This one I’ve been into since I was a kid.
Been licensed since 1963; my first license arrived in the mail 2 days before JFK was asssasinated.
Currently hold the callsign W9LBB. Most activity is on 40 meter CW and 160 meter AM & CW.
Primary passion at the moment is so-called “Premium Receivers”, the sort of extreme radio receivers built for intelligence gathering and snooping by various “spook” agencies (CIA, NSA, etc.). Such radios DO eventually wind up as government surplus!
Big names in this game are Watkins - Johnson and Racal. Actually, the radios themselves are easier to get hold of than the technical manuals for them!
Said radios are used along with dedicated digital communication mode decoders (essentially, highly specialized computers) to snoop on military, diplomatic, and commercial traffic, usually sent in advanced and sophisticated teleprinter modes. Also, I chase various voice mode communications (usually single side band) that still abounds on HF radio to communicate with agents… James Bond is alive and well on HF radio! Such comms are used by CIA, Cuban Intelligence, British MI-5, and the Israeli MOSSAD, among others, allegedly for communication with field agents.
Many of the stations also send 5 letter of digit coded groups in CW radiotelegraphy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbers_station
Personally, I’m rather partial to following the exploits of THE LINCOLNSHIRE POACHER, a radio station whose location has been verified on a British military base on Cyprus. It is alleged to be operated by MI-6, British intelligence.
The station is so named because before every message the station broadcasts the first few bars of the English folk tune LINCOLNSHIRE POACHER as an identification signal for any listeners who are tuning in.
http://www.spynumbers.com/profiles/index.html?ENIGMA=E3
Mr. T.