15 Nov
2007
15 Nov
'07
7:22 p.m.
Here's an interesting little segment I just heard on the Beeb about
the Colossus reconstruction at Bletchley Park:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7094881.stm
Cheers,
Chuck
8:10 p.m.
2007/11/15, Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk>:
Chuck Guzis wrote:
Nope; his was the first and only [visible] instance onto the maillist.
Here's an interesting little segment I just
heard on the Beeb about
the Colossus reconstruction at Bletchley Park:
Hmm, I posted that a few hours ago... did it not come through? :-(
8:12 p.m.
2007/11/15, from at fu3.org <fu3.org at gmail.com>:
2007/11/15, Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at
yahoo.co.uk>:
Disregard my premature statement; yours is here too.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
Here's an interesting little segment I just
heard on the Beeb about
the Colossus reconstruction at Bletchley Park:
Hmm, I posted that a few hours ago... did it not come through? :-(
8:43 p.m.
woodelf wrote:
from at fu3.org wrote:
ISTR the Colossus guys saying that one of the main problems was the lack of
transmit power on the German side (due to rules and regulations) - it's a
fraction of what it would have been in wartime. Plus of course the receiving
aerial is tiny compared to the originals too!
Glad my post turned up and I wasn't going mad, anyway. Just another little
glitch in the Matrix I guess :-)
J.
Disregard my premature statement; yours is here
too.
Who do you think will crash first? The real hardware or the software
version?
9:44 p.m.
On 15 Nov 2007 at 20:43, Jules Richardson wrote:
Glad my post turned up and I wasn't going mad,
anyway. Just another little
glitch in the Matrix I guess :-)
My apologies--the Beeb story said that it was 4 hours old when I
posted it--but perhaps that was the World Service posting time.
Certainly there's been a lot of publicity in the UK and German press
about this, but nary a mention over here in the US.
Regardless, it's a good story and I look forward to the results. One
item that had me wondering was the communications difficulty--are
German radio amateurs no longer entitled to a full gallon of transmit
power?
Cheers,
Chuck
10:26 p.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 15 Nov 2007 at 20:43, Jules Richardson wrote:
No worries - my outgoing SMTP server just seems to have had a few brain farts
of late, so I was just getting worried it had eaten the message. (Ob.
classiccmp - there was a time when nothing was thought of unreliable email;
funny how people expect it to be instant and 100% reliable these days!)
Glad my post turned up and I wasn't going
mad, anyway. Just another little
glitch in the Matrix I guess :-)
My apologies--the Beeb story said that it was 4 hours old when I
posted it--but perhaps that was the World Service posting time. Certainly there's been a lot of publicity in the
UK and German press
about this, but nary a mention over here in the US.
It's a shame that it all happened a bit last-minute; it would have been nice
to have everything laid out six months ago so that radio amateurs could have
got more involved and really made an 'event' out of it. What with everyone's
time this year being devoted to forming the National museum itself though
there's not been a lot of free time for the more 'fun' stuff :-(
Regardless, it's a good story and I look forward
to the results. One
item that had me wondering was the communications difficulty--are
German radio amateurs no longer entitled to a full gallon of transmit
power?
Someone did tell me, but I forget the exact numbers. 'not much' is the answer;
it was some tiny fraction of the original transmit power though. I'll drop a
message on the museum's mailing list and see if anyone knows...
Apparently there were quite a few raised eyebrows on the German side when
permission was sought to send an encrypted message overseas!
cheers
Jules
10:33 p.m.
Regardless, it's a good story and I look forward
to the results. One
item that had me wondering was the communications difficulty--are
German radio amateurs no longer entitled to a full gallon of transmit
power?
While the two stars of the show, Colossus and SZ42, are getting the
limelight, I am most interested in the modem on the German end. Will
they be using original equipment? What was used during the war? Was
it an "Fug O 3" by any chance?
I can find no hard data on whatever it is on the web.
--
Will
11:01 p.m.
On 15 Nov 2007 at 17:33, William Donzelli wrote:
While the two stars of the show, Colossus and SZ42,
are getting the
limelight, I am most interested in the modem on the German end. Will
they be using original equipment? What was used during the war? Was
it an "Fug O 3" by any chance?
This timetable seems to indicate that it's BP's SZ42 that will be
used by the German side:
http://www.codesandciphers.org.uk/cevent.htm
This blog appears to confirm this:
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/11/15/colossus_is_codebrea
king_at_bletchley_park_again.html
Cheers,
Chuck
11:20 p.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 15 Nov 2007 at 17:33, William Donzelli wrote:
Yes it is - I got some nice photos of it the other day when it was on the
bench :) I believe the army actually came in and did the shipment...
AFAIK there's no transmission equipment as part of the SZ42 itself though, so
something would still need to be hooked between that and a giant aerial in
order to do the transmission; I think it was this bit that Will was interested in.
cheers
J.
While the two stars of the show, Colossus and
SZ42, are getting the
limelight, I am most interested in the modem on the German end. Will
they be using original equipment? What was used during the war? Was
it an "Fug O 3" by any chance?
This timetable seems to indicate that it's BP's SZ42 that will be
used by the German side:
16 Nov
16 Nov
12:14 a.m.
