G13 was a cooperative numbers station maintained by the CIA and the West German BND during the Cold War for destabilization operations. It used a German military radio variant for 2 and 9, read as “zwo” and “nuenen”. The 9 variant is ‘nuenen’ (pretty much sounds like ‘niner’). In February of 1991, the voice drastically changed. It followed mostly the same format, but emphasized some numbers such as 5 more heavily. The emission mode is unknown, but was probably USB.
Message Recording
G13a
G13a was a variant of G13 that did not repeat the message groups.
Message Structure
In the 3 figure ID given in the intro, the middle digit indicates the traffic validity of the message. If the middle digit is even, then a real message will be sent. If it’s odd, then the traffic is made up of random numbers. G13 was identified as a CIA station since it followed G05‘s format so closely. The 5 figure group was thought to be a decoding key or OTP reference ID.
| Preamble | Message | Repeat | Outro | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 948 948 948 | 71667 | 122 | Five 1 kHz beeps | 459-01 874-23 946-22 … |
“Ich wiederhole“ | 459-01 874-23 946-22 … |
Ende | ||
| 3-figure ID for traffic validity |
One-time pad reference group |
Group count | 5-figure single groups, pauses after the third digit. |
“I repeat” | 5-figure single groups, pauses after the third digit. |
||||
| Repeated for 5 minutes | |||||||||
Numbers Station Summary
Nickname: Five Dashes
Activity: Inactive
Emission mode: Possibly USB
Voice Summary: Automated woman’s voice. Slow reading and smooth transition between numbers.
Believed Country of Origin: West Germany
Family Relatives: E13
Station Family: Family 4 “Five Dashes”
Sources
The Conet Project – G13 Recording
Simon Mason’s Website “E13 G13 Five Dashes Station”
Secret Signals by Simon Mason (1991) – Archived Web Version
ENIGMA Newsletter Issue #1 (1993), Page 3
