255 kHz USB at approximately 1600 UTC. Transmissions are in Vietnamese.
Leif Dehio, in Germany, made the first discovery in late February. Since then, it has been heard in the Western US, and other places.
The schedule, if that's what it can be called, is a bit irregular. If there's going to be a transmission at all, it starts sometime between 1555 and 1615, though one person reported a transmission at 1700.
Male and female voices have been heard. These sound live. A typical transmission goes as follows:
Callup #1
First message, in 5-figure groups
Callup #2
Message #2
Announcement
End of transmission
It is not known whether this broadcast is for spies, or coded messages to the fishery. ENIGMA2000 is on the case.
More when we get it.
Leif Dehio, in Germany, made the first discovery in late February. Since then, it has been heard in the Western US, and other places.
The schedule, if that's what it can be called, is a bit irregular. If there's going to be a transmission at all, it starts sometime between 1555 and 1615, though one person reported a transmission at 1700.
Male and female voices have been heard. These sound live. A typical transmission goes as follows:
Callup #1
First message, in 5-figure groups
Callup #2
Message #2
Announcement
End of transmission
It is not known whether this broadcast is for spies, or coded messages to the fishery. ENIGMA2000 is on the case.
More when we get it.
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