--- title: Listen and read USA nuclear forces Emergency Action... description: This site streams Emergency Action Messages (EAMs), the coded traffic of US nuclear forces, as heard on 11175 kHz shortwave. Recordings come from receivers at... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/listen-and-read-usa-nuclear-forces-emergency-action-messages-heard-on-11175-khz-sxxrmlpif twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Listen and read USA nuclear forces Emergency Action Messages, heard on 11175 kHz | daily.dev og:description: This site streams Emergency Action Messages (EAMs), the coded traffic of US nuclear forces, as heard on 11175 kHz shortwave. Recordings come from receivers at... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/listen-and-read-usa-nuclear-forces-emergency-action-messages-heard-on-11175-khz-sxxrmlpif og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/SXxRMlpif.png og:image:alt: Listen and read USA nuclear forces Emergency Action Messages, heard on 11175 kHz og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Listen and read USA nuclear forces Emergency Action Messages, heard on 11175 kHz **[Hacker News](https://daily.dev/sources/hn)** · 11 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary This site streams Emergency Action Messages (EAMs), the coded traffic of US nuclear forces, as heard on 11175 kHz shortwave. Recordings come from receivers at Point Reyes and Iceland, and visitors can try copying a message character by character against the site's own transcription. A companion page tracks five aircraft types, including the E-4B 'Doomsday plane', when they appear on public ADS-B data. The project was made by Daniel Frenkel, a former missileer with the 321st Missile Squadron at F.E. Warren from 2012 to 2016, who says he never heard an EAM read aloud until becoming a civilian with a radio receiver. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### What frequency do US nuclear forces use to broadcast Emergency Action Messages? The primary frequency is 11175 kHz, upper sideband, on the High Frequency Global Communications System (HFGCS). Anyone with a shortwave radio can receive it. An Emergency Action Message (EAM) is coded traffic read aloud in the phonetic alphabet; it opens with a net call, a six-character preamble read three times, 'message follows', the full string, then 'I say again' and a repeat. Nobody outside the force can decode it. _Developers curious about HF radio systems can keep tabs on niche technical projects like this one via daily.dev._ ### How many Minuteman III missiles does the US currently have deployed and where? The active force is 400 Minuteman III missiles spread across three wings: F.E. Warren in Wyoming, Malmstrom in Montana, and Minot in North Dakota. Each wing has 150 launch facilities and 15 launch control centers, with each capsule controlling ten missiles in its flight and five flights forming a 50-missile squadron. The missile is 59.9 feet long, 5.5 feet across, and was first deployed in June 1970. _Readers tracking defense and infrastructure trivia can follow similar deep-dive projects on daily.dev._ ### Why can't a single launch control officer launch a nuclear missile alone? The system requires two officers in each capsule, a commander and a deputy, each with a separate launch key turned simultaneously from separate panels, so no single person can launch. Beyond that, a second launch control center normally has to vote and corroborate the signal, since one crew's keys alone are not enough; without that corroboration, the missile does not launch. _Engineers interested in fail-safe, multi-party authorization designs can find similar system breakdowns on daily.dev._ ## Community take How the wider developer community reacted, aggregated from 1 discussion and 103 comments across hackernews (as of 2026-10-25). **TL;DR:** The thread is split between genuine fascination with the EAM/HFGCS concept and nuclear command-and-control mechanics, and a long tangent arguing about whether recent LLM responses in the thread sound AI-generated, plus a heated political side-argument about bases and schools. **Sentiment:** 30% positive · 35% mixed · 35% skeptical **The case for** - Several people find the site and concept genuinely cool, calling it neat and praising the idea of making EAMs accessible. - Former military commenters add credible firsthand detail on how HF relay and launch-order verification actually works, enriching the discussion. - Trivia about Skyking test messages using band names and pop culture references was appreciated as fun context. **The pushback** - A large portion of the thread is a meta-argument accusing specific comments of being AI-generated ('Claudenglish') rather than discussing the post itself. - Some worry that AI-generated text is becoming indistinguishable from human writing, undermining trust in online discussion. - A tangential, heated political argument about military bases and a school bombing derailed part of the thread and included personal attacks. - One commenter cautions against reading too much into message frequency, warning that assuming a signal from upticks in EAM traffic is misguided. **By community** - hackernews (mixed): Genuine enthusiasm and technical insight about nuclear comms coexists with a long, contentious derail about detecting AI-written comments and an unrelated political flare-up. **Hottest debate:** Whether certain comments in the thread were AI-generated, which spiraled into a broader argument about which LLM writes most 