[GreenKeys] KSM Crypto Broadcast 3 May

[Richard Dillman]

Sr. Transmitter Engineer Steve Hawes has recovered enough from his bout with the flu (thanks for the get well messages) to travel to the KSM transmitting station and lay his hand upon the throttles of the RTTY transmitters.  Thus we will be able to carry out the crypto broadcast as planned on Saturday, 3 May.  Here's the information:

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KSM will broadcast messages encrypted with the military M-209 crypto 
machine via RTTY on 3 May.

The idea for the broadcast came up in conversations between myself and Dave Ross as a way for the MRHS to support the Military Radio Collectors Group meet taking place in San Luis Obispo, CA on 2-3 May.  We thought it would be fun  to give the attendees something to copy on their vintage military RTTY gear and  then exercise their M-209 skills by decoding the message.  But we thought other listeners may enjoy trying their hand at decoding the message as well, thus this announcement (see below for information about a M-209 emulator in case you don't have access to the genuine article).

MRHS transmitter engineer Steve Hawes, who manages our RTTY broadcasts, was keen for the idea and Dave provided the text so all the pieces are in place.  Here are the details:

Date: 3 May

Times: Approximately 1200pdt and 1400pdt (gmt -7)

Modes: RTTY and FEC. Baudot transmissions are at 170cps shift, 45 baud. FEC transmissions are at 170cps shift, 100 baud

Frequencies: 8433.0kc, 12631.0kc

Text: Dave's text will start with a plaintext preamble and will include the 
settings for the M-209 as well as the key.  That will be followed by the encrypted text in five letter groups.

Additional information:

MRCG:

http://syzen.com/milradio/

M-209 emulator for those who wish to participate but don't have a M-
209:

http://users.telenet.be/d.rijmenants/en/m209sim.htm

MRHS: 

http://www.radiomarine.org

If you are not a member of the MRHS email list and would like to be, just send an email message to this address to join: 

radiomarine-subscribe at yahoogroups.com 

Reminder: K6KPH will guard our usual frequencies:

7050kc, 14050kc, 21050kc (3550kc on request)

Since these frequencies are in the scan with the ship calling frequencies the best bet is to use commercial calling procedure: repeat "K6KPH" (within the limits of FCC identification requirements of course) until the K6KPH operator responds with "DE", then send your call and traffic.

QSL information - KSM and K6KPH reception reports may be sent to the QSL Mistress at:

Denice Stoops
PO Box 381
Bolinas, California 94926
USA

VY 73,

RD 


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Richard Dillman, W6AWO
Chief Operator, Coast Station KSM
Maritime Radio Historical Society
http://www.radiomarine.org
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