Friday, June 15, 2012 — Day 21
I left George’s this morning and headed to Washington, DC. Yes, George and I were there yesterday, but he was driving, and I wanted to be able to say that I had driven there as well. Plus I needed to try to get a contact in the log while in DC. I had a route mapped out, but I got a bit lost, so I pulled off the interstate. Luckily for me, I happened upon the perfect free SHADY! parking spot on the side of the road. Though I tweeted the frequency, the combination of poor propagation and the fact that a lot of my friends were at work instead of on the radio was making it difficult to make a contact. There was a local ham on 146.52, so I tried to work him. Unfortunately he didn’t let go of the PTT (“push to talk” button”) for 6 or 7 minutes at a time. I couldn’t hear the other side of his QSO, but it lasted just as long. In a hurry to get back on the road and out of DC, I called my dad for a sked. He got on the air and was able to work me, so I got a QSO from DC in my log. Thanks, Dad! Then I was able to head out of DC and into Maryland.
I’d been looking forward to this day for quite a while. I headed up to Fort Meade, MD, to the NSA to visit the National Cryptologic Museum. I’ve loved codes since I was a kid, and last year’s number theory course just reinforced that. One of my Tweeps had suggested pretty early on in my planning for this trip that I stop at this museum, and I’m so glad I did. I spent several hours there, but I could easily go back and spend another whole day at some point.
One of the things I was most interested in seeing at the museum was the Enigma machine. To my surprise, they didn’t just have a display about the Enigma, but they had two working Enigmas there for everybody to play with.
Enigma Machine
Enigma Rotors
Rotor settings and message to encrypt
Plaintext input gives a ciphertext output, or vice versa
the encrypted message
There’s so much more I want to share from the museum, but it’s enough to fill an entire blog of its own instead of just one entry here. I highly recommend going to see the museum if you’re anywhere close to Fort Meade, or even if you’re not.
There is one more thing I saw at the museum that I can’t neglect to show you. These are pieces of the Berlin Wall.
Pieces of the Berlin Wall
I had hoped to make it back down to Virginia for a cookout with some of the guys I’ll be meeting up with tomorrow at W3LPL’s, but the timing just didn’t work out. I stayed in Maryland about 30 minutes away from W3LPL’s so I can head straight there tomorrow.
Trip totals as of Day 21:
- Miles driven: 2900 (exactly)
- States**: 14
- Logged QSOs: 54
- Ounces of good decaf: 204
- Ounces of bad decaf: 40
- Tow trucks required: 1
- Big metal chickens: 5
- Terra cotta pigs: 0
- Number of times I’ve heard “Somebodeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee That I Used To Know” by Gotye: 37
** “States” now includes states and the District of Columbia
73 de NR4CB, Connie
we’ll have to go back and play on the enigmas and send encrypted notes back and forth to each other :)
We can do better than that. We can make up our own codes and system without the enigma and try to break them. I’ll make a point of getting my number theory and my cryptology books out of storage before I move.
~Connie~
I would like to see the Enigma machines and play on them too. Wow there are a lot of neat places to see and visit. Conditions on HF here were not the best this field day weekend but we worked a few hundred stations on 40 and 20. Had fun and got sun burnt……you got to love field day!!!!
Lyle, yeah, gotta love Field Day. I’ll post about my experience on Field Day as soon as I can catch up. You can see I’m several days behind on posting. O:-)
~Connie~
Unless there are certificates of authenticity to go along with those “Pieces of the Berlin Wall,” I’m somewhat dubious that they are genuine. The final stage of the Berlin Wall was constructed out of heavily reinforced concrete, heavily mixed with gravel and supported by steel rebar. I don’t see anywhere near the quantity of gravel in that concrete that I saw in actual pieced of the Berlin Wall that I saw in bazaars all over Berlin, and on the few remaining standing sections of the Wall, when I was over there in 1992. In those days, there were also huge quantities of spraybombed concrete fragments, masquerading as pieces of the Wall. Many people think that they have a genuine fragment of history, when in fact, all they probably have is a piece of rubble from somewhere in Berlin.
Interesting, but disappointing. Thanks for sharing that info.
~Connie~