[Lowfer] 27.2 kHz TACAMO

[David L. Wilson]

As these are exactly the same message being transmitted on HF on 11175 etc.
at the same time (or a couple minutes apart), one may wish to 

http://www.worldlingo.com/ma/enwiki/en/Emergency_Action_Message
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,101361-1,00.html 

--

David L. Wilson

dwilson314 at verizon.net

 

From: JD [mailto:listread at oswegoblade.com] 
Sent: Saturday, February 26, 2011 1:59 AM
To: dwilson314 at verizon.net; Discussion of the Lowfer (US, European,& UK)
and MedFer bands
Subject: Re: [Lowfer] 27.2 kHz TACAMO

 

>>> There is no reason to encrypt.  Coded is good enough.

 

Correct, although I think it's more a question of semantics than anything
else.  "Encryption" in the WWII era was just another term for the process of
messages being encoded.  It's only been since the start of the digital age
that it has started to mean something additional or different done to the
transport stream, rather than the plaintext message content.

 

As was the point of my earlier message, who among us has any idea at all
what that quoted text said?

 

On the face of it, there are fourteen lines of two-letter-and/or-numeral
groups (which can be anything from a simple cipher to a highly convoluted
code, or a pointer to pre-agreed words or phrases--that's encryption), with
each character apparently rendered in standard phonetic fashion.  The latter
is a humanly-implementable form of error correction, if you will; lose a few
individual symbols and you can still reconstruct the whole thing with a high
degree of confidence.  But it's still encrypted--literally meaning,
hidden--in the sense that not one of us knows or will ever figure out what
it MEANS.  As David says, that is certainly good enough.

 

John