RADIO SECRECY

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue CXXIII, 10 April 1937, Page 10

RADIO SECRECY

"SCRAMBLED" SPEECH

OVERSEAS CONVERSATIONS

(Uy Telegraph— I'ress Association.l

DUNEDIN, This Day.

".With, the installation of the 'scrambling', apparatus .on the transTasman liner Awatea," says the Post-master-General (the Hon. F. Jones), in a statement issued in Dunedin,\"the Post Office is now able to guarantee secrecy for all overseas radio conversations. This ingenious electrical apparatus, which gives privacy for toll conversations over the air,; has A been in use for some months on the New Zealand-Australia and New ZealandUnited Kingdom channels. It involves the provision 'of Extensive. equipment at Wellington, Radio La Perouse (New South Wales), and the ■ London exchange when a conversation is in progress between New ■ Zealand and any overseas point, including-the Awatea. "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 normal speech." A short-wave listener, who happened to tune in on the right wavelength might be misled into thinking that a' conversation was proceeding in some very strange foreign language, but, as a matter of fact, no linguist without the aid of the intricate apr paratus could grasp the meaning of any of the sounds. ■ • "Even the technical operators in charge of the radio channels cannot understand what is being transmitted, and the English radio-receiving station at Baldock transmits the same apparent jumble to the international exchange in London, where it is converted back into normal, clear utterance and put over the subscriber's line. As the. inland telephone circuits (except party lines) are private and consist of independent channels to the exchanges there is complete secrecy along the whole route."