The History of Hut Eight


Direction and Type of Swell.

Direction Low Moderate Heavy
N A I Q
NE B J R
E C K S
SE D L T
S E M U
SW F N V
W G O W
NW H P X

No Swell Y
Confused Z

The indicator system supplied with the 1st edition was a single set of 26 Message settings (1 for each letter indicator). It was printed inside the code book.

The 2nd edition was issued by a Spruchschluesseltafel fuer Wetterkurzfunksprueche Kennwort Weimar (I), a table of 4 x 26 columns of 26 message settings for use according to time of day - the day being divided into 4 six hour periods. Weimar was in force 20.1.42 to 25.10.42. when it was replaced by Eisenach (I). On 11.1.43 Eisenach was replaced by Naumburg (I). The construction of these tables was identical to that of Weimar.

The indicator tables issued with the 3rd edition were similar to Weimar, but with 5 columns corresponding to different hourly periods. A new table was issued monthly.

WWs were normally sent following a signal from Control (in the previous day's keys) requesting, for example, "Witzendorf to report weather between 0300 and 0600 tomorrow morning". They were acknowledged on receipt but the contents (in detail) were not put in the acknowledgement, which might say: "Short weather signal has been received from Witzendorf at 0416 hours".

After decoding, the observations contained in WWs were sent to a central meteorological station, and rebroadcast from Norddeich as Cyphered Ship Synoptics in message form F232 of the international symbolic form of weather message. The uncyphered synoptic consisted of 5 to 7 5-figure groups of the form

YQLLL lllGG DDFww PPVTT YClCmChN (TdKDkWNh dsvsapp) where

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