One of the greatest advantages to using “traffic analysis” is that while the information derived is limited, it’s also essentially impossible to obscure. If you’re an agent in the area effected by jamming this absolutely applies. If you’re hearing a jamming signal it’s probably time to destroy anything incriminating and make yourself scarce because you’re getting a not too subtle signal that the authorities are looking for someone.
locations of transmitters are picked up in real time instantly on transmission at least in the united states thats why if you dont want to be sued just have a passive listen only system zero transmission.
I live in an ex soviet country and we still have some of the soviet era jamming station buildings standing. It was a pretty 'big' think back then to make sure that the people here couldn't hear any western radio. I recently found an interesting and pretty technical blog post about how that jamming worked but sadly its all in estonian.
This was tried out by Indian Army Signal units against the LTTE in Sri Lanka. Messages were in the local language often coded. So I.A recorded some of these and played it back on known LTTE frequencies during operations. This caused a lot of confusion within LTTE groups. LTTE all of a sudden started using women radio operators, which kind of made the earlier recorded male voice communication obsolete 😊.
in Spain in the seventies the US had the American Forces Radio broadcast near the American bases. Once in a while the signal was jammed by the Spanish government. It could last from 2 days to a couple of weeks, which indicated what we thought was something going on they didn’t want the population to hear. The jammer always sounded like what I would describe as “frying eggs”.
When you mentioned the jamming of radio stations in Serbia, you could have said something about the jamming of Serbian state TV and radio stations during the NATO campaign in 1999 from Bulgaria and Romania, and also from NATO (American and British) planes. Once, during the bombing of the city where I live, all radio amateur communications on 2M band blocked by a powerful noise generator on airplanes because radio amateurs here exchange information about explosions.
The topic of jamming always reminds me of how tuning through the shortwave broadcast bands in the 80's would subject my ears to the most annoying sounds I've ever heard. They really knew what they were doing back then.
One rule about HF frequencies is Use it or some one else will move in, though not so common today. Most are just tones and noises perhaps with an ID, my favorite in the past was ATT (ITT-MaKay) in White Plains NY repeating their ID almost 24/7 before most went cable and satellite.
Step 1 : build/buy transmitter Step 2 : set same frequentie as what you want Step 3: accidently jam your local secret service Stel 4 : make plan to escape jail
Yeah they jammed a pop station but never jammed the propaganda broadcasts by Lord HawHaw from Germany. Wilson must have been under pressure from the BBC and the record companies.
It's very rare to hear jamming of number stations these days, but mainly hear jamming on broadcasting or propaganda stations such as Voice Of Korea etc. Even the Taiwanese number station V13 rarely is heard being jammed, considering its target is presumed to be China. You never hear the Firedrake go after it.
When I was a kid in Russia I loved listening to voice of America it was heavily jammed, once Soviet Union collapsed the transmission was coming through crystal clear and I immediately lost interest in listening to it lol, in the US today however they often use digital jammer to silence a well known preacher Earnie Sanders sometimes it’s so bad that the entire transmission is unlistenable
Radio Marti transmits a US perspective to Cuba and it's jammed by the Cuban government. I've sometimes picked up the jamming, from the UK, just north of London, on 6030 and 7435 kHz. I guess bubble-jamming explains it!
Why don't numbers station jammers just send out a signal that sounds EXACTLY like the numbers station being jammed, but with random data? I'd imagine the hardest noise for an agent to filter out with his mind is a numbers station that sounds just like what he's trying to copy.
Hey, for some reason I'm not seeing any video on the RUclips app, but I can tell your Lincolnshire Poacher example of "jamming" about a minute into the video wasn't jamming at all. It was just a collision with a broadcast station :) BTW I remember an occurrence from years ago when one of regular E03 frequencies was 11545 kHz. It so happened that 11545 kHz was also used by Voice of Korea (from North Korea) for transmissions to Middle East & Africa, in English, French & Arabic. Sometime in early 2010s they moved to 11645 kHz and they're still active on that freq in the afternoons. And was Firedrake actually every used for number station jamming? AFAIK, Taiwan's V13 is never jammed, even though one of their freqs collides with CNR1 Voice of China (15375 kHz IIRC). Anyway an interesting video on jamming overall. Cheers! 🍻
I have definitely hear some of these sounds. Particularly the one that sounds like when the blue ghosts are running from pacman. I'm going to check my notes. I think I noted down the frequency
One I have noted down of interest is 3243 USB. Siren with rtty in background. Tonight I can barely hear it. But the siren is detectable. The rtty signal is certainly not.
