[Hallicrafters] History CW information requested.

[Dick Blaney]

Hi, Jim,
If I'm not mistaken, I think you are referring to what we called the 
"CRIPTO" machine.  If so, been there, done that.  I was a CRIPTO operator in 
the USAF in Europe in the early '50s'.  When I first started learning CW, my 
friend, Bill, who was in the diplomatic service, and had copied the 
diplomatic CW "five letter code group" traffic in the middle East, became my 
mentor.  He could actually read and get on paper CW at 45 WPM, in 5 letter 
groups.  Sure wish I could have got there, but my best was only about 25 
WPM. By the way, Bill and I, later in life, became Police Officers on the 
same day on the same small town Police Department, and later, was employed, 
and retired from the same company.  Of course, we are still very good life 
long friends.  (Boy, could we tell stories on each other..)  You have 
brought back some wonderful memories from long, long ago, and far away.
Dick, WB8MHE

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jim Jones" <ng9e at verizon.net>
To: "Chuck McGregor" <cbmcg at comcast.net>; "Waldo Magnuson" 
<magnuson at mac.com>; <hallicrafters at mailman.qth.net>
Cc: "Waldo Magnuson" <magnuson at mac.com>
Sent: Monday, October 01, 2007 12:25 AM
Subject: Re: [Hallicrafters] History CW information requested.


> While I was in the Army in 1953-55 I was a CW operator in Germany.  We 
> used a very nifty encoding machine, that was highly classified. It 
> generated coded messages in 5 character groups. It was also used to decode 
> by reversing the procedures.  We input messages as regular text and it 
> created the 5 character output. I have no idea what the name of the little 
> darling was.  It was a small, heavy bit of mystery that always had me 
> wanting to take it apart.
> Jim
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Chuck McGregor" <cbmcg at comcast.net>
> To: "Waldo Magnuson" <magnuson at mac.com>; <hallicrafters at mailman.qth.net>
> Cc: "Waldo Magnuson" <magnuson at mac.com>
> Sent: Sunday, September 30, 2007 11:04 PM
> Subject: Re: [Hallicrafters] History CW information requested.
>
>
>> At 05:37 PM 9/28/2007, Waldo Magnuson wrote:
>>>In WW-II my understanding is that the CW sent and received was in 5 
>>>character groups (at least that is what the books on the English code 
>>>breaking effort indicate).  Does anyone know why 5 character groups were 
>>>used?  Thanks.
>>
>> Skip -
>> I found the following in a wikipedia article on "telegraph codes":
>>
>> "In 1931, the 
>> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Code_of_Signals>International 
>> Code of Signals, originally created for ship communication by signalling 
>> using flags, was expanded by adding a collection of five-letter codes to 
>> be used by radiotelegraph operators. "
>>
>> But I would suspect this was just the formal codification of a practice 
>> that dated to the use of commercial codes in landline telegraphy.
>>
>> --Chuck
>>
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>
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