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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 ;)
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.
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
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...
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 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