With funding available for all manner of radars, magic
torpedoes, aircraft and missiles, where was Pointsman in the scheme of things?
"Tides, radio interference, damned little else. There is no way for changes out there to produce changes here."
On the other side of the arch is a Russian jeep with a couple officers, one talking earnestly into the mike of his radio set, and the air between quickens with spoken Russian at the speed of light weaving a net to catch Slothrop.
At first he helped out in the propulsion group. No one was specializing yet. That came later, when the bureaus and paranoias moved in, and the organization charts became plan-views of prison cells. Kurt Mondaugen, whose field was radio electronics, could come up with solutions to cooling problems.
The Russians even had a guard posted on board for a while, till the Anubian ladies vamped them off long enough to single up all lines—and so the last long reprise of Polish homeland was on, across these water-meadows of the north, radio messages following them in clear one day and code the next, an early and shapeless situation, dithering between executioner's silence and the Big Time.
Russian transmissions come crackling out of ship's radio, and the static blows like sheets of rain.
The idea was always to carry along a fixed quantity, A. Sometimes you'd use a Wìen bridge, tuned to a certain frequency A{, whistling, heavy with omen, inside the electric corridors while outside, according to the tradition in these matters, somewhere a quantity B would be gathering, building, as the Rocket gathered speed. So, up till assigned Brennschluss velocity, "v ," electric shocked as any rat into following this very narrow mazeway of clear space—yes, radio signals from the ground would enter the Rocket body, and by reflex—literally by electric signal traveling a reflex arc—the control surfaces twitch, to steer you back on course the instant you'd begin to wander off.
But the blacks don't know what else Närrisch knew:
(a) there was a radio link from the ground to the S-Gerät but not the other way round,
(b) there was an interference problem between a servo-actuator and a special oxygen line running aft to the device from the main tank,
(c) Weissmann not only coordinated the S-Gerät project at Nordhausen, but also commanded the battery that fired Rocket 00000.
Total espionage. Bit by bit this mosaic is growing. Tchitcherine, bureauless, carries it around in his brain. Every chip and scrap belongs. More precious than Ravenna, something goes erecting against this starch-colored sky. . . .
Radio link + oxygen = afterburner of some kind.
The tail-section group has been on the radio all morning, trying to get a position fix, if the skies will only clear. So the assembly of the 00001 is occurring also in a geographical way.
[Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon]
Werner had been only fourteen years old then, but he was now eighteen, he worked at the Air Ministry, he hated the Nazis even more, and he had a powerful radio transmitter and a code book. He was resourceful and courageous, taking dreadful risks and gathering priceless information. And Volodya was his contact.
On his desk was a decrypt from the radio section, the German words pencilled letter by letter under the code groups. The message was from Werner.
Anticipating the outbreak of war, Volodya had long ago equipped his Berlin spies with clandestine radios and code books. Now it was more vital than ever that the handful of brave anti-Nazis should continue to pass information to the Soviets. Before leaving he had destroyed all records of their names and addresses, which now existed only in his head.
At home, Chuck had not said much about the navy, no doubt because their parents were still angry with him for not going to Harvard. But alone with Woody he opened up a bit. ‘Hawaii is great, but I’m really disappointed to have a shore job,’ he said. ‘I joined the navy to go to sea.’
‘What are you doing, exactly?’
‘I’m part of the Signal Intelligence Unit. We listen to radio messages, mainly from the Imperial Japanese Navy.’
‘Aren’t they in code?’
‘Yes, but you can learn a lot even without breaking the codes. It’s called traffic analysis. A sudden increase in the number of messages indicates that some action is imminent. And you learn to recognize patterns in the traffic. An amphibious landing has a distinctive configuration of signals, for example.’
We can also figure out where the signal originated, by triangulation. Given locations and the call signs, we can build up a pretty good picture of where most of the ships of the Japanese navy are, even if we can’t read the messages.’
‘So we know where they are, and what direction they’re taking, but not what their orders are,’ said Gus.
‘Frequently, yes.’
‘But if they wanted to hide from us, all they would have to do is impose radio silence.’
‘True,’ said Vandermeier. ‘If they go quiet, this whole operation becomes useless, and we are well and truly fucked up the ass.’
[...]
Gus frowned. ‘Radio silence. Has that ever happened before?’
‘Yes. Aircraft carriers go quiet when they return to home waters. So we assume that’s the explanation this time.’
Chuck was assigned to the radio room, a sensible posting that made use of his experience in
handling signals.
[Winter of the World, Ken Follet]
As it appears from the quotes extracted from the books radio had a great importance during World War II under multiple aspects, like checking enemies position (triangulation and radar) and actions (traffic analysis and signal configurations), controling the coasts, comunicating with other meber of the army or with a Soviet spy in Berlin and to control a missile and keep it on the route. There where though few problems about interferences and the fact that it can be easily tracked down.
If you wanna know more about history and functioning of Marconi's creature check the links below:
http://s194214.blogspot.it/2013/05/la-radio.html (italian version by Alessia Rosace, 'Tecnologia e Comunicazione' blog)
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio (english version - Wikipedia page on the radio as a technology feature)
About triangulation...in the link below you can find a video about triangulation method and its aplications in time:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYBbVNpMlUU
The image presents the general idea if this tracking technique
In the links below you can find more info regarding the Traffic Analysis:
http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/tech_journals/intro_traffic_analysis.pdf (NSA introduction document)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_analysis (Wikipedia presentation of its applications in the military field during WWI and WWII)
Woman radio Operator during war times
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