RadioBanter - Lest We Forget

From: "K=D8=88B" on Thurs,Apr 14 2005 7:18 am

"K4YZ" wrote in message
oups.com...

Didn't Hans put that well into the 70's for the Navy?

No, Hans didn't.

The last significant use of Morse in the Navy was in the late
50's/early 60's.
This usage was by small-boys, DD and smaller, on "fox" broadcasts and
"A1"
ship/shore circuits.

Both uses ended with fleetwide deployment of Jason and Orestes
circuits in the
early 60's. Morse training for general duty Navy RM's ceased at the
same time,
and Morse operator became a specialized NEC (MOS to you grunts) held
by only a
few sailors, mostly in SPECOM branches (intercept operators, etc.).

The single operational Morse use which survived was the VLF SSBN
transmissions
(two transmitters, one Cutler, ME and the other at Jim Creek, WA).
That was a
simple slow-speed beaconing system which notified boomers to pop up
their
satcomm antennas for the actual communications.

73, de Hans, K0HB
Master Chief Radioman, US Navy

Thank you for factual corroboration, Hans.

As far as I know now, the VLF stations evolved into ELF
but at different locations. According to a USN Fact
Sheet those locations are at Clam Lake, WI, in the
Chequamegon National Forest (operational since 1985)
and Republic, MI (operational since 1989). The Republic
station is synchronized in time with Clam Lake, all
under operational control of NCTAMS LANT headquarters
at Norfolk, VA. Their transmission protocol is "Deep
Black" slow-speed data and the Boomers' (and Shark's)
electronics rooms (what used to be a tiny "radio room"
cubicle in WW2 boats) have "Black" ELF receivers always
on-line (as are their automatic decoders) for Alerts.
For an illustration of a Boomer electronics room, go
to the www.fas.org site and search down through a
maze of internal links to USN stuff; take info there
as old and not containing all the juicy details but has
the appearance of unclassified USN documents.

My nephew-in-law was an electrician's mate on a shark,
involved with reactor power plants, not radio. All he
said about his shark boat's electronics room was "we
couldn't hang around in there." :-) There was no such
thing as a "nuclear boat/ship" in Canada or any other
Navy during WW2. The only encryption used by the USA
(and Canada as well as the UK) was the "Sigaba" as shown
on the USS Pampanito floating museum and at the NSA
on-line Museum. The "Sigaba" system (TTY), upgraded
to post-WW2 standards was severely compromised by the
capture of the USS Pueblo off the North Korean coast in
1968. The replacement system was compromised by CWO
Walker who was convicted of espionage and is serving a
federal life term. The present encryption methods are
apparently two generations later than the Walker-
compromised crypto systems...and quite secure.

The original "Sigaba" on-line TTY crypto terminal was
first installed in the 1940s and used to relay intercepts
of the infamous "14-part" diplomatic message of Japan
that was supposed to be the formal start of the Japanese
declaration of a state of war. "Sigaba" was later used
to coordinate USN fleet movements to enable the success
of the Battle of Midway. That TTY encryption was never
compromised through intercepts. It was compromised by
actual capture of later-generation hardware on the USS
Pueblo.

The "Sigaba" encryption looked like severely distorted
TTY to any standard, non-crypto TTY terminal, totally
unreadable. The Far East Command Hq (Pershing Heights,
Tokyo, Japan) had their crypto room in the sub-sub-
basement of the main Hq building, the former Japanese
War Ministry Hq. The post-WW2 improved "Sigaba" (known
by various other names) was used by US Army Field Radio
units in "Angry-26" huts during the Korean War. A few
M-209 Code Coverters (WW2 non-electric devices in small
cases of the portable typewriter kind) were used in the
field in Korea for small-radio encryption but that ceased
by the time of the active phase beginning in Vietnam.

By interviews and other correspondence, the U.S. Army
maintained morsemanship as a requisite for Field Radio
MOSs ("NEC" to swabbies?) up to about 1972. USA had
several different communications MOSs then, especially
in TTY over various systems and including the first of
the military satellite communications links. However,
tactical use of morse code in the Army was essentially
nil at that time. Encrypted voice in the field was
first tried operationally during the Vietnam War over
the PRC-25s and PRC-77s through peripheral boxes. Such
is now easily selectable by front panel controls on the
SINCGARS manpack and vehicular sets (COMSEC is built-in
to nearly every radio now, including military HTs).
During the First Gulf War, Special Forces had slightly
old "threes" having 1200 BPS "chiclet" keyboards and
LCD text display working on the military aviation band
of 225-400 MHz. The mil av band was also relayed by
mil satellites as well as "Joint Stars" relay aircraft.
Moderate crypto system built-in on the "threes." There
was no movie-style "behind enemy lines" use of morse
in the 1990-1991 period...or afterwards.