Product Code Database
A secret broadcast is, simply put, a broadcast that is not for the consumption of the general public. The invention of the wireless was initially greeted as a boon by armies and navies. Units could now be coordinated by nearly instant communications. An adversary could glean valuable and sometimes decisive intelligence from intercepted radio signals:
In the 1920s, the United States was able to track fleet exercises, even through fog banks by monitoring their radio transmissions.
A doctrine was developed of having units in the field, particularly ships at sea, maintain radio silence except for urgent situations, such as reporting contact with enemy forces. Ships in formation reverted to pre-wireless methods, including Flag semaphore and signal flags, with signal lamps used at night. Communication from headquarters were sent by one-way radio broadcasts.
Though there has been no official confirmation (beyond a 1998 article in The Daily Telegraph which quoted a spokesperson for the Department of Trade and Industry as saying, "These numbers are what you suppose they are. People shouldn't be mystified by them. They are not for, shall we say, public consumption." there is little doubt that most of these numbers stations are primarily used to send messages to Espionage and other clandestine agents (additional possible uses include communication with embassies when a crisis might dictate destruction of cryptographic equipment and as a backup to normal command systems in wartime). Other intended recipients of secret broadcasts have faster and easier-to-use equipment at their disposal. But number stations are ideal for spies in that they require no special equipment, beyond a short-wave receiver. Morse code skills, once a staple of spy training, are no longer required.
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