Enigma on Amateur Radio


The primary purpose of this website is to enable anyone who has copied an Enigma encrypted CW transmission from amateur radio station ZL3TK, to quickly and easily decrypt that message.  Be advised there is no intention, and has never been any intention that transmissions be encoded for the purpose of obscuring its meaning, which is acknowledged as a prohibited activity on amateur radio in most jurisdictions. 

On the contrary, using the accepted definitions, nothing has been encoded  into a data stream and transmitted. Accordingly this website does not provide decoding facilities.  Instead parts of the messages were encrypted using a complex letter-substitution algorithm through the use of a Virtual Enigma Machine.  The mechanical Enigma concept was invented by Arthur Scherbius in 1918.  This website provides both instructions and hyperlinks to the resources necessary to easily decrypt any of the messages unique to ZL3TK and correspondents.  By deduction, Enigma messages not associated with ZL3TK may also be decrypted using keys provided by other sources.  It is easily demonstrated that Enigma encryption, as a security or obscuring protocol, is well past its use-by date and can no longer be considered a secure cypher in any sense of the word.  


An obvious secondary purpose of this website is to encourage interest in all technical and historic aspects of the German Enigma machine used during World War II, and while making use of the [misnamed] Morse code, foster a continuing interest in using CW mode on the amateur bands. For accuracy, it is suggested that speed be limited to < 15 wpm.   Re-transmits are quite acceptable but inevitably waste good air-time.

Currently all machine type-references are to the 3-rotor Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe machine fitted with B reflector.


 


 
1  The Daily Keys arranged by month pages, provide the unique initial settings for all inbound and outbound traffic until the end of the current year.
2 The Key Page Archive provides initial machine settings which may have been used in the previous 12 months.
3 The Basic Principles page explains only superficially the concept of encryption and Enigma.  Recommend digging deeper with Mr Google.
4 Download the best Virtual Enigma Machine    Many thanks to its creator, Dirk Rijmenants
5 Join the Enigma World Code Group    A fine practical site established by Bruce Culp, N7CLH.
6

The Message Configuration page describes the purpose of each part of ZL3TK's Enigma encrypted messages.   Format the same for incoming.
7 Schematic for an Audio Oscillator.   Sinewave output and click-free, specially for sending MCW on FM transmitters.
8 New Zealand's Radiocommunication (sic) Regulations.   How the only relevant clause has been interpreted.
 
 

All Copyrights and Trademarks remain the property of their respective owners.
Anyone is free to use material from this website, however text
must be accurately transcribed, please do not misquote it.

 

Disclaimer:    This is a deliberately simple website and does not claim to be definitive or complete in any way.
There are numerous better resources presented by really clever people available for information, training and research purposes. 
Every partly-encrypted transmission from ZL3TK and respondents refers listeners to this website www.ZL3TK.TK  for recovering the daily key and decryption resources.