wireless telegraphy

ALMA MATER: HMS MERCURY. Leydene Nr Petersfield. Hampshire. Here is a fascinating drawing of a plan of HMS MERCURY. First off, you should open and print the following file which will guide you, in very simple terms, through the plan GUIDE TO USING MY SEARCH A PICTURE.htm. When you have done that you must download this free and simple VISIO READER Download details: Visio 2003 Viewer [click on the word DOWNLOAD in the blue band towards the top] and once downloaded, open this file MERCURY. Have fun.

The badge represents the WINGS of MERCURY with a streak of lightning through the centre representing a spark of electricity. Easy to see where the polite colloquialism of SPARKER or SPARKS came from. However, in other organisations, the Mercantile Marine for example, a sparker is an electrician! There was one other less polite colloquialism used, which suggested the badge was "flying bullshit struck by lightning"! Well, as you saw, the badges with wings FLEW in and onto their respective holes.

Mercury was the god of travellers. He had a winged hat and sandals, so he could fly. He carried a staff with two snakes winding round it.

He was also the god of thieves! When he was only a few days old, he stole the cows of Apollo. Mercury made special shoes for the cows and made them walk backwards, so no-one could follow their tracks. Eventually Apollo noticed that Mercury was playing a new musical instrument called a lyre, strung with cow-gut! Apollo was furious with Mercury, but thought the lyre was wonderful. So they agreed that Mercury could keep the cows and Apollo would get the lyre.

Mercury was also the god of science and business. I think that he's the god of the Internet as well!

	PO'S AND BELOW				CPO'S
BRANCHES	1 Star	2 Stars	Crown	Crown plus 2 Stars	Crown	Crown plus 1 Star	Crown plus 2 Stars
Gunnery. TAS. Radar. Wireless Telegraphy. Visual Signalling. PTI.	3rd class Part II or specialist qualification	2nd class Part II or specialist qualification	1st class Part II or specialist qualification	Instructor rate	2nd class or lower Part II or specialist qualification	1st class Part II or specialist qualification	Instructor rate
Naval airmen except Fitters and Mechanics [A] [E] [O]	As above	As above	As above	Not applicable	As above	As above	Not applicable
Others including Naval airmen Fitters and Mechanics [A] [E] [O]	Technical qualification for the able rate	Technical qualification for the leading rate	Petty officer qualified for higher rate of pay	Not applicable	CPO's qualified for lower rate of pay	CPO's qualified for higher rate of pay	Not applicable

THIS IS OUR BADGE, DATING FROM THE FIRST WORLD WAR, AND IS THE BADGE WE RALLY TO. WHILST ALWAYS SUBSERVIENT TO THE FAMOUS FLAG HOIST OF LORD NELSON AT TRAFALGAR, IT IS NEVERTHELESS VERY FAMOUS AND VERY IMPORTANT. THE FLAGS SHOWN COMPRISE THE ACTUAL SIGNAL WHICH WAS HOISTED TO DEPLOY THE GRAND FLEET INTO ACTION AT JUTLAND AT 1817 ON THE 31st MAY 1916. THE TRANSLATION OF THE MOTTO IS "WISDOM BY SIGNS"
HISTORICALLY, THE OUTCOME OF THIS BATTLE IS STILL [2003] ARGUED ABOUT, UNLIKE TRAFALGAR, BUT THE SYMBOLISM OF THE BADGE IS NOT IN DOUBT.

The signal school was in the RN Barracks in Portsmouth before the second world war, in what we now called HMS Nelson, but for many years of my career HMS Victory. Because of the bombing targeted at that city and in particular that of the night of the 10th March 1941 when near total destruction of the dockyard and HMS Vernon occurred, it was moved to Leydene House [owned by and lived in by Lady Peel] near Petersfield Hampshire led by its commanding officer Captain Cunningham Graham. Lord Mountbattens influence had some bearing on this acquisition!

The OFFICIAL MORSE CODE IN 2004 as issued by the ITU [International Telecommunications]. Note the characters in 1.1.3. particularly the @ sign, as used in emails. The sign is a and c, run together, logically relating to the letter 'a' being surrounded by a larger letter 'c'. international morse code.pdf

Morse's original code was not quite the same as the one in use today. In particular C, O, R, Y and Z contained spaces within the letter codes which must have been tricky to handle, and the numbers were different. This ‘American’ morse code was in wide use until the 1920’s. For international use it was modified as a result of a conference in Berlin in 1851; this regularised the code on a more rational basis and eliminated the spaces within the letters, but equally important from a European point of view it provided codes for accented letters.