It feels like these number stations and radio shenanigans are living in the past. What exactly stops the number station radio broadcaster from broadcasting on 20-50-100 different frequencies at the same time?
I wish they do that to Radio Havana Cuba on 6000 kHz as well as all stations playing the late Brother Stair (Virus of Shortwave) which he is so annoying to listen to lol. -Cheers!
I still don't understand why numbered radio stations don't jammed by broadcasting recorded broadcasts of the same station. This is much easier to do and will greatly reduce the chance that the message will be received.
Maybe because if the jamming signal is available as a clean source from the regular transmitter (without being superposed on the signal that it is jamming), then it is possible to scale it, delay it, and subtract from the signal being jammed to provide a clean copy of the original signal. That's one reason why white noise is a good choice of modulation for jamming because is has no discernable artefacts that can be filtered out or subtracted away.
Thinking about it, if they could do that, they would consider it a highest grade secret, so we would never know. It's the way noise canceling earphones work, at least in part, but again, I don't know if that generalizes to radio jamming.
Why are numbers stations still used? I'd have thought that there are plenty of ways to covertly send information through the internet, for instance embedding codes into a JPEG image. Couldn't information be sent out without anyone even being aware that it contains covert messages? Obviously I'm missing something because these stations are still used.
There are other ways but these haven’t been made public. Numbers stations are still used because they work and require little equipment from the person receiving. Try crossing borders with a short wave radio and you could come into some trouble. Laptops and other forms of tech draw more suspicion and are always at risk of a search
This is a bit off topic. But does anyone remember a CW station in the 14 MHz band in the late 1970s and early 80s that used to transmit political propaganda related to South East Asia?
Yeah kinda, and there were special radio to receive such broadcasts across country too so the Asia's were able to still recive their news & propaganda.
Jamming of number stations is higly ineffective. Number station are virtually point to point transmissions. You have to know exactly where receipient is located and then choose the location of the jammer. Frequency, time of the day, time of the year and current sunspot activity have to be taken into account. Fruitless job, especially that transmissions are taking place at various times of the day and various frequencies. It's not like jamming Radio Free Asia with fixed schedule and fixed target.
There’s so much wrong with your comment. 1. Number stations are NOT point to point transmissions at all. That is why they’re heard in multiple countries across the world. Some may be used to initiate point to point comms but the numbers stations themselves are not point to point. They are HF stations often using similar equipment to commercial broadcast stations. 2. If you research numbers stations, the majority of them stick to rigid schedules. So much so you could set your watch by them. 3. Receive stations can triangulate the approximate location of the stations and any foreign government wishing to jam the numbers station will know its target, just as we know the target of many commercial broadcast stations. 4. It’s very effective because it has happened A LOT over the years.
We had our own jammer in St Helens, some old bloke called Jack, if he heard anyone swearing on the CB, he'd key them out for an hour or two...
ah those friendly folk of the lower Columbia...
@@fungo6631 I've heard about this a few times lately. You should record and upload it!
@@john_jacob_jingleheimerschmidt 'Old Jack suck my ****' followed by 2h of jamming lol
@@john_jacob_jingleheimerschmidt following
@@fungo6631 care to give a description of what was said?
One of the greatest advantages to using “traffic analysis” is that while the information derived is limited, it’s also essentially impossible to obscure. If you’re an agent in the area effected by jamming this absolutely applies. If you’re hearing a jamming signal it’s probably time to destroy anything incriminating and make yourself scarce because you’re getting a not too subtle signal that the authorities are looking for someone.
locations of transmitters are picked up in real time instantly on transmission at least in the united states thats why if you dont want to be sued just have a passive listen only system zero transmission.
