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She didn't decrypt the messages, just listen to the Morse Code and write down (or use the special typewriter,) to record the message. That document was then fo
by vmh1928 5y ago
She didn't decrypt the messages, just listen to the Morse Code and write down (or use the special typewriter,) to record the message. That document was then forwarded to the actual code breakers. The women listeners would have no idea what the messages were about.
- vmh1928 5y agoAnother aspect of this, they had to listen for their whole shift to try and catch a transmission. They didn't have recorders or scanners, just sit on a known frequency and wait for the Japanese to transmit something. And when the transmission started they had to be awake and capturing it. Even several years into the war there wasn't 24x7 coverage of all radio frequencies. And of the coded messages that were caught by listening posts like these, a much smaller fraction of messages were decrypted. Still, this effort gave the Allies a strategic advantage in both the Pacific and Europe.
- jhgb 5y ago> They didn't have recorders or scanners, just sit on a known frequency and wait for the Japanese to transmit something Weird, I could have sworn that there were already some (admittedly primitive) scanners in WW II. At least here in Europe.
- Johnythree 5y agoDepends what you mean by "scanner". I think the OP was referring to receivers that could rapidly scan a multitude of channels, then stop if one became busy. They did exist early on, but weren't really practical till synthesized (and programmable) oscillators arrived. Some military receives had mechanical push-button tuning, but programming new channels was cumbersome and slow. Of course you could just use a bank of receivers, but you need an operator at each RX, else you'll miss most of the traffic. Especially if more than one channel becomes busy. Bottom line, having access to scanners doesn't fix the problem.