Gong (number transmitter)
The Gong , also known as the ENIGMA2000 identifier G03 , was from the Ministry of National Defense of the GDR operated Zahlensender , which was in operation since probably the 1,973th The broadcasts contained encrypted messages for agents of the GDR in western states, especially in the Federal Republic of Germany. The last broadcast took place on May 9, 1990, a few months before German reunification . The station got its unofficial name "Gong" because of its special tones, which started every broadcast.
history
The station was under the Military Reconnaissance Department of the National People's Army , a sub-organization of the Ministry for National Defense of the GDR. The first recordings of the station documented in the West are from 1973. It is unknown when exactly the station went into operation. The broadcasts took place on the shortwave frequencies 3258 and 5410 kHz every hour or half an hour.
The tone sequence of the gong signal |
The broadcasts were each introduced by a series of eight gong tones in initially descending and then ascending tone sequences, which were repeated several times. Then followed the announcement " Attention!" , followed by a 5-digit code that identified the individual addressed agent or the agent group, followed by separation! and a number indicating the groups of numbers to be transmitted later. This address was ended with another caution! . This was followed by the columns of numbers in groups of five digits that contained the actual message. The program ended with the announcement . ended, followed by a single playback of the sound signal. The announcements were not given as numbers, but as single digits and were made by a computerized female voice in German with a possibly Eastern European influence ( Czech , Hungarian ), so that the transmission or production facilities were also suspected to be in Czechoslovakia or Hungary .
The main broadcasting operation for the agent instruction took place via the "Funkamt der NVA" (AFZ) near Angermünde . The transmitting station was in a forest area near Senftenhütte and the receiving station near the village of Crussow . The transmitter near Angermünde had four powerful shortwave transmitters. Another transmitter station, which was rarely used for agent radio, was located between Dessau and Köthen near the town of Scheuder . For the broadcast operation, steeply radiating trap antennas with a height of over 34 meters, dipole antennas with spans of 40 and 70 meters as well as directional antennas were used in the corresponding operating areas of the agents.
 
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Positions of the transmitters |
The ghostly sounding gong tones from the ether and the long columns of numbers that followed, read aloud with automatic voices, whose meaning and addressees could only be puzzled over, fired the imagination of listeners and political commentators in the Federal Republic of Germany. On May 9, 1990, the last broadcast with agent instructions was to be heard. The last broadcast of the GDR's agent radio to become known to the public took place on May 23, 1990 at 11:30 p.m. The radio amateur Jochen Schäfer recorded them. After the well-known gong signal, however, there were no columns of numbers, but a male voice announced: "Here is the broadcast for the bright child" . Subsequently, a singing from several male voices could be heard apparently from the background, intoning a nursery rhyme:
- All my little ducklings [children's song
- swim on the lake,
- Head in the water,
- Tail up high.
The singing male voices made a drunk impression. Whether this program was based on a meaning was assessed differently. Some saw it as a last humorous farewell greeting from the GDR espionage department, which was already in the process of being dissolved. Others believed that they recognized a request to the GDR agents abroad (“Alle Meine Duckchen”), to dive down (“Little heads in the water”) and, if necessary, to adopt new identities.
Web links
- G03. Archived from the original on June 20, 2020 ; accessed on June 20, 2020 (from UTDX-Wiki, a wiki for DX amateur radio).
- NVA gong station. Archived from the original on December 23, 2017 ; Retrieved on September 3, 2017 (information on Simon Mason's website).
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b G3. www.simonmason.karoo.net, archived from the original on December 23, 2017 ; accessed on September 3, 2017 (English).
- ↑ a b head under water, tail in the air . In: FUNKEMPFANG.DE - The magazine for radio, radio + audio - www.funkempfang.de . No. November 26 , 2007 ( online [PDF]).
- ↑ Claudia Heissenberg: Political Feature: "Warning: five, two, zero, zero, separation ..." Deutschlandfunk, September 16, 2003, archived from the original on July 21, 2017 ; Retrieved on August 27, 2017 (Text of the broadcast of Deutschlandfunk published on Simon Mason's website www.simonmason.karoo.net).