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Did you ever hear or use Morse code?
By Witty Banter
Have you ever listened to the Morse code? Old war films are the most likely places to hear it these days, but during my years as a Telegraphist in the Women's Royal Air Force, it was something I used on a daily basis. The Morse code is a method of transmitting telegraphic information and was invented by Samuel Morse in the early 1840's. It has been in use for more than 160 years, longer than any other electronic encoding system. Simply put, the Morse code is a way to represent each of the letters of the alphabet and the ten numerals, using short and long pulses. Each character is assigned a unique pattern, made up of dit's and dah's (or dot's and dashes). A dit is one unit long and a dah is three units long. These pulses are translated into electrical signals by a skilled operator using a telegraph key and are then translated back into the corresponding characters by another trained operator at the receiving end. It had been his intention to only transmit numerals, which meant that an operator would have to mentally work out each word according to the numbers which had been sent. Very quickly though, letters and other characters (such as punctuation) were included, to make the code much simpler to use. Originally Morse developed the code so that operators could translate the indentations made on a paper tape into a text message. At the receiving end, whilst accepting an incoming message, the equipment made a clicking noise as it marked the tape. Operators soon learned to recognise and translate the clicks directly into dit's or dah's, making the actual paper tape unnecessary. Over the radio, Morse code is heard as a high-pitched audio tone, which makes transmissions much easier to copy than voice, particularly when there is a high noise/low signal environment. The speed of transmitting Morse code is measured in words per minute. A skilled operator can transmit and receive the code at 20-30 wpm. The internationally recognised SOS distress call which many people believe stands for "Save Our Souls" (SOS) is not quite what it seems. It is in fact a procedural signal and the three dit's, three dah's, three dit's should be sent without gaps, unlike the letters S - O - S. So the distress call is actually : di-di-di-dah-dah-dah-di-di-dit NOT di-di-dit dah-dah-dah di-di-dit In an emergency situation the Morse code can be used in a number of ways, such as flashing a light, or banging on something or simply arranging material to spell out S-O-S. In more recent times, opeators can use keyers that electronically create dit's and dah's. Iambic keyers have a memory so that the operator can use a mechanical paddle which is quicker than the operator's keying rate. This makes for very comfortable and almost effortless keying.
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The original telegraph key
A more modern version
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Very interesting! I would be interested to know if you can still decipher incoming morse after all these years - at least, I assume it has been a while since you were in the WRAF - or whether it is a skill that requires refreshing, like say a language one hasn't used in a long time.
 |  | nick Apr 1, 2008 09:43 | |
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