I live in an ex soviet country and we still have some of the soviet era jamming station buildings standing. It was a pretty 'big' think back then to make sure that the people here couldn't hear any western radio. I recently found an interesting and pretty technical blog post about how that jamming worked but sadly its all in estonian.
"Sir, our radar has been jammed!"
"Raspberry...there's only ONE man that would give me the raspberry...LONESTAR!"
That’s going to have a habit of happening when you loose the Bleeps, the sweeps and the creeps
If I wanted to jam a voice numbers station, I would mix four or five old recordings of the same station, and transmit the result on their frequency.
haha I like the obfuscation idea
This was tried out by Indian Army Signal units against the LTTE in Sri Lanka. Messages were in the local language often coded. So I.A recorded some of these and played it back on known LTTE frequencies during operations. This caused a lot of confusion within LTTE groups.
LTTE all of a sudden started using women radio operators, which kind of made the earlier recorded male voice communication obsolete 😊.
@qmsarge surely they would then just use the female recordings instead?
@@qmsarge with current computer tech, this could be facilitated in moments-sample of each number or character sound, and a randomized playback.
in Spain in the seventies the US had the American Forces Radio broadcast near the American bases. Once in a while the signal was jammed by the Spanish government. It could last from 2 days to a couple of weeks, which indicated what we thought was something going on they didn’t want the population to hear. The jammer always sounded like what I would describe as “frying eggs”.
When you mentioned the jamming of radio stations in Serbia, you could have said something about the jamming of Serbian state TV and radio stations during the NATO campaign in 1999 from Bulgaria and Romania, and also from NATO (American and British) planes. Once, during the bombing of the city where I live, all radio amateur communications on 2M band blocked by a powerful noise generator on airplanes because radio amateurs here exchange information about explosions.
The topic of jamming always reminds me of how tuning through the shortwave broadcast bands in the 80's would subject my ears to the most annoying sounds I've ever heard. They really knew what they were doing back then.
One rule about HF frequencies is Use it or some one else will move in, though not so common today. Most are just tones and noises perhaps with an ID, my favorite in the past was ATT (ITT-MaKay) in White Plains NY repeating their ID almost 24/7 before most went cable and satellite.
All my life all I have dreamed of is jamming numbers stations. Imagine my disappointment when I heard that this isn’t an instructional video!
Lmao yea I felt the same way about the hackers dealing with scam callers. Almost went 00 to try and figure out what software they are using.
aren't we all Simon? those numbers station were so annoying we need to jam them when we can!
Step 1 : build/buy transmitter
Step 2 : set same frequentie as what you want
Step 3: accidently jam your local secret service
Stel 4 : make plan to escape jail
7:58 I kept having scenes from The Americans pop in my head. Such a great show.
Reminds me of the jamming of pirate radio by the UK government in the late 60's.
Yeah they jammed a pop station but never jammed the propaganda broadcasts by Lord HawHaw from Germany. Wilson must have been under pressure from the BBC and the record companies.
I wonder if anyone ever jammed by playing "we be jamming - by Bob Marley' haha
It's very rare to hear jamming of number stations these days, but mainly hear jamming on broadcasting or propaganda stations such as Voice Of Korea etc. Even the Taiwanese number station V13 rarely is heard being jammed, considering its target is presumed to be China. You never hear the Firedrake go after it.
Pirates jams the uvb-76 all weekend at night time friday till sunday
When I was a kid in Russia I loved listening to voice of America it was heavily jammed, once Soviet Union collapsed the transmission was coming through crystal clear and I immediately lost interest in listening to it lol, in the US today however they often use digital jammer to silence a well known preacher Earnie Sanders sometimes it’s so bad that the entire transmission is unlistenable
Radio Marti transmits a US perspective to Cuba and it's jammed by the Cuban government. I've sometimes picked up the jamming, from the UK, just north of London, on 6030 and 7435 kHz. I guess bubble-jamming explains it!
