14 August 1962: STRAD and HYDRA

The result of Sharpe and Robin’s visit can be found in this series of correspondence. The British Deputy Director of Communications and the Chief Engineer of the Diplomatic Wireless Service had serious issues with bringing HYDRA into the STRAD. For one, they noted that HYDRA handled a great deal of high precedence traffic, which threatened to overwhelm the STRAD supervisor and result in a traffic back-log. For another, they are also concerned that Alerts messages – which required rapid handling - would be “delayed or perhaps tangled up in STRAD.” Canadian engineers suggested a “black box” could be introduced for Alerts traffic, which would alert the supervisor to a message “over and above the normal alarm system.” Such a “black box” was available in North America and could be acquired.