Lives there a heart so un-kid like that it won't try to decode a secret message ?
Not me anyway. Maybe that's the big attraction of ham radio for a kid, the Morse code and radio terminology that other people just don't understand.
Larry Zdeb posted a 1942 Captain Midnight secret message on the Radio Premiums Face group:
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| I spend too much time on Face |
So with a challenge like that, the hint was that a code was on the Captain Midnight 1942 Flight Commander medal. I looked at the front and the back picture of that medal via image search and no help.
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| unsure of the hint |
Then I figured it would use a Captain Midnight 1942 Code-o-graph. The hint was for setting the Code-o-graph but since I didn't understand that, brute force would have to work.
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| that brass part on the right was an opening for a photo |
I looked at the images of the Code-o-graph on the internet, the inner dial has the numbers 1-26, the outer ring has the letters. At first I tried "cutting out" the numbered dial using Photoshop and then could it be turned somehow ?
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| I was never good at making clean cuts |
But I couldn't figure an easy way to do that so I copied the letters clockwise from the outer ring in order like this:
nycjwsgumboqhrivfplaexdtzk
Then it's just a matter of counting up from the leftmost letter to get the coded letter. The dial on the decoder makes it easy but you can also just use a text editor. The first few letters of the message are decoded, if they don't make
sense, quit and move on. Then the 26 letters are shifted left by one
letter and the leftmost letter is brought around to the right.
11111111112222222
12345678901234567890123456 => the numbers 1 to 26
-------------------------------------------------
nycjwsgumboqhrivfplaexdtzk uad
ycjwsgumboqhrivfplaexdtzkn metspdx
cjwsgumboqhrivfplaexdtzkny bx
jwsgumboqhrivfplaexdtzknyc odk
wsgumboqhrivfplaexdtzknycj qt
sgumboqhrivfplaexdtzknycjw hz
gumboqhrivfplaexdtzknycjws rk
umboqhrivfplaexdtzknycjwsg injqt
mboqhrivfplaexdtzknycjwsgu vyw
boqhrivfplaexdtzknycjwsgum fc
oqhrivfplaexdtzknycjwsgumb pj
qhrivfplaexdtzknycjwsgumbo lw
hrivfplaexdtzknycjwsgumboq asmf
rivfplaexdtzknycjwsgumboqh ewbp
ivfplaexdtzknycjwsgumboqhr xu
vfplaexdtzknycjwsgumboqhri dm
fplaexdtzknycjwsgumboqhriv tb
plaexdtzknycjwsgumboqhrivf zorxu
laexdtzknycjwsgumboqhrivfp kq
aexdtzknycjwsgumboqhrivfpl nh
exdtzknycjwsgumboqhrivfpla yr
xdtzknycjwsgumboqhrivfplae cipk
dtzknycjwsgumboqhrivfplaex jv
tzknycjwsgumboqhrivfplaexd wf
zknycjwsgumboqhrivfplaexdt special => this looks promising !
It took 25 tries to finally find out what the message said.
First word: 8-20-23-5-17-22-21
s p e c i a l
Second word: 22-7-22-16-25
a w a r d
Third word: 3-17-9-15-26
n i g h t
Fourth word: 5-13-11-17-3-9
c o m i n g
At least I didn't have to drink any Ovaltine - and there are two baths in this house so no "urgency" problems.
Best Regards,
Chuck, WB9KZY
http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm