V13 New Star Broadcasting: Taiwan's numbers station on 13974 kHz

What you hear

The transmission opens with music, a short instrumental tune that works as a signature and gives listeners time to settle on the frequency. Then a woman's voice, speaking Mandarin, announces the station and begins reading numbers: groups of four digits, delivered at a steady, patient pace, with the music returning between sections. The reading goes on for a while, the music comes back, and the transmission ends as neatly as it began. There is no explanation, no address, no sign-off that means anything to an outsider.

The name New Star Broadcasting comes from the station's own announcement; listeners who catalogue such signals gave it the designation V13, in a scheme where V stands for a voice station and the number is simply an index. Transmissions begin on the hour and at the half hour, which makes it one of the easier numbers stations to plan for.

Who transmits and why

This is a numbers station in the classic sense, and the classic explanation fits it: a way of sending instructions to people in the field who must not be found with a radio transmitter or anything more suspicious than an ordinary shortwave receiver. The recipient listens at the appointed time, writes down the groups and decodes them with a one-time pad, a method that cannot be broken without the pad. The station is attributed to Taiwan by the language, the signal paths and the long history of such broadcasts across the Taiwan Strait. No government has ever acknowledged it, and that is the normal condition of a numbers station: the whole point is that nobody confirms anything.

What is in the messages is not known and will not be known. A listener hears digits, nothing more. They are sent openly, for anyone to receive, and receiving them is all that happens at this end.

When and where to listen

The station uses a large and shifting set of frequencies. The catalogue lists 7502, 7688, 8169, 8300, 9276, 11430, 13974, 14944, 15250, 15890, 16050, 17000, 18040, 19052, 20025, 20095 and 21000 kHz, and the choice on any given day follows the time and the band conditions rather than a published plan. 13974 kHz is a daytime frequency: on the high bands the signal from East Asia reaches Europe in the hours around the European morning and midday, and the Pacific and North America in their own daylight. In the evening the station is heard more often on 9276 kHz, which has its own entry in this guide.

Begin listening a few minutes before the hour or the half hour and watch the waterfall for the carrier to appear. The transmission is sent as AM, so AM mode is the natural choice when the signal is strong; the program sets USB, which gives cleaner audio when the signal is weak or when another station is close by, and most listeners leave it there. Receivers in Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong and south-east Asia hear the station loudly; from Europe it is a matter of conditions, best in the daytime on the higher frequencies.

In ShackDeck

Station catalogue → Mystery stations → V13 New Star Broadcasting 13974. The program picks a public receiver that covers 13974 kHz, tunes it and sets USB; no receiver, antenna or account of your own is needed. Open it a few minutes before the half hour, and if nothing comes, try the 9276 kHz entry or another frequency from the list.