Cherry Ripe is the nickname of a discontinued

shortwave Shortwave radio is radio transmission using radio frequencies in the shortwave bands (SW). There is no official definition of the band range, but it always includes all of the high frequency band (HF), which extends from 3 to 30 MHz (app ...

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 voca ...

that used several bars from the

folk song Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be ca ...

" Cherry Ripe" as an

interval signal An interval signal, or tuning signal, is a characteristic sound or musical phrase used in international broadcasting, numbers stations, and by some domestic broadcasters, played before commencement or during breaks in transmission, but most comm ...

. 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 (MI numbers, Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of Human i ...

. It is thought to have originally broadcast from a base on

Guam Guam ( ; ) is an island that is an Territories of the United States, organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean. Guam's capital is Hagåtña, Guam, Hagåtña, and the most ...

(a US territory), but moved to

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

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 The one-time pad (OTP) is an encryption technique that cannot be Cryptanalysis, cracked in cryptography. It requires the use of a single-use pre-shared key that is larger than or equal to the size of the message being sent. In this technique, ...

. A better-known and more active counterpart, known as the Lincolnshire Poacher, also after an English folk song used as its interval signal, was broadcast from the

eastern Mediterranean The Eastern Mediterranean is a loosely delimited region comprising the easternmost portion of the Mediterranean Sea, and well as the adjoining land—often defined as the countries around the Levantine Sea. It includes the southern half of Turkey ...

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 Royal Air Force Akrotiri, commonly abbreviated RAF Akrotiri (; ) is a large Royal Air Force (RAF) military airbase on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. It is located in the Western Sovereign Base Area, one of two areas which comprise Akroti ...

, on

Cyprus Cyprus (), officially the Republic of Cyprus, is an island country in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Situated in West Asia, its cultural identity and geopolitical orientation are overwhelmingly Southeast European. Cyprus is the List of isl ...

. 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 Humpty Doo is a town in Australia's Northern Territory, situated just south of the Arnhem Highway, approximately 40 km from Darwin. At the , Humpty Doo had a population of 4,313 people. Its local government area is Litchfield Municipality ...

, 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 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is the primary time standard globally used to regulate clocks and time. It establishes a reference for the current time, forming the basis for civil time and time zones. UTC facilitates international communica ...

, frequencies in

MHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), often described as being equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose formal expression in terms of SI base u ...

References

External links

E03a/Ex E04 - Cherry RipeCherry Ripe
on th
Global Frequency Database

on SpyNumbers

* * includes recording Secret broadcasting Numbers stations {{Australia-radio-station-stub