Both the original code and the current International Code use the same principle, that the commonest letters have the shortest codes. How to find out what the letter incidence is? Difficult now, from scratch, but Morse had a marvellous idea. He went to his local newspaper. There he found compositors making up pages by hand from individual letters; capital letters were in one case or tray of type, and this was set above the case of small letters. This is the origin of 'upper and lower case' letters. Morse simply counted the number of pieces of type for each letter, thinking, soundly enough, that this must be related to the number needed. Thus 'e' has the shortest code, 'dit', whereas 'z' is (now) 'da-da-di-dit' and 'q' (now) 'da-da-di-dah'. Notice that I write them as they sound; morse was a visual code in the early days, but it is now an aural one. An intriguing question: the symbol for V, di-di-di-dah, is also the opening phrase of Beethoven’s Fifth (V’th) Symphony. Morse was 20 years younger than Beethoven - was he a fan of the composer? For some seventy years

Letters indicating specialization within branches [but not qualifications] - Wireless Telegraphist -

C.P.O., P.O., and confirmed Leading Ratings qualified as Gunnery, T and AS, Radar Plot, Wireless, Signalling Instructors and Staff Physical and Recreational Training Instructors wear a crown and two stars.

FROM JOINING TO LEAVING - 3O YEARS [My career]. 1953 to 1983
RATE	BADGE
Boy 2nd class	None
Advance Class Boy	Just a humble star!
Boy 1st class	None
Boy Telegraphist	Star is taken away. [Following courtesy of Signal School Notes in The Shotley Magazine Term ending Easter 1954] "In February 1954, we saw the MRX passing out standard raised to 22 wpm with 95% accuracy. The importance of achieving this new standard before leaving Ganges for the Fleet, has been brought home to us by the news from the Med., that the Ship Broadcast out there sometimes creeps up to 28 wpm. In addition, more and more Communication Boys now leave here to go to small ships, often to fill complement billets, and therefore within a few days of joining their first ship, they may well be required to play an active part as Signalmen and Telegraphists in the Communications Organisation of not only their ship, but also Squadron, Fleet and the Navy."
Ordinary Telegraphist	Same badge as above. More Pay and privileges
Telegraphist	In 1958, the word 'telegraphist' was dropped, and in came the words 'radio operator'
Leading Radio Operator
Radio Supervisor	In 1962, one continued to wear 'square rig' for the 1st year until being confirmed in this rate, after which one wore 'fore and aft' rig.
Radio Supervisor [Radio Communications Instructor [RCI]]
Chief Radio Supervisor [Radio Communications Instructor [RCI]]	Smaller Badge. Ordinary CPO had a small Radio Supervisor's badge or that, plus 1 star underneath the Badge.
Fleet Chief Radio Supervisor	1975 to 1983 Dieu et mon droit (French for ‘God and my right’) shown on bottom of badge, is the motto of the Sovereign and dates from the time of King Henry V (reigned 1413-1422). The motto appears below the shield on the Royal Coat of Arms. Note that this badge is a military/naval Royal Coat of Arms manifest by having the lion standing on top of the crown symbolic of the Armed Services protecting the Monarchy.

Further quote from the Shotley Magazine of Easter 1954
" The Admiralty have recently stressed the importance of good spelling and writing in the Communications Branch. The reasons are obvious. A message, although read 100% correct, is worthless if the addressee cannot read it; and so often a further handicap may be that he has to attempt this task under poor lighting conditions - for example in an Operations Room or on the bridge at night. Valuable time may be lost whilst the message is returned to the receiving operator for elucidation. Another danger of bad writing is the snowball effect on a message that has to be relayed. Telegraphists must never think that the typewriter has or will take the place of the pencil - in fact the occasions when they have to use a pencil are normally the most important." AND From the Editorial of the same Magazine " .....yet an insidious growth has been breaking to the surface with unprecedented insistence. We refer to the habit of reading what are known as "comics" henceforward to be termed more appropriately, "horrors." The national press and the BBC have given much anxious consideration to this subject in recent months, and there is little new to add to their deliberations and conclusions.................The "horror" is not merely an ill substitute for reading; it is the enemy of reading. The sole benefit to be derived from the "horror" is an acquaintanceship with fifth-rate and unscrupulous minds. The inevitable harm can best be described as a petrefaction rather than as a putrefaction, of the human brain."

John EILBECK was one of many well respected members of the W/T branch. However, and regrettably, he is one of a few who has bothered to tell his story in print on the internet. Have a look at his page on this site. It is fascinating and covers a career from 1947 to 1988. Look here JOHN EILBECKS PAGE

Cyptography!: Not One-time-pad?: Not Sea Scout?: Not Type X {CCM}?: Not KL7?: Real Time Systems? - No, none of these. It's ENIGMA.

But which one? The German railways had one; the German Army had theirs; so did the Air Force and the Navy, too.

Admiral Donitz decreed that the submarine fleet was so special that it would have its own enigma, and it would rank above all other enigma machines.

I have an army/air force machine here in my office which was manufactured in 1943! IT IS A SOFT WARE PROGRAMME.

