Yosemite Sam Transmission
Beginning December 19, 2004, shortwave listeners heard a 0.8-second data burst repeat just after the top of the hour across 3700, 4300, 6500, and 10500 kHz, followed each time by Mel Blanc’s Yosemite Sam from Bunker Hill Bunny threatening, “Varmint, I’m a-gonna b-b-b-bloooow ya ta’ smithereenies!” Radio hobbyists later reported tracing the signal toward the Laguna Pueblo area west of Albuquerque and linked it to the Mobility Assessment Test and Integration Center, a military-contractor radio test site, making the broadcast look less like a classic spy numbers station than a stray test or control transmission, but leaving one strange question in the static: why did a serious radio system announce itself with a cartoon threat?
The Yosemite Sam Transmission is not a classic state spy station in the same way as E03, E05, or HM01. It was a shortwave oddity first reported in December 2004, known for playing a clip of the Looney Tunes character Yosemite Sam before transmitting on several shortwave frequencies. Its theatrical sound made it instantly memorable.
The strongest later interpretation is that it was connected to a radio test or control system rather than espionage. HF Underground describes the signal and its frequencies, while later hobbyist investigations and field reports have treated it as a largely solved radio oddity. Because the source was not introduced through an official public report in the way an aircraft accident or police case would be, the case remains best marked as partially verified rather than fully official.
For the Mystery Site, this entry is valuable as a contrast case. It shows how the numbers-station label can be applied broadly to strange scheduled or repeated shortwave transmissions, even when the actual cause may be a misconfigured, automated, or experimental radio system rather than clandestine agent traffic.