'obviously' like a machine. **Open questions** - What is the significance of the repeated first six characters in each EAM transmission? - Why do Skyking test messages sometimes use different frequencies like 8775 kHz instead of 11175 kHz? - Has electronic music ever sampled these broadcast messages? **Highlights** > Nuclear strike orders do not require high bandwidth. The orders contain targeting information and arming codes, all of which is pre-programmed on the missiles (the target package is specified with a "pointer" -- the computers on the missiles already have all the details, the order simply identifies which set of details should be used). For ICBM crews it is conceivable that orders could be transmitted on high-bandwidth systems, but for submarines that is not even possible (ELF bands have to be used because of the physical properties of ocean water). The basic launch sequence is this: a missile crew receives a series of characters and both missileers write the characters down. They check against a codebook and verify that they both heard the same message and that it is a valid launch order. If the message is valid, they unlock the launch keys (from a box secured by two combination locks, each missileer knows the combination for one lock), insert the keys, enter the missile launch unlock code, enter the warhead arming code, turn the keys, and then that's that. (There are several other steps -- go watch a video of a test launch and listen to the operators read off the checklist, there are quite a few steps. If you are wondering why such information is public, it is meant to reassure the other side that there is no possibility of unauthorized or unintentional launches -- we want our adversaries to know how we control our nuclear forces so they don't panic and preemptively attack us) > — [betterunix2 on hackernews · 1 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50227920) > I, too, was in the navy and supervised this very exercise on a ship. The exercise simulates a doomsday scenario that presumes satellite comms are out after a nuclear strike. Ships and other stations retransmit the messages over HF in order to eventually reach nuclear-armed subs for assured second strike capability. HF, with its semi-BLOS (beyond line of sight) range, is used to form a global communications network without satellites. The range of course depends on how much signal bounces off the atmosphere, which is why many stations are needed for redundancy. The whole exercise is Top Secret. > — [mijowi on hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50226903) > Back in my Navy days, we were taught HF is the less susceptible to jamming so is used for critical comms like these in serious situations. My ship performed in one exercise related to a doomsday scenario. We sat all day listening to an HR receiver until we heard these same messages, and we would then record the characters spoken. The message was repeated so we could make sure what we wrote was accurate. We never responded. Instead, we then repeated the same messages on an HF transmitter, presumably as part of some relay. > — [notadev on hackernews · 2 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50225555) > Some context for those not exposed to this previously. Messages usually mean nothing. An uptick in activity means.. nothing. We're on the tail end of a major exercise so upticks in chatter are probably related to that. Anyone who posts anything along the lines of "but there were 5x more messages or a really big message so N is going to happen!" is a crazy person. Ignore them. It's neat, but it's not prophetic. > — [vorpalhex on hackernews · 2 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50225009) > > Mostly static. The net is quiet until it isn't. > Preformatted is what you can hear: the same shape every time. > hearing it is all anyone outside the force can do. > The day has a shape. I would recommend switching to a newer Claude model. > — [rafram on hackernews · 6 comments](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50224988) **Source threads** - [hackernews](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50224422) · 141 points · 103 comments ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Apocalypse Early Warning System](https://daily.dev/posts/apocalypse-early-warning-system-apfi3qryd) · Hacker News · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Spy Tech: A Quiet Radio For Spies](https://daily.dev/posts/spy-tech-a-quiet-radio-for-spies-vyh9ifm88) · Hackaday · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [NES Radar Tracks Flights At 9600 Baud](https://daily.dev/posts/nes-radar-tracks-flights-at-9600-baud-q0nqg1ydk) · Hackaday · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/listen-and-read-usa-nuclear-forces-emergency-action-messages-heard-on-11175-khz-sxxrmlpif) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Listen and read USA nuclear forces Emergency Action Messages, heard on 11175 kHz","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/listen-and-read-usa-nuclear-forces-emergency-action-messages-heard-on-11175-khz-sxxrmlpif","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/listen-and-read-usa-nuclear-forces-emergency-action-messages-heard-on-11175-khz-sxxrmlpif"},"datePublished":"2026-10-24T23:10:42.091Z","dateModified":"2026-10-25T04:26:47.395Z","description":"This site streams Emergency Action Messages (EAMs), the coded traffic of US nuclear forces, as heard on 11175 kHz shortwave. 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