In the Navy

No, I was Det. Comd. Brigade Admin. none of that equipment for my Det. We had a good go, except that Support Tp. always seem to get the nutters for Troop Commanders our RC Sigs officers were good guys though, so making up for it.

Gordon. wrote:

Quote :

BID 150

Now then Shelldrake...What were the RA doing with BIDs..I thought that was R Sigs only

Can't say too much Gordon,walls have ears!

Shelldrake wrote:

Hardrations, were you in charge of the BID 150?

In fact the closests I got to using it was, having it stuck into the switchboard room with us at Rheinselen so as there was 24 hr security on it. It remained in it's case and was issued out by the RC Sigs Det Sgt. I believe to the command det. Makes one feel young knowing it's now a display item at the Royal Signals museum.

Gordon. wrote:

Quote :

BID 150

Now then Shelldrake...What were the RA doing with BIDs..I thought that was R Sigs only

Not so, RA and RE had them when with us as a brigade. One memorable incident sticks in ones mind re that.

Think it was RA but stand to be corrected. Gunner approaches YOS and says they had a problem with their secure radio. YOS trots to their 432 and does some kind of inspection and tests. Think the cards are damaged so will have to get you some new ones he declares. "Oh it's okay says Gunner Reah, I have some here". With that he produces some cards that ran out months earlier and had been shoved in one of the vehicle bins. Seem to remember it cost a senior NCO his tapes and worse because he had declared them destroyed securely. I was there, so not a myth!

Teabag wrote:

Gordon. wrote:

Quote :

BID 150

Now then Shelldrake...What were the RA doing with BIDs..I thought that was R Sigs only

Not so, RA and RE had them when with us as a brigade. One memorable incident sticks in ones mind re that.

Think it was RA but stand to be corrected. Gunner approaches YOS and says they had a problem with their secure radio. YOS trots to their 432 and does some kind of inspection and tests. Think the cards are damaged so will have to get you some new ones he declares. "Oh it's okay says Gunner Reah, I have some here". With that he produces some cards that ran out months earlier and had been shoved in one of the vehicle bins. Seem to remember it cost a senior NCO his tapes and worse because he had declared them destroyed securely. I was there, so not a myth!

Ouch..... We once picked up a encryption block following an American Rocket unit. All ours were quickly accounted for. It was an American one. Don't know what happened with that incident.

Shelldrake wrote:

Gordon. wrote:

Quote :

BID 150

Now then Shelldrake...What were the RA doing with BIDs..I thought that was R Sigs only

Can't say too much Gordon,walls have ears!

Wouldn't worry too much Gordon, you can look them up on Wikki and I don't mean Wikki leaks.

Not worried Teabag,Just wondering how RA were involved with them..In my time only cypher ops and E/TE Techs were allowed anywhere near...
There are quite a few on show at the corps museum,a couple that i would like to put the boot in, that were responsible for a lot of lost sleep.

BID had me scratching my head, then I recalled hearing about it somewhere ... it was on the following link that is part of Petra Henderson's site.

http://www.henderson-tele.com/royal-signals/page9/rbk/page10/page10.html ..

In my day it was Typex and the 'holy of holies' Rockex ... which was only mentioned in the cipher office .. mention it outside and you were back in the ranks right after your Courts Martial

Len (Ciphers)

Msl Regts were Div Arty so presumably had to have very secure comms, OTPs were also in use in the Command Posts. Brum, it was Nuclear Surety Inspections that we were subjected to, pain the the bum. I found out recently that the warheads in the Sites (if there were any actually in there) contained Sarin. Ciphers, I used a lot of Tippex in my Clerking days, that and the red stuff you put on skins, was is correctine?

Quote :

BID had me scratching my head, then I recalled hearing about it somewhere ... it was on the following link that is part of Petra Henderson's site.

http://www.henderson-tele.com/royal-signals/page9/rbk/page10/page10.html ..

Never came across the 150.I assume like all the others it was only the daily card inserts that were classified secret,the rest of the machine being restricted.

BID.I can`t remember what it stands for.Does anyone?
Binary ? ?

Just for Len



Happy days

Gordon. wrote:

Quote :

BID had me scratching my head, then I recalled hearing about it somewhere ... it was on the following link that is part of Petra Henderson's site.

http://www.henderson-tele.com/royal-signals/page9/rbk/page10/page10.html ..

Never came across the 150.I assume like all the others it was only the daily card inserts that were classified secret,the rest of the machine being restricted.

