Shortwave Radio Stations

shortwave radio stations

shortwave station blurting out random numbers in Spanish?

I was scanning around on my shortwave radio and I came across a station on 5898khz that was just blurting out random numbers in Spanish. The transmission lasted about an hour and then the station disappeared. Why would a radio station just blurt out random numbers? What is the point of it? I am assuming since it was in Spanish that maybe I was picking up a station from Mexico or South America. Has anyone else heard this mysterious transmission on shortwave?

A great question.

I raised it on Glenn Hauser’s World of Radio and Glenn replied as follows:

“This is a constant transmission heard any night, with very strong signals, probably Cuba with spy numbers. If not Cuba, then US. Why in the world do you think they are random? This is a way of encoding messages, probably with a one-time pad and virtually impossible to break. To say they are random you would have to know how to decode them and then find nonsense. And why would you assume Mexico or South America since they are in Spanish? That language also applies natively to USA, much of the Caribbean, Central America, and with only eleven words ever transmitted, could easily be used deceptively by non-Spanish countries. Blurting? Well, generated mechanically. Can a machine blurt?”

As you may gather Glenn is highly experienced in the world of radio.

Mike