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Morse Code Enters The 21st Century

Posted by simoniker on from the twiki-twiki dept.

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."

6 of 267 comments (clear)

  1. wrong spelling.... by pe1rxq · · Score: 5, Interesting

    According to the article:

    The new sign, which will be known as a "commat," consists of the signals for "A" (dot-dash) and "C" (dash-dot-dash-dot), with no space between them.

    This means that the @ is: dit-da-da-dit-da-dit so I don't mind the spammers listning for da-dit-da-dit-da-dit :)

    Jeroen

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  2. spelling it out is faster? by edwinolson · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Wouldn't spelling as a-t it out be shorter/faster?

    at = dit dah, dah
    @ = dit dah dah dit dah dit

    Or does an inter-symbol pause really take as along as 3 symbols?

  3. Re:Rats... by FeriteCore · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Odd thing, I could only understand this by di-dahing quietly under my breath.

    When I was first learning code (mid 1970's) I had an ARRL practice tape. It introduced a few letters, had some practice, introduced some more letters etc.

    My father had been a US Navy communications officer in WWII, but left radio behind at the end of the war. He went straight thru the tape making extremly minimal errors. He was doing better after 30 years of not practicing than I was doing after hours of practicing.

    Some people are impressed by their parents.

    DE WD4OMI

  4. Kernel panics by gohai · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Morse codes can be quite useful, even today.
    There is a Linux kernel patch floating around (IIRC it was in -ac, don't know about mainstream) that adds the output of kernel panics via keyboard LEDs. Nice for early oopses.

  5. End of contact (...-.-) by Anders+Andersson · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There are a number of morse code symbols that don't correspond to graphical letters, digits or interpunctuation; you may say that they are similar to ASCII control characters in denoting things such as "end of message".

    Problem is, when you listen to and take down morse code by hand, you need an easy way to indicate those control symbols too. When I had some morse training in the 1970's (voluntary after-school classes), we used "+" to indicate "end of message" (.-.-.) and (surprise) "@" for "end of contact" (...-.-)...

    I don't know whether "@" was in common use for that purpose or if it was just my teacher's idea. To me, @ thus meant "end of communication, time to do something else" long before I learned about spam!

  6. Chinese Morse Code? by 4of12 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I have to ask: with so many thousands of glyphs in Chinese, what did they do to utilize telegraph lines when that was the only means for fast long distance communication?

    I'm assuming they didn't create a different sequence for each one....

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