BID.I can`t remember what it stands for.Does anyone?
Binary ? ?

You are correct up to a point. The cards were secret, the bids themselves Confidential. http://www.jproc.ca/crypto/bid150.html

BID = British inter departmental according to Wikki.

Hey, I once saw one of the them things in a museum in Catterick (or Harrogat) when I was a class A tradesman doing my A2 signallers course.

LOL......

I stand corrected..Thanks for that link Teabag.Looks very interesting.

Themaadone wrote:

Hey, I once saw one of the them things in a museum in Catterick (or Harrogat) when I was a class A tradesman doing my A2 signallers course.

LOL......

Museums can be quite demoralising.

I went around the Tank museum, Bovington, in the mid-80's and on display was a C42 radio. State of the art when I was a Flaggie.

Life can cruel !

brum wrote:

Themaadone wrote:

Hey, I once saw one of the them things in a museum in Catterick (or Harrogat) when I was a class A tradesman doing my A2 signallers course.

LOL......

Museums can be quite demoralising.

I went around the Tank museum, Bovington, in the mid-80's and on display was a C42 radio. State of the art when I was a Flaggie.

Life can cruel !

Think he was talking about the enigma. Well I hope he was! From Rum to crypto, not bad eh! C42 in a museum, well I do feel old now.

Via Honest John, Teabag.

brum wrote:

Themaadone wrote:

Hey, I once saw one of the them things in a museum in Catterick (or Harrogat) when I was a class A tradesman doing my A2 signallers course.

LOL......

Museums can be quite demoralising.

I went around the Tank museum, Bovington, in the mid-80's and on display was a C42 radio. State of the art when I was a Flaggie.

Life can cruel !

I was down at the RC Sigs Museum in Kingston a few years back. Thought the same thing when I saw the C42. State of art in 61 now a museum peice. The SSM Bty RCA was the only unit in the Cdn Army to have the C45 and that was only in Germany. Crappy peice of equipment being in the lower part of VHF, but you could tune it on all freq.'s but the C42 only on even freq.'s Then there was the C11. Last saw one of those piled up in the corner of the Radio Room at Zeros in Cyprus in 76.

I trained on Clansman and ptarmigan.... both of which have been replaced by Bowman and other stuff.... they're all in museums now as well.... time does fly and I am not even 40!

The D11. Now that was a beast. Only ever saw it in training though. C11 we had as our HF set. Very noisy on transmit.

Teabag wrote:

The D11. Now that was a beast. Only ever saw it in training though. C11 we had as our HF set. Very noisy on transmit.

That it was. That was another set we only had in Germany.

We suffered through to 69 in Canada with the old 52 set which got replaced by the American 109. The 52 set you could load up just by listening to the noise it made. Grid, plae, grid, plate, grid, plate untill the meter should a good reading, that's if you had a meter, then you went by noise and vibration. Also had that had crystal compartment one could hide his chocolate bars in. Then wonder where that delicious smell of chocolate was coming from after turning it on. Yes I did that once.

Len (ciphers). I see you were in Cyprus. Did you ever come across a cipher-op by the name of Ted Hammonds? Just wondered.

Don't recall a Ted Hammonds, but then again I was working in the CSO's Branch, just Maj Jack Knowles and myself monitoring for security breaches etc. Maj Knowles was GSO 2 GHQ MELF and he wrote in my annual report that I was wasted (and I was frequently) as a Signals corporal and should be at least a platoon sgt in the infantry. Needless to say I stayed where I was ...... but if .... ah well.
I did though know a Cpl Ted Hammond in the RAOC he was unfortunately killed by the EOKA bastards while buying an ice cream for his little lad, he was a Sgt then and I was back home by then.

Len (Ciphers)

Not the one, Len. This chap was a life-long friend of mine. Died of lung cancer last year. He was also stationed in Kenya, and spoke Swahili like a native.
Sad loss.

We suffered through to 69 in Canada with the old 52 set which got replaced by the American 109. The 52 set you could load up just by listening to the noise it made. Grid, plae, grid, plate, grid, plate untill the meter should a good reading, that's if you had a meter, then you went by noise and vibration. Also had that had crystal compartment one could hide his chocolate bars in. Then wonder where that delicious smell of chocolate was coming from after turning it on. Yes I did that once. [/quote]Hardrations,

You might be able to help with this one Hardrations.

Was the 52 Set the one that was about four feet wide with two fans on the front ?

We used to have one in H3 which was used for Rear Link.

(I was trained on that Canadian 19 set with the Russian writing on the front).