Signals in War and Peace

Brought to you by The Wireless Heritage Group

For our second Wireless Heritage SIG we have teamed up with The National Museum of Computing (‘TNMOC’, http://www.tnmoc.org/). This joint evening event, open to members of both TNMOC and CW will take place at TNMOC in Bletchley Park.

Registration for this event is now closed.

About the event

Speaking at this event will be:

John Pether, TNMOC: 'Intercepting Lorenz signals'
The first indications that the Germans were using radio teleprinter transmissions was in the latter half of 1940. This early intercept work was carried out by the Metropolitan Police, on behalf of the Foreign Office. It was apparent the standard teleprinter signals were being encrypted by an unknown device. The unknown device was the Lorenz SZ42 cipher attachment. When these messages were decrypted they revealed Hitler's communications to and between the German High Command. The result was the shortening of the war and saving countless lives.

Steve Roberts, Selex-ES: '100 Years of Electronic Warfare'
In 1914, Marconi engineers based in Chelmsford detected radio signals from German airships. The British Royal Navy recognised the importance of this and set up a chain of Direction-Finding stations on the East Coast of the UK. By 1916, a network had been established that enabled successful defence of the UK from air attacks. In the 2nd World War, the German Air Defence system was very effective, using a mixture of radar, radio and EW systems. The British and American activities to defeat this Air Defence system, and later variants produced by the Warsaw Pact, employed a wide range of equipment that would be familiar to the Electronic Warfare engineers of 2014. This talk commemorates 100 years of British activity in Electronic Warfare in support of Air Operations.

Andy Sutton, University of Salford: 'Liberating the laptop: an overview of cellular data communications'
This talk will review those early days of mobile data and present a display of PCMCIA data cards and their replacement; the USB dongle, the latter leading to what was commonly known as “dongle mania” as mobile data traffic levels grew at a phenomenal rate.

The museum, located at Bletchley Park, is an independent charity housing the largest collection of functional historic computers in Europe, including a rebuilt Colossus, the world’s first electronic computer. TNMOC enables visitors to follow the development of computing from the ultra-secret pioneering efforts of the 1940s through the mainframes of the 1960s and 1970s, and the rise of personal computing in the 1980s. New working exhibits are regularly unveiled and the public can already view a rebuilt and fully operational Colossus, the restored Harwell Dekatron / WITCH computer, an ICL 2966, one of the workhorse mainframes computers of the 1980s, many of the earliest desktops of the 1980s and 1990s, plus the NPL Technology of the Internet Gallery.  (Please note that the museum is a separate entity to the Bletchley Park Trust.)

The Wireless Heritage SIG is championed by Stirling Essex of Espansivo, Steve Haseldine of Deaf Alerter, Andy Sutton of EE, Geoff Varrall of RTT Online and Nigel Wall of Climate Associates.

To follow this SIG on Twitter, @CambWireless, please use #CWWH

This event is in partnership with

The National Museum of Computing

The Wireless Heritage SIG is championed by Stirling Essex of Espansivo, Steve Haseldine of Deaf Alerter, Andy Sutton of EE, Geoff Varrall of RTT Online and Nigel Wall of Climate Associates. To follow this SIG on Twitter, @CambWireless, please use #CWWH

Agenda

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The information supplied below may be subject to change before the event.

18:00

Optional tour of the museum (about 1 hour)

18:30

Registration without the tour

19:30

Introduction to the Wireless Heritage SIG by Stirling Essex, Director of Espansivo

19:35

Welcome from host, Kevin Murrell, The National Museum of Computing

19:40

Intercepting Lorenz signals; John Pether, The National Museum of Computing

The first indications that the Germans were using radio teleprinter transmissions was in the latter half of 1940. This early intercept work was carried out by the Metropolitan Police, on behalf of the Foreign Office. It was apparent the standard teleprinter signals were being encrypted by an unknown device. The unknown device was the Lorenz SZ42 cipher attachment. When these messages were decrypted they revealed Hitler's communications to and between the German High Command. The result was the shortening of the war and saving countless lives.

20:05

Q&A

20:10

100 Years of Electronic Warfare; Steve Roberts, VP of Strategy, Selex ES

In 1914, Marconi engineers based in Chelmsford detected radio signals from German airships. The British Royal Navy recognised the importance of this and set up a chain of Direction-Finding stations on the East Coast of the UK. By 1916, a network had been established that enabled successful defence of the UK from air attacks. In the 2nd World War, the German Air Defence system was very effective, using a mixture of radar, radio and EW systems. The British and American activities to defeat this Air Defence system, and later variants produced by the Warsaw Pact, employed a wide range of equipment that would be familiar to the Electronic Warfare engineers of 2014. This talk commemorates 100 years of British activity in Electronic Warfare in support of Air Operations.

