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Morse Code Migrating To The Net
Rosco P. Coltrane writes "With Morse code slowly disappearing off the air, there seems to be a growing number of people who carry out conversations in Morse over the internet. Several Windows and Linux clients using VoIP or special protocols, such as EchoLink, EchoLinux, MorseMail, CW Communicator or CWirc exist for Morse lovers worldwide to pound brass and make contact with one another. Could the next must-have computer input device be a morse key ?"
Morseall is a morse code input server for Linux using the mouse buttons. Morse is being used to help the disabled use computers . A great way to learn morse code is to work on the computer using morse code instead of the keyboard for a few hours.
I like to build things and wire stuff together.
I can't really see this as the next wave in computer usage. Being a HAM (unskilled at morse as it be), I like to see people still using Morse code to communicate, however, I really don't see this as being a huge wave. Although, who knows? Maybe it will teach more and more people (hopefully the younger generation) an appreciation for morse, and might get more people as licensed HAMs.
---
Mike
I'm going to kick the next person that I see with their karma rating in their sig.
I happen to know morse code but I rarely find a use for it anymore.
... -- ... (SMS in morse). My feature is just one step beyond what the Nokia handset already provides! ;-) )
What I would really like to have is an option to my mobile phone that converts incoming SMS messages to morse code, beeping them out! With that feature I would not have to actually pick up the phone to read my SMS messages. Maybe this would be possible to program on the newer Java-enabled phones?
(The standard "ring tone" on my Nokia for a SMS message is
)9TSS
It blinks out the problem in morse code using the num/caps/scroll lock lights on your keyboard. Here is the code that does it
Nero-burning ROM for Linux!
how do you enter a delete command? i guess you could press the backspace key, but wouldn't that be cheating? As if my typing werent bad enough now
Yeah, that pissed me right off. When I had ... - ..- ..-. ..-. in the Subject it told me it looked too much like ASCII art.....feh
I also could not say things like:
UR 599 OM, RIG HERE IS AMD, QSL?
without it bitching about yelling....
Quite so. As an old guy, I learned Morse long ago, and use it to this day, but only on the radio. It is fun to be able to send and receive it (in my head - I do not bother writing it down) as fast as I can type, or even faster. I can listen in and follow along with the conversation, without having to take my eyes off of my work.
On the other hand, the most efficient communication I have ever been involved in involved using a sound board on my PC, hooking it up to the audio in/out of the radio transceiver, and using the computer to generate PSK31 encoded signals.
Hansi Reiser has written linux software for doing this: http://www.qsl.net/dl9rdz/#psk
73,
W4TI
Soli Deo Gloria
A high-speed key, with weights on the back to allow the thing to send a string of dots or dashes just by holding the paddle one way or the other. Once you could send code using a key, using a bug was easily learned, and was necessary for speeds approaching 20 words per minute. The advantage of using code over voice was simplicity, no modulator needed, just break entire carrier on and off to send your message over short wave to the receiver, who then hetrodyned your signal locally in the receiver circuitry using an adjustable knob to produce an audible note. I was K5HLW in the 1950's, and used this form of communication in the 40, 20, 15 and 10 meter bands for a few years.
At the time, we had no idea that PC's such as we use today would be invented, even though we were the techies of the day. Could this happen again? Sure. Give it a few years, and everyone will be using something now unimagined.
As for the art of morse code "dying", the poster has no idea that there are hundreds of contests that take place yearly on a international level.
It is not dead yet, but it is dying. WRC'03 made it quite clear. When morse requirements are completely taken off licenses, nobody will learn it anymore.
I personally had to learn CW because I wanted to go on 10m. I hated it when I learned it, then I slowly changed my mind and now I don't do anything else on the air. Do you really think enough people will spontaneously be interested in it and learn it on their own for the activity to stay a living one?
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
One other use, which I have been investigating as a personal project, is using the vibrating phone feature so you can get message without anyone else knowing. I did not look at morse code initially as a solution as it too slow, but if you can get phone to vibrate in way in which you can work out the message, you could receive message in secret..