Why don't numbers station jammers just send out a signal that sounds EXACTLY like the numbers station being jammed, but with random data?
I'd imagine the hardest noise for an agent to filter out with his mind is a numbers station that sounds just like what he's trying to copy.
After all, who doesn't love a little Spy vs. Spy?
Illuminating and well researched as always Lewis
Raspberry! Only one man would dare give me the raspberry... Lone Star!
Another one of my pet interests. Love these Jammer videos.
I can never get enough of number stations
LOL
why do radio jammers always sound like they're using one of those old timey silent cartoon sound effects contraptions lmao
The sounds from that kind of songs/ effects are much easy to hear on shortwave
Hey, for some reason I'm not seeing any video on the RUclips app, but I can tell your Lincolnshire Poacher example of "jamming" about a minute into the video wasn't jamming at all. It was just a collision with a broadcast station :)
BTW I remember an occurrence from years ago when one of regular E03 frequencies was 11545 kHz. It so happened that 11545 kHz was also used by Voice of Korea (from North Korea) for transmissions to Middle East & Africa, in English, French & Arabic. Sometime in early 2010s they moved to 11645 kHz and they're still active on that freq in the afternoons.
And was Firedrake actually every used for number station jamming? AFAIK, Taiwan's V13 is never jammed, even though one of their freqs collides with CNR1 Voice of China (15375 kHz IIRC).
Anyway an interesting video on jamming overall. Cheers! 🍻
Always a good vid Lewis...one of my favourite subjects.
Interesting, I heard similar noises while listening to a couple of guys talk on a repeater earlier. Nobody else seemed to mind.
Such a strange world this is, about as arcane as it gets.
I love these videos on jammers. More please, if there's more examples :)
The infamous bob marley jammer using the camberwell carrott antenna
I have definitely hear some of these sounds. Particularly the one that sounds like when the blue ghosts are running from pacman. I'm going to check my notes. I think I noted down the frequency
One I have noted down of interest is 3243 USB. Siren with rtty in background. Tonight I can barely hear it. But the siren is detectable. The rtty signal is certainly not.
if I was a secret agent I wouldn't rely on my Amazon radio to receive my secret orders. Its F******G useless . Loving the channel
There was an FM music station in New York
City on 105.1 MHz, known as Jamin' 105 !
Thanks again and cheers from the U.S.
And then I get jammed by commercials!
It feels like these number stations and radio shenanigans are living in the past. What exactly stops the number station radio broadcaster from broadcasting on 20-50-100 different frequencies at the same time?
Depending on the frequency, time of the day, and propagation I think it might be difficult to effectively jam **locally** by **local** transmitters.
I wish they do that to Radio Havana Cuba on 6000 kHz as well as all stations playing the late Brother Stair (Virus of Shortwave) which he is so annoying to listen to lol. -Cheers!
of all jammers, north korea sounds the most terrifying
Another great video Lewis! The bestfrom LB1NH! 🙂
Many thanks!
EE and GG Counting Stations were jammed as well.
All my training with CAPTCHAs could pay off
yellow house speaking of the yugo wars
I still don't understand why numbered radio stations don't jammed by broadcasting recorded broadcasts of the same station. This is much easier to do and will greatly reduce the chance that the message will be received.
Maybe because if the jamming signal is available as a clean source from the regular transmitter (without being superposed on the signal that it is jamming), then it is possible to scale it, delay it, and subtract from the signal being jammed to provide a clean copy of the original signal. That's one reason why white noise is a good choice of modulation for jamming because is has no discernable artefacts that can be filtered out or subtracted away.
Lincolnshire Poacher was jammed a lot.
The Russian wood pecker jammed a lot of us for years.
cant believe people actually use numbers stations when the internet is available !
Spent some time in Cyprus. Know this site well.
I've often wondered why HM01 is not jammed here in the US?
I believe nowa days with new satellite technology government agencies can easily use midget satellite receivers for this kind of secret transmission
Have you any information on the purdown tower in Bristol ?
