[GreenKeys] Early Morkrum machine on eBay

[Duncan M. Brown]

The space bar would be needed to separate the 5-character groups.

When sending 5-digit groups, the  "zero" character would not necessarily be
needed, depending on the encoding used.  After the message is encrypted,
the letters are converted to digits using a grid with digits defining the
rows and columns.  The makeup of the rows and columns varied and the first
row often did not have a digit assigned (letters in the first row were
represented by only one digit),  See page 3 of
http://users.telenet.be/d.rijmenants/papers/cuban_agent_communications.pdf
for an example.

A 5x5 grid could be made without zero and be able to convert 25 letters.
(Do some alphabets have only 25 letters, or you could leave out "X" in
English?)

Did the Morse radio systems using the Wheatstone perf. use message numbers?
Would this perforator have been just for making up a sequential numbers
tape as was used on the TTY tape-relay equipment like the AN/TGC-1?  

Just some thoughts.

Have fun,

Duncan


> [Original Message]
> From: Don Robert House <k9tty at dls.net>
> To: Jack <wa2hwj at att.net>
> Cc: <duncanancy at earthlink.net>; Nick England <navy.radio at gmail.com>;
greenkeys <greenkeys at mailman.qth.net>
> Date: 04-Apr-10 20:27:03
> Subject: Re: [GreenKeys] Early Morkrum machine on eBay
>
> I forgot to look, but if there was a space bar that could have been  
> arranged to generate and additional code such as Zero...
>
>
> On 4 Apr 2010, at 7:02 PM, Jack wrote:
>
> Same thing I thought, but no ZERO?
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: greenkeys-bounces at mailman.qth.net
> [mailto:greenkeys-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Duncan M.
> Brown
> Sent: Sunday, April 04, 2010 6:39 PM
> To: Nick England; greenkeys
> Subject: Re: [GreenKeys] Early Morkrum machine on eBay
>
>
> Maybe it was used to send five digit code groups???
>
> have fun,
>
> Duncan
>