What's this box? Turns out it's a voice generator from the cold war era used for Short Wave radio stations, known as Number Stations!

[image: mfs-sammler, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sprach-Morse-Generator.jpg]

They were used to transmit encrypted messages to spies. This particular device was developed in east Germany in the 70s, it's official, obscure name is "Gerät 32620".

Here's an original recording from the 80s:

I always wondered what machines generated the voices, and was excited to find the technical documentation for this thing, with lots of details!

It uses a microprocessor, digital audio samples, voice cartridges can be swapped, output speed adjusted, it's just a pretty fancy device.

Join me on an in-depth journey through the documentation and as I try to decode the voice ROM dumps of Gerät 32620: https://blog.ardy.io/2020/8/geraet-32620/