Cherry Ripe is the nickname of a discontinued
shortwave numbers station
A numbers station is a shortwave radio station characterized by broadcasts of formatted numbers, which are believed to be addressed to intelligence officers operating in foreign countries. Most identified stations use speech synthesis to vocal ...
that used several bars from the
folk song "
Cherry Ripe" as an
interval signal. The station, which appears to have commenced transmissions in the late 1960s, is believed to have been controlled by the British
Secret Intelligence Service
The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intellige ...
. It is thought to have originally broadcast from a base on
Guam
Guam (; ch, Guåhan ) is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean. It is the westernmost point and territory of the United States (reckoned from the geographic ce ...
(a US territory), but moved to
Australia in 2009.
Broadcasts from Cherry Ripe consisted of an electronically synthesised, English-accented female voice, reading groups of five numbers, e.g. "3-5-7-6-1". The final number in each group was spoken at a higher pitch. It is likely that the station was used to communicate messages to undercover agents operating in other countries, to be decoded using a
one-time pad.
A better-known and more active counterpart, known as the
Lincolnshire Poacher
"The Lincolnshire Poacher" is a traditional England, English Folk music, folk song associated with the county of Lincolnshire, and deals with the joys of poaching. It is considered to be the unofficial county anthem of Lincolnshire. It is catal ...
, also after an English folk song used as its interval signal, was broadcast from the
eastern Mediterranean
Eastern Mediterranean is a loose definition of the eastern approximate half, or third, of the Mediterranean Sea, often defined as the countries around the Levantine Sea.
It typically embraces all of that sea's coastal zones, referring to comm ...
from the early 1970s until 2008. Many aspects of both stations' broadcasts were identical. The Lincolnshire Poacher used the same synthesised female voice and was also suspected as being operated by the UK government. From unofficial triangulation, its location was determined to be
RAF Akrotiri, on
Cyprus
Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is ...
. Cherry Ripe appeared to assume at least part of the role of the Lincolnshire Poacher, after the latter ceased transmission.
In September 2009, the transmitter for Cherry Ripe was moved to
Humpty Doo, in Australia.
However, in December that year, Cherry Ripe also ceased transmissions.
Schedule
This schedule was accurate as of January 2006. All times are
UTC, frequencies in
MHz.
References
External links
E03a/Ex E04 - Cherry RipeCherry Ripe
on th
Global Frequency Database
on SpyNumbers
*
* includes recording
Secret broadcasting
{{Australia-radio-station-stub