RADIO SECRECY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 84, 10 April 1937, Page 10

RADIO SECRECY.

"SCRAMBLER" DEVICE.

OVERSEAS CONVERSATIONS

INGENIOUS APPARATUS,

(By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.)

DUNBDIX, this day,

With the installation of "scrambling" apparatus on the trans-Tasman liner Awatea the Post Office is now able to guarantee secrecy for all overseas radio conversations, states the PostmasterGeneral, the Hon. F. Jones.

This ■ ingenious electrieai apparatus, which gives privacy for toll conversations over the arr, has been in uee for some months on the Xew ZealandAustralia and Xew Zealand-United Kingdom channels.

It involves the provision of extensive equipment at Wellington, La Perouse (N.S.W.) and the London exchange. When a conversation is in progress between New Zealand and any overseas point, including the Avvatea, clear speech received along the subscriber's line is converted at the Wellington telephone exchange by the "scrambling" apparatus into what sounds like a meaningless jumble of very high pitch, quite unlike nor.'iial speech.

A short-wave listener who happened to time in on the right wave-length might be misled into "thinking that a conversation was proceeding in some very estrange foreign language, but as a matter of fact no linguist without the aid of the intricate apparatus could grasp the meaning of any of the sounds. Even the technical operators in charge of the radio channels cannot stand what is being transmitted and the English radio-receiving station at Baldock transmit* the same apparent jumble to the international exchange in London, where it is converted hack into normal clear utterance and put over the subscribers.' line. As the inland telephone circuits (except party lines) are private, and consist of independent channels to the exchanges there is complete secrecy alonp: the whole route.