The Lincolnshire Poacher

April 23, 2006... Da Capo's annual Best Music Writing is always worth a read. The highlight of the 2005 edition is the chilling tale of Akin Fernandez.

Late one night in 1992, Fernandez, a British shortwave enthusiast, stumbled across an odd broadcast consisting of nothing more than repeated series of numbers. Curious as to why anyone would bother to broadcast such nonsense, he sought out, and eventually found, other "numbers stations." The language of the broadcasts would vary from time to time and from frequency to frequency. Often, the broadcasts would consist of repeated series of letters from a phonetic alphabet or of morse code rather than numbers. Occasionally, they would begin with short, repeated snippets of music. The parties involved never identified themselves.

Fernandez began taping the transmissions, which he has since released as a four-CD collection called The Conet Project. He also began looking for an explanation. To find out what he discovered, and to better understand what I was driving at with my cryptic April 14 post, go here.

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