[FPSPACE] Remembering Perry and Slater

[Jakob Terweij]

Ed,
Great story.
I also remember me meeting Geoff in his clasroom and he showing me the  
equipment they were using
He showed me the antenna hanging over the schools playground . It is  
good to remember those days.
Jakob





Quoting Edwin Cameron <nodin at sbcglobal.net>:

> In mid-2002, I was treated to a most amazing treat.  It was a   
> barbecue at the farm of Derek Slater, the fellow who equipped the   
> very first effort made by Geoff Perry at the Kettering Boys School   
> to capture telemetry signals from Russian spacecraft.  I have not,   
> until now, rendered my sincerest thanks to the gracious host.  But,   
> I do it here and now, in this most appropriate forum as one of the   
> pioneers.  Thank you Derek Slater for all you meant to making these   
> noisy telemetry things public when so much of it was shrouded in   
> secrecy on both sides.
>
>   While there at the farm, we talked with dozens of "space cadets"   
> from around the world, many the members of Perry's most prestigious   
> Kettering Group.  Aside from my knowing Geoff Perry before his death  
>  through earlier meetings in the UK and in the US when he came to   
> NSA, I had not, to my knowledge, met any of the other members of the  
>  Kettering Group until that 2002 meeting.  Geoff had asked me at   
> times after he got to know what I did and where, why I didn't join   
> the group, but it was prohibited as long as I had accesses to the   
> highest, most sensitive secrets of the US, because the Kettering   
> Group was considered to be a foreign organization -- never mind the   
> close association, still not fully disclosed, between the UK and the  
>  USA even at that time.
>
>   In classes that I developed and taught for those within military   
> and government services who were to decipher foreign telemetry, I   
> used the film, titled as "Bleeps and Mr. Perry!"  And, in the US it   
> was, "The Boys Who Cracked the Soviet Secret!"  Neither of these is   
> available today, as far as I can determine, though I have a VHS copy  
>  of the US version somewhere.  But, it was very well done, and   
> highlighted the excellent work of Geoff Perry, Derek Slater, the   
> boys of Kettering, and even the visiting girls who had math and   
> science taught at the Boys' School.
>
>   The high point of the 2002 visit to the farm came when Derek asked  
>  if anyone wanted to see the original equipment used at the Boys'   
> School!  Wow!  When I entered the room where the equipment was   
> stored and displayed, I could imagine sitting there forty years   
> before, listening to satellite telemetry as one of Perry's and   
> Slater's boys.  Like a lot of Americans, I heard Sputnik, live on   
> the radio in 1957.  But, it was nothing like the exploits of those   
> Kettering boys and girls.  By 1968, I was doing it professionally,   
> but secretly.  You can hear some samples of that early type of   
> telemetry by going to Sven Grahn's website.  The following link will  
>  get you to one of the PDM signals common to many early Soviet   
> satellites:    
> http://www.svengrahn.pp.se/radioind/Luna3beeps/Luna3beeps.html
>
>   For those of the Kettering Group who were at that meeting of the   
> Kettering Group in 2002, perhaps the last, it was my honor to meet   
> you all there.  Thank you for making a dream come true.  And, thank   
> you, again, Derek Slater!  (And, the barbecue was first rate; almost  
>  as fantastic as the visit and meeting you!)
>
>   Sincerely,
>   Edwin "N Odin" Cameron
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een wereld zonder geweld is als een droom zonder einde
a world without violence is like a dream without an end