The AVA Radio Company (

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles Poles,, ; singular masculine: ''Polak'', singular feminine: ''Polka'' or Polish people, are a West Slavic nation and ethnic group, w ...

: ''Wytwórnia Radiotechniczna AVA'') was a Polish

electronics The field of electronics is a branch of physics and electrical engineering that deals with the emission, behaviour and effects of electrons using electronic devices. Electronics uses active devices to control electron flow by amplification ...

firm founded in 1929 in

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

, Poland. AVA designed and built radio equipment for the

Polish General Staff Polish General Staff, formally known as the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces ( Polish: ''Sztab Generalny Wojska Polskiego'') is the highest professional body within the Polish Armed Forces. Organizationally, it is an integral part of the M ...

's Cipher Bureau, which was responsible for the radio communications of the General Staff's ''Oddział II'' (Section II, the General Staff's

intelligence Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. More generally, it can be des ...

section). After the Cipher Bureau's

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

cryptologist This is a list of cryptographers. Cryptography is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of third parties called adversaries. Pre twentieth century * Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi: wrote a (now lost) bo ...

Marian Rejewski in late December 1932 deduced the wiring in the

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military

Enigma Enigma may refer to: *Riddle, someone or something that is mysterious or puzzling Biology *ENIGMA, a class of gene in the LIM domain Computing and technology * Enigma (company), a New York-based data-technology startup * Enigma machine, a family ...

rotor cipher machine, AVA built Enigma "doubles" as well as all the electro-mechanical equipment designed at the Cipher Bureau to expedite

decryption In cryptography, encryption is the process of encoding information. This process converts the original representation of the information, known as plaintext, into an alternative form known as ciphertext. Ideally, only authorized parties can deci ...

of Enigma ciphers.

History

AVA's four directors were Edward Fokczyński,

Antoni Palluth Antoni Palluth (11 May 1900, Pobiedziska, Province of Posen – 18 April 1944) was a founder of the AVA Radio Company. The company built communications equipment for the Polish military; the work included not only radios but also cryptographic ...

, Ludomir Danilewicz, and his younger brother Leonard Danilewicz. The company took its name from the combined radio callsigns of the Danilewicz brothers (''TPAV'') and Palluth (''TPVA''). When the company was being formed in 1929, the Danilewicz brothers were

short-wave Shortwave radio is radio transmission using shortwave (SW) radio frequencies. There is no official definition of the band, but the range always includes all of the high frequency band (HF), which extends from 3 to 30 MHz (100 to 10 me ...

ham Ham is pork from a leg cut that has been preserved by wet or dry curing, with or without smoking."Bacon: Bacon and Ham Curing" in ''Chambers's Encyclopædia''. London: George Newnes, 1961, Vol. 2, p. 39. As a processed meat, the term "ham ...

s" and students at the

Warsaw Polytechnic The Warsaw University of Technology ( pl, Politechnika Warszawska, lit=Varsovian Polytechnic) is one of the leading institutes of technology in Poland and one of the largest in Central Europe. It employs 2,453 teaching faculty, with 357 professor ...

. In 1927, Fokczyński had opened a small radio workshop on

's New World Street. Sporadically he had received orders from the Cipher Bureau, whose Captain

Maksymilian Ciężki Maksymilian Ciężki (; Samter, Province of Posen (now Szamotuły, Poland), 24 November 1898 – 9 November 1951 in London, England) was the head of the Polish Cipher Bureau's German section (''BS–4'') in the 1930s, during which time— ...

knew Fokczyński from his 1919–22 army service. Beginning in 1929, the modest shop, ten minutes' walk from the General Staff building, which housed the Cipher Bureau, was transformed into AVA. The company subsequently moved to new facilities in southern Warsaw's

Mokotów Mokotów , is a ''dzielnica'' (borough, district) of Warsaw, the capital of Poland. Mokotów is densely populated, and is a seat to many foreign embassies and companies. Only a small part of the district is lightly industrialised ('' Służewiec ...

district. Early on, the fledgling company was severely under-capitalized. All four directors, however, had other jobs; and soon the Cipher Bureau came to the rescue with an order for eight 10-watt short-wave radio stations, which became the embryo of Section II's radio network. AVA also won other clients, including the Polish Navy and Professor Lugeon of the Warsaw Meteoroglogical Institute, for whom AVA built, to his design, an ''atmoradiograf'' that registered disturbances in the atmosphere; this, Leonard Danilewicz later recalled, was the unheralded beginning of radioastronomy. The General Staff's Cipher Bureau was responsible for the radio communications of the General Staff's Section II (Intelligence section). The Cipher Bureau entrusted the design and construction of the equipment to AVA. The work was carried out on a

cost-plus A cost-plus contract, also termed a cost plus contract, is a contract such that a contractor is paid for all of its allowed expenses, ''plus'' additional payment to allow for a profit.Enigma machine. The Poles' subsequent reading of German ciphers laid the foundation for the

western Allies The Allies, formally referred to as the United Nations from 1942, were an international military coalition formed during the Second World War (1939–1945) to oppose the Axis powers, led by Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and Fascist Italy ...

Ultra adopted by British military intelligence in June 1941 for wartime signals intelligence obtained by breaking high-level encrypted enemy radio and teleprinter communications at the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park. ' ...

cipher-breaking operations, beginning seven years later, during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. Now, in January 1933, just as

Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...

was coming to power in Germany, AVA quickly produced a "double" of the Enigma machine; by mid-1934, it had made over a dozen. In 1934 or 1935, AVA built the cyclometer, a device designed by Rejewski to prepare a "

card catalog A library catalog (or library catalogue in British English) is a register of all bibliographic items found in a library or group of libraries, such as a network of libraries at several locations. A catalog for a group of libraries is also c ...

" that facilitated the decryption of Enigma messages. In 1938 AVA built the " cryptologic bomb," invented by Rejewski about October 1938. This was an electrically powered aggregate of six Enigmas that took the place of some one hundred workers. Six bombs were built before September 1939. Actual assembly of the cyclometers, "bombs" and Lacida cipher machines was carried out not at the AVA facilities but in Room 13 (the "Clock Room") at the Cipher Bureau in the General Staff building—and, from 1937, at the new Cipher Bureau center in the

Kabaty Woods The Stefan Starzyński Kabaty Woods Nature Reserve ( pl, Rezerwat przyrody Las Kabacki im. Stefana Starzyńskiego) is a woodland park located in southern Warsaw, between two major arteries, Puławska Street, Warsaw, Puławska and Łukasz Drewny ...

south of Warsaw. No one had access to this room except the head of the Cipher Bureau, Gwido Langer, the head of its German section (''B.S. 4''),

, and personnel employed there:

, Ludomir Danilewicz, his younger brother

Leonard Leonard or ''Leo'' is a common English masculine given name and a surname. The given name and surname originate from the Old High German ''Leonhard'' containing the prefix ''levon'' ("lion") from the Greek Λέων ("lion") through the Latin '' L ...

, Edward Fokczyński, and the specialist in precision mechanics, Czesław Betlewski. In July 1941, Marian Rejewski and Henryk Zygalski were asked to test the security of the Lacida at the Cadiz Center, near Uzès (free zone). The device had apparently not been rigorously tested before approval, because the two mathematicians decrypted a message in less than two hours. Their dismayed boss gave up using the machine.

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