20:35

Q&A

20:40

Liberating the laptop: an overview of cellular data communications; Andy Sutton, Visiting Professor, University of Salford

The laptop computer offers great flexibility however for many years it relied on a fixed network connection, typically via a dial up modem over the PSTN. The evolution of cellular data started to gather significant momentum as GSM digital mobile phone networks were established, therefore offering an effective wireless alternative to fixed network connectivity. This connectivity was realised through the use of PCMCIA data cards, operating first on circuit switched data networks however this quickly evolved to IP networking based on GPRS, the evolution of which is still on-going today with advanced 2G, 3G and now 4G technologies offering high data mobility and reliability connectivity. This talk will review those early days of mobile data and present a display of PCMCIA data cards and their replacement; the USB dongle, the latter leading to what was commonly known as “dongle mania” as mobile data traffic levels grew at a phenomenal rate.

21:05

Q&A

21:10

Panel session chaired by Geoff Varrall of RTT Online

21:30

Event closes

SIG Champions

Stirling Essex - Director, Espansivo

Stirling Essex has over 25 years of product development, product management, strategic marketing and business development experience in many areas of wireless technology, and has been intimately involved in the development of test systems for GSM, CDMA (IS-95), 3G (W-CDMA) and LTE. He founded Espansivo, a technology consultancy specialising in helping organisations with their technology, product and business decisions, in 2005. Stirling was previously a co-champion of the CW Future Wide Area Wireless Special Interest Group and and was a member of the CW Board from 2004 to 2015.

Andy Sutton - BT Fellow & Principal Network Architect, BT

Andy Sutton is a BT Fellow and Principal Network Architect for Wireless Access. The wireless access domain includes 4G/5G RAN architecture and mobile backhaul/xhaul, along with microwave and millimetre wave radio systems, and satellite communications. Andy holds an MSc in Mobile Communications from the University of Salford and has over 35 years of experience within the telecommunications industry. Andy’s current research interests include advanced RAN coordination techniques, including C-RAN and OpenRAN, optical fibre and radio based backhaul/xhaul, along with LEO satellite communications and High-altitude Platform Systems (HAPS), all in the context of building resilient heterogeneous networks. Andy holds the post of Visiting Professor of Telecommunications at the University of Liverpool and the University of Salford, he is a Chartered Engineer and holds Fellowships from the IET, ITP and BCS. Andy sits on the editorial board of the ITP Journal and is a CW SIG Champion for eMBB and Wireless Heritage.

Geoff Varrall - Director, RTT Online

Geoff Varrall joined RTT in 1985 as an executive director and shareholder to develop RTT's international business as a provider of technology and business services to the wireless industry. He co-developed RTT's original series of design and facilitation workshops including 'RF Technology', 'Data Over Radio', 'Introduction to Mobile Radio', and 'Private Mobile Radio Systems and developed 'The Oxford programme', a five day strategic technology and market programme presented annually between 1991 and 2005. Geoff has been running in depth technology and market workshops for the industry for over 33 years, spanning five generations of mobile cellular technology. A co-author of the Mobile Radio Servicing Handbook (Heinemann Butterworth, UK), Data Over Radio, (Quantum Publishing, Mendocino, USA and 3G Handset and Network Design (John Wiley, New York). Geoff's fourth book, Making Telecoms Work – from technical innovation to commercial success (John Wiley) was published in early 2012 followed by 5G Spectrum and Standards published by Artech House in July 2016. His latest book 5G and Satellite Spectrum Standards and Scale is now available from Artech House and can be ordered from http://uk.artechhouse.com/5G-and-Satellite-Spectrum-Standards-and-Scale-P1935.aspx. As a past Director of Cambridge Wireless, Geoff is actively involved in a number of wireless heritage initiatives that aim to capture and record past technology and engineering experience and is a patron of the Science Museum In his spare time he plays Jazz trumpet semi-professionally and is a marathon and ultra-runner.

Nigel Wall - Director, Climate Associates Ltd

Nigel has been involved with connected vehicle research since 1992 when he led BT’s mobile data research team – initially using modems on first generation analogue TACS mobile phones! Since 2001 he has provided consultancy complex-systems, with a primary specialism in connected vehicles. He acted as the Monitoring Officer for twelve of the Connected and Autonomous Vehicle research projects supported by Innovate UK and the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles. Climate Associates provides consultancy on delivering pragmatic sustainable systems and services, based on life cycle assessments where wholesale replacement of current systems with lower footprint solutions may not be the most sustainable option.

Event Location

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Location info

The National Museum of Computing, Block H, Bletchley Park, Milton Keynes, MK3 6EB

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