[GreenKeys] Reperforator tape colors

[NNN7DXB at aol.com]

All:

In the (US) Army, we did not use specific colors for any degree
of message security classification. All tape was generally yellow
(buff) colored, standard requisition items. When you approached
the last 14 feet of yellow tape, it often turned pink or dark purple,
to let one know that the tape reel needed to be changed.

There were a few times when we received pink tape from stock.
Also, black tape once or twice (unoiled). Never saw green, blue,
etc, although our maintenance folks had some green mylar tape
for testing purposes in their shop. (Mylar tape is not paper. Long
lasting, good for endless or long testing of teletype machines).

There were a few times in Germany when the supply system either
didn't have, or ran out of tape, in which case, our Signal Unit
contracted locally with a German tape supplier. German tape
was of the same or better quality than US tape, and it was
white (parchment) , with colored flowers on it. Worked well on
our machines, most of which were either Siemens, Lorenz,
or US Kleinschmidts (depending on what the CommCenter
was equipped with at the time).

Encryption was via the KW-9s, KL-7s, KW-7 and KW-26s, 
depending on what the CommCenter (station) was set up
for. KW-9s were supseded by the KW-7s; KL-7 (and KL-47s)
remained in use thru the late 60s. KW-7s and KW-26s became
the mainstays of most land-based Army CommCenters.

The KW-9s used rotors, as did the KL-7/KL-47 which had to
be set up manually each day. The KW-7s used wires (plugs)
which had to be set up manually each day; later versions of
the KW-7 used a plug board, also manually set up daily. The
KW-26s were syncrhonous online encryption which had to
be rekeyed with a punched card each day. There were other
encryption systems as well, most notably the BID-610 and
some NATO variants such as the SW-15.

Dave
CommCenter Group
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