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Morse Code Enters The 21st Century
N8TWJ writes "The International Telecommunications Union has decided to bring
Morse Code into the 21st century by adding the loved (or hated?) - at (@) symbol. Lets hope the spammers don't start sniffing 20 meters for da-dit-da-dit-dah-dit..." According to the article, Paul Rinaldo, chief technical officer for the American Radio Relay League, says: "It's a pretty big deal... there certainly hasn't been any change [in Morse Code characters] since before World War II."
Take a look at some examples of the Q code for some TLAs that were commonly used, along with a whole lot of casual abbreviations, for example...
> It'll probably end up as an emacs mode.
Try "M-x morse" on a region (in GNU Emacs 21.3, at least)
Oh but you can! ---... -.--.- is :) and -.-.-. -.--.- is ;)
As some other comments mentioned, it is a combination of AC, not AT. Even so, it is important to mention that combining two letters without a space creates a completely new sounding letter. The new AC will not sound like separate characters A C. If you were to combine the letters A (Dah Dit) and T (Dah), you would actually have the letter K (Dah Di Dah). 73 de Nathaniel
No, the inter-symbol pause really doesn't take that much time. It actually takes only marginally longer than the pause between dots/dashes, because once you get to real morse speeds (>100 cpm) you don't really listen to the signs, you listen for the "rhythm". However, what does take long, is the pause between words, that you have to leave to make the letters a and t stand out as a word, especially since they are both so short. So all and all, this will speed things quite a lot.
A: dot dash
T: dash
AT: dot dash dash
W: dot dash dash
wouldn't work.
Slash "/" is -..-. (pronounce "upper and lower" to memorize the rhytm)
I don't know about underscore or backslash, as I don't have a definitive list of interpunctuation characters in morse, but some of those you may think of (comma, colon, semicolon, question mark) do exist. However, there may be a problem with all the different kinds of matching brackets, braces and angles. In addition to that, there is no way (that I know of) to differentiate between upper and lower case letters. I'd rather not do a full URL in morse!
Morse code is the primary communication method during harsh conditions. From the 12 months I was in the navy, about 4 we practised morse code. The same goes for national emergencies, when cell phone networks and other electrical communications networks would be down.
Even in extremely bad radio wheather, and when all other communications networks are down, morse code is audible behind all the hiss and crackle (with good equipment).
Here in Finland, where extreme distances are a problem (our country is twice as big as England with a population of 6 million) radio amateurs have arranged a peer-to-peer network for emergencies. They have a yearly test of the network. Basically even the authorities have to trust this voluntary network when a bigger chrisis occurs.
Audio at http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=16805 29
yes it does work... it's called spaces....
... dit dah dah .... dit dah dah
... at at at which is distinguishable from atatat
dit dah dah
is
it's worked for over 15 years without the new useless @ sign. and it's use will not be used except by those that obviousally dont send code but use a computer to generate their morse code.
I.E. it's a poser detector character...
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
It was never declared obsolete... It was just eliminated from the ITU rules for maritime radiotelephone operators. For us Hams, knowledge of it was also required for us to use any frequency below 30MHz. Since the ITU has eliminated it from the international treaties, most countries are eliminating it from their amateur radio requirements. The ARRL is also proposing a partial elimination of it for those of us in the US. It will be eliminated for every class of operation other than Extra (if the FCC approves it).
73 de Paul, KC4YDY
The number 1 problem of working in a cubicle - 23 power cords, 1 outlet...
"There's really no reason to use it anymore," ... Today it's largely the province of ham radio operators
Er, and radio navaids, there are still quite a lot of those around, and quite a lot of aeroplanes flying around listening to them.
"TITS":
- tune
- identify (ie listen for the Morse code bleeps and make sure you've tuned the right navaid)
- test
- um, nobody can remember what the S stands for.
--Spoiler alert
In normal text: FIRST POST NO WAIT DAMN
Obviously, morse code operators have had ways of getting around using 'at' signs for almost two hundred years
Yes but you're missing the point : at the pace international Morse code is updated, we'll be able to do decent Morse ASCII art in less than 185 years!
By the way, and more seriously, people who do Morse code didn't wait for the ARRL to okay the use of this or that sign : a full international Morse code set with almost all ASCII signs, as well as regional sets, such as Russian and Japanese, have been around for quite some time now.
Check out CWirc or MorseAll to see what those unofficial extended Morse symbols are. Of course, they exist, but whether they're in use or not is another matter.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
With all due respect, Icom and Yaesu both have HF rigs out now in the neighborhood of $600-700. They are all very capable.
Also, you may want to search the web for stealth antennas. I worked about 25 states and Canada on CW with a triband dipole in my attic and never more than 100W of power.
AA0ZB
I got started with an old Hallicrafters HT-37/SX-111 setup, and I agree that they are a handful to work, generate a lot of heat, and take up a lot of space. That being said, there are still plenty of '80s and '90s used solid state HF rigs out there for less than $500 USD. A Kenwood TS-440 has automatic antenna tuning, a decent front end, and digital display, and can be had for less than $500.00. Other candidates in this class are Icom 725/735, Drake TR-7, and Kenwood TS-120/130/430.
