Thread by @Telegraph

Who’s behind the Buzzer? The chilling mystery of Russia’s ‘ghost’ radio station.

Is it sending messages to sleeper agents? Broadcasting to the military? Or simply pumping out static?

@AHABDiggins searches for the truth about UVB-76

Thread 👇🧵
telegraph.co.uk/radio/what-to-…

📻The shortwave radio station UVB-76 – otherwise known as “the Buzzer” – has baffled and chilled shortwave enthusiasts since it was first detected in the early 1980s

🇷🇺Usually it’s just a slur of static. But occasionally there is a barrage of apparently-random Russian words and numbers:

“Ya UVB-76, Ya UVB-76. 180 08 BROMAL 74 27 99 14. Boris, Roman, Olga, Mikhail, Anna, Larisa. 7 4 2 7 9 9 1 4.”

Then it subsides into the same

📻Is the Buzzer a numbers station?

“It’s essentially a frequency used by the Russian military to send messages. As for the buzzing itself, I believe it’s a channel marker – it keeps the frequency open,” Chris Smolinski, a shortwave radio expert has said

📻Some argue that the Buzzer is, in fact, part of Russia’s “Dead Hand” nuclear deterrent.

Understandably secretive, the “Dead Hand” system was developed by the Soviets in the 1980s as a fail-deadly response to the proliferation of nuclear weapons

But Chris Smolinski does not think so.

🗣️“For the simple reason that it doesn’t seem very safe. I don’t think it’s plausible that the Russian government would set their nuclear weapons system on a 40-year-old radio transmitter”

Read more of @AHABDiggins piece about the Buzzer here 👇
telegraph.co.uk/radio/what-to-…