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A comment on Gerät 32620: the machine that powered numerous number stations.

Re:Gerät 32620: the machine that powered numerous number sta... by jacquesm on Tuesday September 01, 2020 @03:27PM (#24345909)
I remember these. The pronunciation of 'five' ("fuennef") alway stood out to me. Listening to the wav file of the voice it's there exactly as I remember it.

There were a lot of weird radio stations back in the day, plenty of them for espionage and command-and-control purposes. Sleeper agents were - and probably still are - a thing. Makes you wonder if there are still people lying in wait living normal lives waiting for the right signal to kill some head of state.

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Re:Gerät 32620: the machine that powered numerous number sta... by gspr on Tuesday September 01, 2020 @03:29PM (#24345945)
Maybe instead of an AM broadcast from a big clunky transmitter, they're waiting for a precisely worded seemingly innocuous HN comment…
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Re:Gerät 32620: the machine that powered numerous number sta... by 082349872349872 on Tuesday September 01, 2020 @05:15PM (#24347153)
The only other sound’s the sweep / Of easy wind and downy flake.
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Re:Gerät 32620: the machine that powered numerous number sta... by jeffrallen on Tuesday September 01, 2020 @03:32PM (#24345988)
Like this one.
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Re:Gerät 32620: the machine that powered numerous number sta... by joelkevinjones on Wednesday September 02, 2020 @01:22PM (#24355466)
The sparrow flies at midnight
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Re:Gerät 32620: the machine that powered numerous number sta... by NelsonMinar on Tuesday September 01, 2020 @05:37PM (#24347398)
The "zwo" for 2 also stuck out. It's a common variant but my understanding is it's not the most proper word. As someone else said, maybe partly chose for phonetic distinctness.
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Re:Gerät 32620: the machine that powered numerous number sta... by DasIch on Tuesday September 01, 2020 @06:20PM (#24347804)
It's indeed used for phonetic distinctness.

The German word for 2 is "zwei", which is relatively close to and even rhymes with the word for 3 "drei". "Zwo" is used to make it easier to distinguish the two.

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Re:Gerät 32620: the machine that powered numerous number sta... by ahartmetz on Tuesday September 01, 2020 @06:50PM (#24348047)
"Fünnef" is / was(?) also used on radio for phonetic distinctness. In English there are "tree" and "niner".
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Re:Gerät 32620: the machine that powered numerous number sta... by Todd on Tuesday September 01, 2020 @04:57PM (#24346970)
This may have been to disambiguate between similar sounding phonemes. English phonetic alphabets used for radio had pronunciations like 'tree' for 3 and 'niner' for 9.
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