If you are willing to peak the finals on a hybrid rig, the list extends to the Kenwood TS-520/530 or TS-820/830 series, which can be picked up for as little as $250 in good shape.
Many of the older rigs are actually more repairable than the rigs brought out in the last few years. The older rigs were more ruggedly built, used mostly discrete components and small generic IC's. They lack the fancy spectral displays and other bells the newer ones do, but often perform as well or better than the newer lower end rigs these days. The newer rigs also have all the stuff that makes most other consumer electronics virtually unrepairable these days, such as integrated switchblocks, surface mounted components, custom ICs, and power output modules.
The antenna problem is real, most new housing developments proscribe large outdoor antennas in their CCRs and Deed Restrictions. This is usually a larger hurtle than buying the rig itself, though many hams will sneak a wire antenna from a window to a nearby tree in order to operate, though it is far from ideal, and there is still the risk that one of the local suburbanazis will rat you out.
what is a dot in Morse code? You know - loser@aol[.]com. For that matter, what about things like _ and / or \? How would you know that the username is big.loser and not big_loser @aol.com.
The symbol for dot is .-.-.-
Slash is -..-. which is funny, because if you are operating a mobile station, you can sign /M on the end of your callsign (e.g. KC2IDF/M instead of KC2IDF in my case if I am operating from my car) and the "/M" sounds like "Shave and a haircut two bits"
Question mark is ..--..
No symbol for backward slash, AFAIK
Underscore is ..--.-
You can find the whole set (minus @) here.
www.wavefront-av.com
It should be noted that this isn't some arcane lore that nobody uses anymore, either. The Q-signals are required knowledge for ham radio operators (although only a few of the most common ones are actually on the test.) Nonetheless, several of them are so common as to have come into common use in voice communications (up to and including face-to-face meatworld chatting) by hams. These include:
QSL: "Please Confirm", or "I confirm", or, a card that a ham sends to another as a written acknowledgement of communications.
QTH: "What is your location", or "My location is", or just "location"
QRM: Interference
QRZ: "Who's calling me?" (see also qrz.com, a popular resource for looking up ham callsigns.)
YL: Young Lady (any female)
XYL: Wife
OM: Old man (any male)
DX: Long-distance (how far varies by frequency, but usually means another country)
73: Best regards
Ethidium
\
It has to do with the relative length of time it takes to send morse characters. (Note in the following that "dahs" are three times as long as "dits".)
For example, "AND" is di-dah dah-dit dah-di-dit, while "ES" is dit di-di-dit. "AND" takes more than three times as long to send as "ES", so "ES" has become popular. Similar logic leads to the use of "FB" over "OK", although both are heard.
The letter "O", dah-dah-dah, is particularly troublesome, since it is a popular vowel in English, yet it is very long; other letters are often substituted for it when possible. On the other hand, "E", dit, is the shortest letter; it is often used to to substitute for other vowels. "FER" for "FOR" is the result.
There's a big codebook. The basic book uses 4-digit groups (page-page-row-col) plus some extensions. It's often referred to as Chinese STC (Standard Telegraphic Code).
There's an apocryphal story among cryptologists about a British missionary who emerged one day after a long stay in the backcountry, announcing triumphantly that he had broken the Chinese telegraphic code...
Even if you send sloppily, the best decoder in the world is the human brain, and it can pick out the meaning in a 30 words-a-minute conversation under difficult conditions where no other communication method can punch through.
I can't speak to its efficiency or lack thereof, but are you aware that Morse did take into account usage frequency when designing the code? The shortest letters are the ones he thought, based on the research he had available at the time, were the most frequently occuring in English, "E" and "T" which are one symbol each (dot, and dash). He made an attempt to follow that plan for the rest of the code as well.
So it's flawed, I grant that. But it's worked pretty darn well for approximately a hundred and fifty years. Saved a few lives. Would have saved many of the souls on the Titantic if it hadn't been for human stupidity.
My $0.02
Yeah, same here. Went to the FCC field office in Atlanta in 1983 with a dry mouth and sweaty palms and came away with EXTRA class in spite of my being a bundle of nerves. Btw, my uncle had been a telegrapher for the IC railroad before WW2. He taught me the code when I was 12 years old.
I don't use it much anymore, but I still understand it when I hear it. My best copy speed was 25 wpm without errors. It is very much a language in that you must learn the sound of words before you can get past about 10 wpm.
Amateur radio station W1AW transmits practice at several speeds.
73's
W5THJ
Also note the difference between QRM and QRN:
QRM: man-made interference, someone calling CQ 5 KHz up and trampling on your QSO
QRN: natural interference, fading signals or natural band noise.
Of course you can't forget QSO ("QUE-so"), which means a conversation ("thank you for the QSO")
Don't ping my cheese with your bandwidth!