Shadows of the State

Shadows of the State - A photobook about numbers stations, covert transmissions between intelligence agencies and their undercover operatives.

The Cold War ended in 1991, but echoes of it can still be heard today. One example of this are numbers stations, short wave radio broadcasts of coded messages, believed to be intended for undercover agents in enemy states. Despite originating in the darkest days of the last century these transmissions continue today, with broadcasts occurring daily from countries including Russia, Cuba, and North Korea.


Shadows of the State is a photographic project by Lewis Bush which investigates these mysterious broadcasts and attempts to locate the likely transmitter sites of thirty of these stations. These sites are then mapped using high resolution satellite imagery and displayed alongside radio spectrograms, audio recordings, and extensive information about each station.

The result of this is a 192 page photobook, Shadows of the State, which contains information, imagery and audio from thirty of these stations. The dummy was designed by Lewis Bush and the final version by Tom Mrazauskas. Tom is an award winning designer and founder of Berlin based photobook publisher Brave Books who will published the book in an edition of 700 copies. Alongside the physical book, a dedicated website will house additional recordings, information about the stations, and an explanation of some of the research methods used to produce the book.

Peter Parker Hears a Pirate at the Close of Radio Australia Broadcast

After the ABC and Radio Australia abandoned shortwave frequencies listeners receivers did not go quiet. Instead a pirate took advantage of the audience to broadcast what he thought of the service cuts. 

Frequency: 4835 kHz
Date: 31 Jan 2017

Radio Totse

For the past two days I've received a new New Zealand pirate radio broadcaster going by the name Radio Totse coming from somewhere out of the land of the long white cloud.

What is Totse? According to Wikipedia:

The name is an acronym for Temple of the Screaming Electron.
Totse was a San Francisco website and former BBS dedicated to storing text files on a variety of subjects and viewpoints, many of which were unusual or controversial. 

The original site was closed down by its creator, but the users who call themselves 'Totseans' have clumped  together on the totseans.com forums. This is where one of the moderators going by the name Daktologist or The Dak came up with the crazy idea to spread the Totsean gospel to the globe via shortwave pirate radio. Eh? why not?

He went and got himself an Icom 718 HF transceiver, liberate its tuning dial and here we are today; bouncing 100W of RF radiation off of the ionosphere into your living room.

I'm a little excited, because this is the first shortwave pirate I've directly received in Australia, despite many-many years of trying.

I received Radio Totse on 6925 kHz USB 0747-0836z August 4th 2013 (I missed the start), SINO 3433

I'm using a SDR hooked into a longwire draped over a tree in my backyard.

He played all heavy rock (I'm not sure how this relates to Totseism?) I could ID a few songs, others I wasn't so sure about, not being a fan of this type of music - I'm sort of primordial-garage-punk/postpunk-outsider sort of guy.

• Falling Stars - Serj Tankian
• Mr Jack - System of a Down
• Ghost - Slash & Ian Astbury
• Ghost Along the Mississippi - Down
• Self Bias Resistor - Fear Factory
• Straight Jacket Fashion - Chevelle

IDs in between songs, including requests for reception reports to radiototse@gmail.com. End of transmission with SSTV of the image you can see at the top of this article. eQSL supplied for reports.

I see some people on the HF Underground have also received the broadcast, but it was too weak for them to ID.

Dak tells me he has only been transmitting for a week and intends to put something on the air around 0630-0730z most days on 6925 USB.

Radio Totse on Facebook.

3PR looking for a New Home

During the Anti-Vietnam War days in 1971 two Pirate Radio stations emerged in Melbourne - 3DR (Draft Resisters) out of  University of Melbourne & 3PR (People's radio) out of  Monash University.

A news report on the 14th July 2013 about the 3PR transmitter looking for a home was interspersed with the history of the other transmitter 3DR.  I see a lot of conflicting stories about these two stations, their histories seemed to have merged into one. The transmitter at the top is 3PR & The one below is the less powerful, but more famous  3DR.

Apparently a home for the transmitter has been found, anyway the story can be seen here

Aussie Pirates plunders the Media

From the Sydney Morning Herald 29 July 2012:

Andrew Drysdale is no average pirate. As an information technology specialist, he used his talents to hijack the radio waves, setting up an unlicensed, fully operational radio station out of his Chatswood home.

"Back in the 1990s, I listened to a station called New Wave FM, which played dance music and got live DJs to play on air. I wanted to create something like that, so I set up ABD Radio," Mr Drysdale said.

"It really was a lot of fun until I was shut down in December."

Read more..

Pop-Up "pirate" radio tower going for only $15 000

The Pop-Up Pirate Radio Tower is for sale


Artist and Architect Adam Kalkin has designed a ‘pop-up’ radio tower employing his trademark recycled shipping container. An up-ended shipping container is transformed into a 4-storey tower with radio spire standing more than 12 metres high.


The tower is available for purchase and relocation to the highest offer. Asking price $15,000 ono


The tower has been engineered and complies with Australian building regulation.


Current location : Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) courtyard

more info can be found here: www.pirateradiotower.com

5 Days from Now (zine) - Online at Sticky Institute

Sticky Institute have now put the '5 Days from Now' zine online (see previous post).

(scroll down to see the zine and order)

link