AFAIK there's no transmission equipment as part of
the SZ42 itself though, so
something would still need to be hooked between that and a giant aerial in
order to do the transmission; I think it was this bit that Will was interested in.
No, I am interested in the thing that modulates the bitstream, before
the transmitter. The modem, basically, not the transmitter.
--
Will
3:24 p.m.
From: wdonzelli at gmail.com
Hi
I thought most of these messages were sent to stations that only
had operators. In that case, it would have been sent by hand with
CW.
Still, at the rates they were sending data in those days, FSK
could have been as simple as a solenoid on a capacitor, tied to
the frequency reference.
Dwight
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AFAIK there's no transmission equipment as
part of the SZ42 itself though, so
something would still need to be hooked between that and a giant aerial in
order to do the transmission; I think it was this bit that Will was interested in.
No, I am interested in the thing that modulates the bitstream, before
the transmitter. The modem, basically, not the transmitter.
--
Will 
6:56 p.m.
Hi,
dwight elvey said:
Colossus was built to decode messages in rtty code sent by
the Lorenz Geheimschreiber cypher machine.
From: wdonzelli at gmail.com
Hi
I thought most of these messages were sent to stations that only
had operators. In that case, it would have been sent by hand with
CW. AFAIK there's no transmission equipment as
part of the SZ42 itself though, so
something would still need to be hooked between that and a giant aerial in
order to do the transmission; I think it was this bit that Will was interested in.
No, I am interested in the thing that modulates the bitstream, before
the transmitter. The modem, basically, not the transmitter.
--
Will Still, at the rates they were sending data in those
days, FSK
could have been as simple as a solenoid on a capacitor, tied to
the frequency reference.
That was the normal way of doing things at that time. Some of us
can still do it that way...
--
Cheers,
Stan Barr stanb at dial.pipex.com
The future was never like this!
7:42 p.m.
Still, at the
rates they were sending data in those days, FSK
could have been as simple as a solenoid on a capacitor, tied to
the frequency reference.
That was the normal way of doing things at that time. Some of us
can still do it that way... 
8:30 p.m.
William Donzelli wrote:
Modem technology of the late 1930s and World War 2 era was far more
advanced that the simple trick described above. FSK and tone
modulation were both characterized by fairly complex equipments for
the time with active, tube circuitry. Many sets could also cram a few
telegraph or teleprinter channels onto one voice channel or pair of
wires.
There are some technical details about the modems on a page that Chuck
provided the link to in an earlier message:
http://www.codesandciphers.org.uk/cevent.htm
under the heading "The radio transmissions".
Extract:
"These will be exactly as transmitted in WW II. Multi-tone modulation on the
transmitted RF carrier. Two sets of tones were used, one representing a mark
or 1 in the Baudot code, the other representing a space or 0 in the Baudot
code. Three tones were used in each one and these tones were chosen to be not
harmonically related. Their frequencies were 540 cps + n * 180 cps. Actual
frequencies, Mark 900,1620,2340 Space 540,1260,1980.
So what is required is a set of audio tone generators at the transmitting end
and a set of selective tone filters at the receiving end."
It doesn't say why there are 3 frequencies each for mark and space. I was
wondering if it was manually selectable for reception conditions or something,
but Will's mention of multiplexing mutiple channels seems more likely.
The actual tube circuitry wouldn't be too complex.
Still,
at the rates they were sending data in those days, FSK
could have been as simple as a solenoid on a capacitor, tied to
the frequency reference.
That was the normal way of doing things at that time. Some of us
can still do it that way...
11:10 p.m.
There are some technical details about the modems on a
page that Chuck
provided the link to in an earlier message:
http://www.codesandciphers.org.uk/cevent.htm
under the heading "The radio transmissions".
I am looking for specific type and model numbers that the Germans
used. Pictures would be nice of original equipment.
--
WIll
3:55 a.m.
There used to be a nice "arial" at RAF Chicksands in Bedfordshire. I was
there in the 70's and assume it's still there.
Paul Anderson
On 11/15/07, Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
woodelf wrote:
from at fu3.org wrote:
ISTR the Colossus guys saying that one of the main problems was the lack
of
transmit power on the German side (due to rules and regulations) - it's a
fraction of what it would have been in wartime. Plus of course the
receiving
aerial is tiny compared to the originals too!
Glad my post turned up and I wasn't going mad, anyway. Just another little
glitch in the Matrix I guess :-)
J.
Disregard my premature statement; yours is here
too.
Who do you think will crash first? The real hardware or the software
version? 
15 Nov
15 Nov
9:56 p.m.
On Thu, 2007-11-15 at 20:07 +0000, Jules Richardson wrote:
Chuck Guzis wrote:
Yours hit my mailserver at 16:56
Gordon
Here's an interesting little segment I just
heard on the Beeb about
the Colossus reconstruction at Bletchley Park:
Hmm, I posted that a few hours ago... did it not come through? :-(
6263
days inactive
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18 comments
10 participants
participants (10)
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bfranchuk＠jetnet.ab.ca -
cclist＠sydex.com -
dkelvey＠hotmail.com -
fu3.org＠gmail.com -
gordonjcp＠gjcp.net -
hilpert＠cs.ubc.ca -
julesrichardsonuk＠yahoo.co.uk -
stanb＠dial.pipex.com -
useddec＠gmail.com -
wdonzelli＠gmail.com