The world’s weirdest radio station is located in Russia, and it is known as The Buzzer or by its former call sign, UVB-76. The Buzzer’s radio frequency is ‘4625 kHz,’ and most of the time the only noise on the station is a steady, monotonous buzzing noise. While UVB-76 remains a popular call sign among The Buzzer’s fans, the call sign has actually changed several times since the mid-1970s, when The Buzzer’s ongoing broadcast was first noticed by civilians.
While The Buzzer’s location was a mystery for a very long time, leading some people to believe that it was not connected to any ongoing human activity at all, it later became clear that The Buzzer is operated by the Russian military. Specifically, The Buzzer signal broadcasts from Western Russia. The source of the signal has changed several times, but it has always been near St. Petersburg or Moscow.
The military operates this station to make sure that no one broadcasts anything audible over this frequency, so they can use it whenever they need it. The messages that the military broadcasts over this frequency are in code and describe classified military matters, so no one knows what their purpose is although many people speculate. Even Russian civilians and publications can only speculate what kind of military purposes The Buzzer is used for. Russian voices can occasionally be heard delivering these encoded message over The Buzzer, but the vast majority of the time it only broadcasts the monotonous buzzing described above.
While The Buzzer is the world’s weirdest radio station, it is very different than the kind of radio station that most people think of. Despite being accessible to the public, The Buzzer does not seek listeners from the public – exactly the opposite, in fact. All the same, The Buzzer has attracted some attention from curious civilians over the years because of its bizarre broadcasting tone and mysterious source.