Now! If you thought our off-line crypto was labourious, try the following
Have a go at decyphering the following message, and transmit the decoded version to me by email. BEFORE you start, YOU WILL find it useful to PRINT the next little section. For those not in the know, use your mouse to highlight the section from the beginning of the CODE GROUPS - CJITV etc until the end of the text bit commencing with CLICK HERE TO INSTALL........Once highlighted, go to FILE and choose PRINT. When your printer dialogue box appears choose SELECTION and PRINT. If it will not give you "selection" , either copy the information longhand or much better still do the following. Make sure that you can see from the groups to the bottom of the necessary instructional text without having to alter the cursor[s]. Then, go to the top of your keyboard and there you will find a key marked "PRINT SCREEN". Click on this once, and that will send your screen picture to your CLIPBOARD. If necessary, minimise this window and open your word processing programme {Word etc} and click on PASTE. Then you will have a page copy.

CLICK HERE = enigma/enigma3s.exe = TO INSTALL THE MACHINE .After clicking on this URL choose the OPEN option. Ignore the message which says that it cant open a file, click OK and it will open up the machine for interactive use. Then apply the settings just like you used to do on a KL7 machine for example. Remember to have your sound source {speakers} turned on. To begin, choose SETTINGS and then INNER SETTINGS {on the top menu bar} then apply the WALZENENLAGE and OK, and the SETTINGS to RINGSTELLUNG and OK, then SETTING to STECKERVERBINDUNGEN and OK. Then alter the 3 sets of two digit figures on the top of the machine {by clicking the panel to which they are attached or by choosing VIEW and then OPEN COVER} to the SETTINGS shown above, namely 02 11 05 by clicking on the white vertical bars. Then go to OPTIONS and check that Group 5 is ticked. Commence typing in my five-letter code and the resultant plain language {P/L} will appear in the Message Out box. To code something up for me, apply YOUR OWN SETTINGS FIRST, go to OPTIONS and clear both the IN and OUT boxes then select ENCIPHER TEXT before you type in your message. The resultant five letter groups will appear in the Message In box. To send the settings that I need to add-in to my software machine, you will have to type them into the email yourself. Also, because I cannot give you the total package over the internet {you have use of the machine only} you cannot use the Command Save which you will find under File. Annoying I know, but the coded groups must also be typed in by hand. You can use the Print command, also in the File column. To use this command click on the Message In box when you have finished coding, until it turns blue in colour! Enigma is easy and fun to use.

Do you like researching? Have a look at this page Bits and Pieces Volume 5 ART 3. It introduces you to 'researching' but also tells you about naval W/T equipment.

Get it right! A device which emits and receives radio waves is an A E R I A L - full stop. If you were a German or a French man you would say ANTENNE: if a Spaniard, ANTENA [one letter 'n'] and if an Italian, ANTENNA. Marconi [an Italian] is known as the father of radio communications, but, in the Royal Navy, Admiral of the Fleet H.B. Jackson [then Captain Jackson R.N.,] had as much to do with radio communications as did Marconi, at least in the embryonic days of the late 1890's.

In the 1977 Review programme, again, just this one badge was shown, but now named "General, Warfare and Submarine". By this time, the name Visual Signalling, Signalmen and Buntings were relegated to folklore, and ALL communicators became RADIO OPERATORS. Signalmen became Radio Operators [Tactical], RO[T] for short: radio operators proper [?] became RO[General]; electronic warfare personnel assumed the title RO[Warfare] and submariner communicators were known as RO[S/M]. or Rosum, for short.

Title:	Messenger of the gods	Greek name:	Hermes
Relations:	Son of Maia.	Day of the Week:	Wednesday
English words:	Mercury or Quicksilver is a liquid metal. Mercurial means light-hearted and active.	Solar system:	Planet Mercury

Morse Codes
American	International	American	International
A . _	. _	S . . .	. . .
B _ . . .	_ . . .	T _	_
C . . .	_ . _ .	U . . _	. . _
D _ . .	_ . .	V . . . _	. . . _
E .	.	W . _ _	. _ _
F . _ .	. . _ .	X . _ . .	_ . . _
G _ _ .	_ _ .	Y . . .	. _ . _
H . . . .	. . . .	Z . . . .	_ _ . .
I . .	. .	1 . _ _ .	. _ _ _ _
J _ . _ .	. _ _ _	2 . . _ . .	. . _ _ _
K _ . _	_ . _	3 . . . _ .	. . . _ _
L _____	. _ . .	4 . . . . _	. . . . _
M _ _	_ _	5 _ _ _ .	. . . . .
N _ .	_ .	6 . . . . . .	_ . . . .
O . .	_ _ _	7 _ _ . .	_ _ . . .
P . . . . .	. _ _ .	8 _ . . . .	_ _ _ . .
Q . . _ .	_ _ . _	9 _ . . _	_ _ _ _ .
R . . .	. _ .	0 ______	_ _ _ _ _

Flying telegraphist [Air Crew]	TEL [Air]
Shore wireless service	TEL[SWS]
Telegraphist wholly employed on sensitive intelligence work	TEL [S] meaning "special"