G02 was one of the more prolific number stations. It had a stable schedule for its time and rarely ever had any errors in transmissions. G02 was also one of the few stations that never sent a group count, but always sent 100 groups to each agent identified. In the 1990’s it was replaced by a variant called G02a.
Despite being named after the song “Swedish Rhapsody”, this is incorrect and was misidentified for a long time. The station’s actual song was shown in declassified documents as “Luxemburg Polka” composed by E. Reissdorf.
G02 was first observed in the 1960’s, but could have been running earlier since the 1950’s. Over it’s lifetime it was first operated by the Polish State Security (SB), then the Office for State Protection (UOP). It was last heard on April 9th, 1998 and was replaced by E23. Though E23 had a similar voice to E05, they were not related.
Recording Sample
G02’s voice was generated using the Stasi Sprach Machine like many other German number stations, but was usually manipulated to sound much higher than typically heard. If listened to closely, certain characteristics of this machine can be heard (such as the hard R in ‘drei’). Because of the pitch, to some, this station’s voice can sound like a little girl’s, and to others an adult woman.
The triple message format of G02 has 2 additional messages and headers to those messages. The third message is also 50 groups long instead of 100. G02a differed in the way where there was a header (“12345 67890 12345 67890” 2x) in between the interval music.
Originally, G02 had always sent three messages together, but in 1988 it started sending one 100 group messages, and sometimes two.
Previously unknown recordings of G02 from 1991 by Frank from Germany:
Message Structure
G02 can send up to 3 messages in one transmission. The first two messages are always 100 groups long, and the third is 50 groups long if it’s sent.
| Preamble | Message #1 | Message #2 | Message #3 | |||||||
| “Luxembourg Polka” plays from a music box | 59811 59811 10065 10065 27831 27831 |
Achtung 59811 59811 Achtung | 52789 52789 75021 75021 … |
Ende | Achtung 10065 10065 Achtung | 67301 67301 59382 59382 … |
Ende | Achtung 27831 27831 Achtung | 48330 48330 65591 65591 … |
Ende |
| Three 5-figure message headers | First header | Fixed-length message of 100 5-figure paired groups | Second header | Fixed-length message of 100 5-figure paired groups | Third header | Fixed-length message of 50 5-figure paired groups | ||||
| Repeated for 5 minutes | Repeats 3x | |||||||||
Numbers Station Summary
Nickname: Swedish Rhapsody
Activity: Inactive
Emission mode: AM, DSB
Voice Summary: High pitched female voice, generated by The Stasi Sprach Machine (See info above)
Believed Country of Origin: Poland
Family Relatives: M04 E23
Station Family: Family 11 “Swedish Rhapsody”
Sources
Numbers and Oddities Newsletter Edition #200 (May 2014), Page 3
Simon Mason’s G2 / E23 Page (Archived)
ENIGMA Newsletter Issue #1 (1993), Page 4
ENIGMA Newsletter Issue #10 (March 1996), Pages 7-8
ENIGMA Newsletter Issue #15 (July 1998), Page 10-12
The Conet Project G02 Recording
Shortwave Archive 1991 G02 Recordings
