[time-nuts] looking for data on time code display

lists at lazygranch.com lists at lazygranch.com
Sun Dec 11 21:39:03 UTC 2011


I did the NSA museum tour too. Well worth the trip. 

I got a CIA polo shirt at the employee gift shop. Yeah, where do you wear it? I put it on for one of those 9/11 Conspiracy events. 

"Do you work for the CIA?"
"No, I just wear their shirts."

-----Original Message-----
From: "Bill Hawkins" <bill at iaxs.net>
Sender: time-nuts-bounces at febo.com
Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2011 15:12:51 
To: 'Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement'<time-nuts at febo.com>
Reply-To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
	<time-nuts at febo.com>
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] looking for data on time code display

Fascinating. I also have one of these with slight differences, but it
does have a Fort Meade tag. Bought it from a guy on the BoatAnchors
list in Atlanta in the dim past.

The HTID number is H9823180065821, NSN 664500DISPLAY, User ID STWA104

The rotary switch adds a 160 KHz position. The two switches are marked
CODE POLARITY and POWER ON. The rear panel has a 4 pin circular jack
labeled AUX and a 24 pin rectangular connector marked PARALLEL.

A partly torn tag taped to the top says Made by TRAK, Model ?? 2234/U,
SN 517. A plastic envelope contained a DD Form 1348-1A release/receipt
document from the Defense Reutilization Marketing Office at Meade. It
released 5 of these units worth $1500 each, dated 1-29-98, ship from
H98231 (in HTID number above) to SX1213 (marketing office?).

Somewhere I'd heard that these units were for locating times on tape
recordings of intercepts. The different filter frequencies are for
different tape speeds, from high speed search to fine positioning.
The code might be IRIG but it could just as easily be something the
NSA invented for the purpose.

I bought it because I'd visited the NSA museum at Fort Meade and seen
the code breaking machines. I didn't find them intimidating at all.
The gift shop would sell me a jacket with NSA logos, but I didn't
know where I would wear it. There is a certain cachet to having a
box that was used by top secret agents to decode radio intercepts.

Bill Hawkins

P.S. I'd recommend doing some signal tracing from the Input connector.
We have no idea what signal levels were used, if it wasn't IRIG. I
never found time to do that.


-----Original Message-----
From: ed breya
Sent: Sunday, December 11, 2011 2:12 PM

I looked at your first post again and noticed there were apparently 
lots of TTL circuitry, so it could be an IRIG code receiver, and you 
should be able talk to it. If you don't have a source readily 
available, you may be able to fool it into responding a little to 
gibberish applied from a modulated signal generator, just to see if 
it's functional.

Ed


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