The view from a drone is very close from the antenna , is that allowed in GB ?
Fascinating.
If they recorded the jamming signal close to its source, could they invert that signal to remove the jam from recordings of the two signals together?
Thinking about it, if they could do that, they would consider it a highest grade secret, so we would never know. It's the way noise canceling earphones work, at least in part, but again, I don't know if that generalizes to radio jamming.
We had jam yesterday, and we'll have jam tomorrow, but never jam today.
If you have jam tomorrow then in a day's time, won't you have jam today? ;-)
@@Mike-H_UK Sadly not, for we have jam every other day, and today is today not an other day.
Thanks for sharing…….
I'm pretty sure that last one was someone playing pac man.
Most are deliberately but some are unintentional depending on what frequency it used
Thought this was going to be about Bob Marley
Hi shot the sheriff but i did'nt shoot the deputy.seriously though nice one lewis
Often the North Koreans do to certain stations
They sure do. I featured a clip in this video
Why are numbers stations still used? I'd have thought that there are plenty of ways to covertly send information through the internet, for instance embedding codes into a JPEG image. Couldn't information be sent out without anyone even being aware that it contains covert messages? Obviously I'm missing something because these stations are still used.
They tried similar idea, and it got agents killed ...
There are other ways but these haven’t been made public. Numbers stations are still used because they work and require little equipment from the person receiving. Try crossing borders with a short wave radio and you could come into some trouble. Laptops and other forms of tech draw more suspicion and are always at risk of a search
Eventually, starlink will make almost all of this obsolete
Jammers aren’t they same anymore. Up up shovel. You’re just not (blows into microphone) strong enough !
It'd be hilarious if China pulled a copyright strike for playing Firedrake 😂😂
I think I'd feel obligated to use recordings of jam bands, interspersed with advertisements for jam.
"not an instructional video" 😁
I'm wondering how a jammer that monitors for a transmission doesn't get stuck in a loop.
I have to say it Paul 😂
@@RingwayManchester Yes, given the types you sometimes attract
Did you get any snow in manchester i din here in walsall
No mate
I were good though
Still have to be aware of ionospheric skip.
Wow, really, and you told me they (number stations) don't exist anymore...
;)
No I didn’t, I said the Duga transmitter doesn’t. Which it doesn’t..
Yep, that was regarding thhe Russian Woodpecker.
I am referring to a much earlier post regarding Number Station..
;)
remind me
(unusually) I'm unable to back my assertion this time.
Cheerz.
;)
There we go
Jamming number stations is very unfair to the expats that play bingo.
Please tell me someone used Bob Marley to jam radio
Bob Marley used to do it in the name of the Lord.
I do this
This is a bit off topic. But does anyone remember a CW station in the 14 MHz band in the late 1970s and early 80s that used to transmit political propaganda related to South East Asia?
Yeah kinda, and there were special radio to receive such broadcasts across country too so the Asia's were able to still recive their news & propaganda.
Jamming of number stations is higly ineffective. Number station are virtually point to point transmissions. You have to know exactly where receipient is located and then choose the location of the jammer. Frequency, time of the day, time of the year and current sunspot activity have to be taken into account. Fruitless job, especially that transmissions are taking place at various times of the day and various frequencies. It's not like jamming Radio Free Asia with fixed schedule and fixed target.
There’s so much wrong with your comment.
1. Number stations are NOT point to point transmissions at all. That is why they’re heard in multiple countries across the world.
Some may be used to initiate point to point comms but the numbers stations themselves are not point to point.
They are HF stations often using similar equipment to commercial broadcast stations.
2. If you research numbers stations, the majority of them stick to rigid schedules. So much so you could set your watch by them.
3. Receive stations can triangulate the approximate location of the stations and any foreign government wishing to jam the numbers station will know its target, just as we know the target of many commercial broadcast stations.
4. It’s very effective because it has happened A LOT over the years.
Firdt
First
@@Mugib You win a jar of Strawberry Jam
@@alzeNL okay where to submit my address