G08 was a numbers station operated by the East German Ministry for State Security (Stasi). The station was first spotted in the early 1970’s. It was transmitted from Zeesan and remotely controlled from Wernsdorf. The voice utilized the Stasi Machine and it’s variants used another automated voice generated by other means. The other voice generation method did not read the hard r in “drei” and read “zero” instead of “null.” G08 was last heard on May 9th, 1990 shortly before the German unification.
The use of Trennung for this station in the call up wasn’t used to indicate group count after the call up, but for how many minutes after the beginning of the transmission the message for the intended agents is to start. Example: 66113/05 means a message for agent 66113 would start 5 minutes on the hour. When the agent’s message was ready, the Trennung changed into a group count.
Message Sample
Message Format
| Preamble | Message | Outro | |||||||
| 4-note rising scale | 75930 | “Trennung” | 12 | “Achtung” | 75930 | “Trennung” | 28 | 47233 47233 38192 38192 … |
“Ende” |
| Interval notes | 5-digit recipient ID |
Minutes past the hour when the message transmitted |
5-digit recipient ID | Group Count | 5-figure paired groups |
||||
| Repeated with different data for multiple messages | Repeated for each message with different data | ||||||||
| Repeated for 5 minutes |
Repeated for 5 minutes | ||||||||
Schedule
G08 transmitted twice in the morning and evening at within the time-frames listed below starting on the hour or half hour. If the transmission went on for over 25 minutes, then the next transmission followed on the next available half hour time slot. The message repeated two hours after the first one.
Morning
0700 to 1000 UTC on 6453 kHz
0900 to 1200 UTC on 5821 kHz (Repeat of 1st message)
Evening
1900 to 2200 UTC on 3217 kHz
2100 to 0000 UTC on 3820 kHz (Repeat of 1st message)
Numbers Station Summary
Nickname: 4 Note Rising Scale
Activity: Inactive, since 1990
Emission mode: AM
Voice Summary: Female German circuit on the Sprach/Morse Maschine. Also used a different voice (from another machine) that did not have the hard ‘drrrrei’ and said ‘zero’ instead of ‘null’.
Believed Country of Origin: East Germany
Counterpart Stations: G03, M49, G01(?), M41(?)
Station Family: Family 17 “DDR”
G08a
Nicknamed “A”, G08a was a G08 variant that also sent Morse code. It was noted using a different non-Stasi machine voice using ‘zero’ instead of ‘null’. Sent “A” in slow Morse, then a 5 figure group (#####), and finished with a long interval tone for 2 minutes.
G08b
Nicknamed “Rapid Dots” G08b was a G08 variant using rapid dots instead of usual 4 note. Structure was the same otherwise. Also was noted with a different non-Stasi machine voice using ‘zero’ instead of ‘null’.
Sources
Secret Signals by Simon Mason (1991), See Web Version
ENIGMA 2000 Active Stations List V1.3, Page 31
Simon Mason’s Website, G8 4-Note
