[GreenKeys] Routing Indicators

[Ralph Irish]

Just wondering if there are any other former Navy Radiomen, (1957 - 1961) in the group who
might recognize the term, "Routing Indicators"?

I seem to remember a system of addressing/routing messages with 'indicators' starting with
the letter "R".  I was told that the "R" indicated a worldwide system, of some kind.

RBMPCR  was one I seem to remember.  Not certain whether it was for my ship or not.  Just
that it came up a lot.  The "CR" indicated some sort of encrypted or 'CRypto' involvement
I think.

I think that these 'indicators' were used by 'pre-computer' machinery that could sense the
sequence of characters following the "R" and get a message headed to the correct destinations.

We only occasionally used them, favoring the four character "Addresses" from one of several
Navy and "JANAP" publications.  Our ship was NWLD, the USS Hancock.  In looking through the
publication that held thousands of these four character addresses, I discovered that our
ship had a second address:  NGKQ.  No one seemed to know just why, and I don't recall that
address ever being used in traffic headed to the Hancock.

Anyway, would appreciate hearing from anyone who had experience with Routing Indicators.

Thanks & 73,

Ralph - W8ROI


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