1940's radio bands?

[Paul Dluehosh]

I don't know if the code talkers were involved in any covert operations 
but I believe that they primarily provided their form of encryption for 
military units. But, you are correct that it was voice "encryption" 
although for them it was "plain language"... that could be used on the 
ham bands!

Paul -- N4PD

On 6/17/2015 11:24 PM, Mike ODELL wrote:
> one slight correction.
>
> the Navajo Code Talkers provided encrypted voice services.
> two levels, actually. the English text was word substituted and then
> translated on the fly to and from Navajo. The Japanese never
> figured out what the language was, much less break anything.
>
>
> Sent from my iPad so please excuse the jammy fingers.
>
> On Jun 16, 2015, at 9:41 AM, Paul Dluehosh <n4pd at ieee.org 
> <mailto:n4pd at ieee.org>> wrote:
>
>> Bob,
>>
>> The Secret Wireless War is a great book and it gives some real 
>> insight into a segment of the effort to defeat the Axis.
>>
>> It would make sense that only CW was primarily used since text could 
>> be encrypted easily (manually) before transmission, whereas voice 
>> encryption was probably not available in an easily transportable 
>> package for covert operatives.
>>
>> Since many nations may have observed enforced radio silence on the 
>> ham bands, like the U.S. did, probably most of the traffic on the air 
>> was covert transmissions. The only voice transmissions over any 
>> distance that I am aware of were cryptic messages from BBC 
>> broadcasting at specified times to agents overseas.
>>
>> You just need to look at some of the surplus equipment that became 
>> available to hams after WWII to see the state of the art in receivers 
>> at the time, which I don't think was all that bad. Maybe not as 
>> sensitive or selective, but it did the job during the war and for 
>> hams after the war!
>>
>> My $0.02.
>>
>> 73,
>> Paul -- N4PD
>> Sent from my iPad
>>
>>
>> On Jun 16, 2015, at 08:42, Robert Bruninga <bruninga at usna.edu 
>> <mailto:bruninga at usna.edu>> wrote:
>>
>>> What did the radio bands sound like in 1940?
>>>
>>> I’m reading the secret wireless war by Geoffrey Pidgeon and that, 
>>> along with reads about Bletchley Park and another book on spies 
>>> (cant remember the name) and I just have no clue what one heard when 
>>> “tuning the bands”.
>>>
>>> I had generally just assumed that everything was CW by the look of 
>>> things..  And RTTY…. And so far in the book, there is no mention of 
>>> voice radio other than a limited use short tange FM system for spies 
>>> to talk up to aircraft..
>>>
>>> My Father in law was a radioman in the battle of the bulge but I 
>>> didn’t get around to asking till it was too late.
>>>
>>> I guess there is no way to re-create it, so unless there are 
>>> recordings, I  guess it is gone.
>>>
>>> Apparently SSB was discovered in 1915 and patented in 1923 or so?  
>>> It was used by high commands in WWII to mask normal voice, but I 
>>> haven’t found much about its juse in WWII.
>>>
>>> I guess by WWII, everything had a BFO or the superregens too the CW 
>>> came out as tones just like today?
>>>
>>> Bob, WB4APR
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Tacos mailing list
>>> Tacos at amrad.org <mailto:Tacos at amrad.org>
>>> https://lists.amrad.org/mailman/listinfo/tacos
>> _______________________________________________
>> Tacos mailing list
>> Tacos at amrad.org <mailto:Tacos at amrad.org>
>> https://lists.amrad.org/mailman/listinfo/tacos

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.amrad.org/pipermail/tacos/attachments/20150618/08013b4b/attachment.html>