-- Dr. Fu Ling-Yu, Internal Technology Consult; Tongji University, People Republic of China.
I've been working on an app for my Danger hiptop to play incoming SMS and email subjects/senders in code...
A friend of mine had an idea to write a program that beeps in morse code while you type in Windows applications. I was so intrigued with the idea that I had to try it, and wound up finishing it :)
Morse Code Beeper
Both the source code and compiled binaries can be downloaded from the above site. Enjoy.
Harold
True, the teachers may not appreciate the kids who secretly send messages back and forth during lectures, but it's not that much different from passing notes. If it really got to be annoying, the radio signals are probably easier to intercept and monitor than sheets of paper anyway.
The walkie-talkies I've seen tend to be 14 channels, but since Morse takes so much less bandwith it seems like a waste to use 1/14th of the available spectrum just for one QSO. Even worse, the only ones I've found are very poor at Morse communication. The buttons don't seem suitable at all for keying, and I'd like to be able to recieve the messages silently somehow instead of that annoying beep.
I tried a few Google searches for some sort of walkie-talkie type of system that was good at sending Morse silently, but to no avail. It seems like it would be a good market -- sort of like sending secret messages, but not really all that secret, since you're broadcasting. Does anyone know of something suitable for sending silent "instant messaging" in QW, over very short distances (walkie-talkie range or lower)?
William L. Dye ("willdye") ...at... willdye ...dot... com
zCW
Just turn the slash (in the slashdot name) about 70 degrees clockwise and you get dashdot. Or then again , you can turn the dash about 70 degrees counter-clockwise an the morse is turned slash. The for wxample S.O.S would look like ...///...
And slashdot woud be dashdot (i.e -. instead of /. )
Who will register dashdot.org (for Morse code enabled site)?
While the Morse code requirement for getting a ham license is going to be going away, I'm not so sure that the code will be 'disappearing off the air', at least as far as the ham bands are concerned. I'm certainly not stopping using Morse just because it's no longer a license requirement, and the same is true for a lot of other hams. The use of Morse isn't being banned, it's just no longer a license requirement. And in some segments of the hobby, morse is still a preferred mode (it's not unusual to see comments from contesters about having to hunt up the microphone when they occasionally operate a phone contest, simply because they primarily operate CW contests).
I see little value in Morse on the net, but it is incredible for getting a weak RF signal through noise. On 2.4 GHz (the Wi-Fi band!) I can carry on a conversation with 100mW over 100 miles, no problem.
In the future, when the RF spectrum is even nastier than it is today, I suspect CW or some variant like JT44 will be the best way to have a reliable link, even between machines.
73 de KC2HIZ FN32at
I'm far from old, but still probably a bit dated by the fact that I was among the first trig and calc high school students who had access to an affordable (less than $50) scientific calculator with the major trig and log functions built in. I was lucky enough to be in an advanced program where the same teacher followed us through advanced math, trig and calc for three years. This teacher insisted that we develop the ability to carry out these functions by hand using printed tables and even gave us a little working knowledge of how a slide rule worked. One could say this was a waste of time, and this may be so from the perspective of just coming up with the correct answer for an individual problem. But even without coming up with arcane scenarios like when the terrorists set off the EMP and I need to crunch logs by hand, I really believe that going through this learning process gave me a fundamental understanding of what these equations really meant, and where the numbers that popped up on my calculators LCD display came from. That basis stayed with me (even though I would have to scrub some serious rust off the skillz to do any of that by hand today) and helped me with tough concepts throughout calculus, physics, and physical chemistry in college.
As far as I know a working knowledge of Morse is still a requirement for a ham radio license, if so I think it shows an understanding of the same fundamental principle.
Tinkering with things like a Linux partition on your PC may be the morse code kits that people disdain tomorrow - in that context, maybe some slashdotters can understand a little better why keeping seemingly arcane knowledge alive is a good thing.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries