Line and Crypto
Teleprinters and RTTY/TTY Crypto
Anyone who worked in the Comcen will recognise the next two items and their paper output...
Here the NATO Crypto capable late 1970s RTTY teleprinter as fitted in many a Commer Q4, Austin K9 or Bedford 3 Tonner...
Including RTTY artwork, an early form of Spam that seemed to make up 70% of all traffic
The Siemens T-100 (replacing the T-37/T-37ICA) could use a second “One time Key Tape” and allowed for secure encrypted communications when used with the keytapes. The tapes and paper prints were classified NATO SECRET/CRYPTO, even if the actual content was not. Sending Spam pictures while “Verboten!” actually helped the cold war by keeping the Russian Cryptographers busy, then even though they had probably decoded the content after a few weeks intensive work, the text was still gibberish and only when printed out in full and standing back enough to see the Naked lady did their waste of time become apparent. So called “Honeypot” traps.
Radio/Voice Cryptography
As part of my recent rework of the Larkspur Series radios, the BID 150 is newly redrawn Below
While on the subject of Crypto, here (above) the Larkspur Generation Delphi (BID 150) You can see the basis of this drawing in the Royal Signals Museum in Blandford together with a set of real XYZ cards, then those in the above (and in a larger size below) are also of my own creation. Real cards were just Black (or grey) print on Beige or Yellow. While Blandford may get away with showing originals, I do not want to risk it!
The new BID 150 drawing is then combined with the new C-42 Radio drawing below. It could also be used with the C-45. In the C-42/BID 150 drawing also add the larger combined “A-to-D convertor and BID control” Digital Interface Junction Box.
Some other (slightly more modern) Crypto sets
An encryption unit that can be inserted between the Audio in/output of any radio or telephone system and the user handset is provided by the RACAL MA 4224. it was primarily made for use with RACAL sets used around the Falklands War era, but continues to be used in some roles with Clansman equipment today.
VRC 353 was designed for VHF vehicle use, and is shown here (below) with the DMU,
The VRC353 is has an output of up to 50 Watts and covers the same frequency range as the PRC 351/352 Manpack (Backpack) radios, i.e. 30-75.975 MHz range, which I rounded off to 76.0 MHz, and offers a total possible 1840 frequency channels.
The DMU (Digital Master Unit) is a digital interface for Data traffic, and offering some low level voice encryption abilities for secure speech, it is also able to offer higher security when used in conjunction with the necessary ancillary encryption devices.
Special thanks to Paul Reuvers (owner of the Crypto Museum)
www.cryptomuseum.com for his kind help with information on this Tadiran comsec unit
Although still in use the five above older equipment’s can be openly bought on the Surplus markets for peanuts, such as from Helmut Singer Electronics - See This Page (Version date 12th of October 2009) This same company also sold newer Clansman Voice Encryption units made by RACAL shown above a few months back.
Field Telephones
