Those creepy "numbers stations"

[Charlie]

Last night, I was toying around on the SW bands to see what was on. After running across the dial a few times, I came across one of those creepy numbers stations. I can usually find at least one on any given night. Listened for roughly 10 minutes, then finally turned it off cause it started giving me the eebie-jeebies!

I had a really good magazine article from years ago talking about these broadcast mysteries. Funny to think that after several decades of people studying them, they still haven't quite figured them out. Many people have theories, but, that's usually as far as it gets... just a theory.

For those of you that aren't familiar with what I'm speaking of, these stations are usually found somewhere on the SW band, and the braodcast is nothing more than a seemingly random series of numbers. They are usually called out in sets of five or the 3/2 pattern. May be in English, Spanish, or a couple of other languages.

I found a few good sites concerning these with a little info on the theories behind them if you'd like to read more...

http://www.dxing.com/numbers.htm

http://www.spynumbers.com/

http://www.fiu.edu/~mizrachs/SW-numbers.html

http://www.npr.org/programs/lnfsound...6.stories.html

I have two radios that tune them in really good. One is a small analog tuning 9-band sw radio from Rat Shack. The other is my 1941 Silvertone. Although I do not own one, I would think the Zenith TO sets are great at finding these broadcast.

I was wondering how many of you guys here have stumbled across them while tuning the dial? What kind of radio were you using? For the older generation SW listeners, can you remember how many years back it was when you first found one of these broadcasts? Also, was wondering if anyone here had any theories of your own as to what these are all about?