Numbers station monitors have heard an incredibly large number of different stations with different formats over the years, and sometimes it's been hard to keep track of which station is which. They came up with descriptive names such as "Bulgarian Betty" (which, as I've said before, isn't Bulgarian), the "Lincolnshire Poacher," "Swedish Rhapsody," and others. The editors of the ENIGMA newsletter came up with a letter-number station naming system that can be used to standardize names of different numbers stations. It is a very simple and easy system.

The different numbers stations have been grouped in the following categories: English, German, Slavic, other languages, Morse, and unidentified signals. The letters used for each category is E=English, G=German, S=Slavic, V=other languages, M=Morse, X=unidentified. Each station is given its own number starting from 1 and ending in infinity. Easy, huh? So the English-language station that says, "Ready, ready" at the beginning of each transmission is E1, the "Babbler" is E2, Lincolnshire Poacher is E3, etc.

I think this is an excellent way to keep track of each station and to make sure everybody knows exactly which station is which. There can be quite a lot of confusion as to which stations we are referring to in our loggings just by using one of the familiar names. What we call the "Russian Man" or "Russian Woman" in North America is known as the "English Lady" in Europe. Also, the station which uses a male voice reading numbers in Russian is known as the "Russian Man" in Europe. Confusing? However, if we all use the designator E17, we all know exactly which station was heard.

Below are listed the designators used for some of the more familiar stations. If you would like a complete list, send an e-mail to me at the above address. If you would like a copy via snail mail, send me a business-sized SASE & I'll send it to you. The list is also available to Spooks subscribers by sending an e-mail to [email protected] with the words INFO SPOOKS in the message.

English
E1 - Ready Ready
E3 - Lincolnshire Poacher
E4 - Cherry Ripe
E5 - The Counting Station
E10 - Phonetic Alphabet - NATO Designators (MOSSAD)
E12 - NNN
E13 - Five Dashes
E15 - Phonetic Alphabet - pre-NATO Designators (Nancy Adam Susan)
E17 - English Lady - aka The Russian Man

German
G2 - Swedish Rhapsody
G5 - The Counting Station
G8 - Four Note Rising Scale
G12 - NNN
G13 - Five Dashes
G16 - Two Letter

Slavic
S16 - OLX
S21 - Russian Lady

Other Languages
V2 - Spanish Lady, two or three finals (Cuban Atencion & Finale)
V5 - The Counting Station
V6 - Spanish Lady 00000
V13 - New Star Broadcasting
V14 - The Counting Station "control" transmissions

That's all for this month. I'm planning on going to the Winter SWL fest in Kulpsville, PA in March, so I hope to see you there.

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