9 ms·

Why I'm Learning Morse Code

77 points by bkanber 13y ago

danso 13y ago
It's too bad we don't teach this as part of language development at the primary school level. As someone who's tried to teach programming to lay persons, I can't help but think that having first-hand practical knowledge of how language can be encoded in a kind-of-binary (quinary, according to Wikipedia) system would be an extremely useful abstract concept to have in mind. It's certainly more useful than learning cursive.
zw123456 13y ago
If you think Morse code is cool, and it is, what is say is cooler, in my very humble and probably worthless opinion is this; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quipu,The http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quipu,The Inca, over 500 years ago, encoded information in binary format using knots on a rope. Think about that. Cool, I think. What do you think?
- vanni 13y ago
  Working link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quipu http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quipu
bkanber 13y ago
If any of you are already fluent in Morse, I'd love to hear from you! Were you able to hear full words or phrases "natively"? Did you ever have the experience of being able to identify the person on the other end merely by accent?
- lutusp 13y ago
  First I want to answer one of your other questions -- could a skilled Morse operator identify a person by his sending style, what we called his "fist". The answer is yes, absolutely. But there's more to it than that -- each CW (continuous wave) transmitter had different characteristics, in the days when most of them were built by their operators -- some of them changed frequency slightly during each dash, some of them had noticeable clicks caused by too fast a transmitter activation and deactivation around each Morse element -- these helped one identify a specific operator along with his personal sending style. A few years ago, about the time that the FCC abandoned the code sending/receiving requirement, I assumed that CW was dead. But lately, listening to the ham bands, I see there's a surprising amount of CW activity still present. > Were you able to hear full words or phrases "natively"? Over time one begins to hear entire words, especially at high sending rates. This is especially true for common words, words that are part of every contact ... example "Name is (name)": "-. .- -- . .. ... .--. .- ..- .-.." Here's a sample: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ad6oibxzhzk4rvy/morse_example.mp3 https://www.dropbox.com/s/ad6oibxzhzk4rvy/morse_example.mp3 As this example MP3 shows, in modern times we can avoid the quirks of manual keying by letting a computer create perfectly shaped Morse characters for us. :)
  - bkanber 13y ago
    Thank you for this! It's so cool (and I'm glad you were able to confirm) that you can recognize an operator by his fist--just like a voice. I had also read about each radio having its own quirks, but in my excitement forgot to include that in the article!
  - jloughry 13y ago
    I encourage any hacker to take a look some time at the beautiful 'bugs' still (!) made by Vibroplex [1]. I have wanted to learn Morse ever since I read The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage [2]. I know people use keyboards nowadays---and even software to read Morse and translate it automatically into text---but I want to learn to send it by hand. Do you recommend a straight key or a bug to begin with? (I just love the look of those beautiful machines with tiny pendulums and jewelled bearings and neodymium magnet 'springs'...). I also wonder about electronic keyers with paddles. What works best for a beginner who wants to develop a good 'fist'? [1] http://www.vibroplex.com/ http://www.vibroplex.com/ [2] Standage, Tom. The Victorian Internet. New York: Walker and Company, 1998. ISBN 978-0-8027-1604-0.
    - lutusp 13y ago
      > Do you recommend a straight key or a bug to begin with? I'm biased because (before the computer era) I never used anything but a straight key. I recommend a normal telegraph key for beginners -- they're easier to control and they produce an appreciation for the simplest possible form of radio and wired communication: This picture -- http://www.mtechnologies.com/ameco/k4a.jpg http://www.mtechnologies.com/ameco/k4a.jpg -- is of a real antique, but one still available today. Unchanged, it dates back to the land telegraph era, during which one operator, when finished sending, would throw the switch visible at the top center, thus closing his end of the circuit and allowing the other end to reply, in what was a simple two-wire one-battery telegraph circuit. Interestingly, in 1859, there was a huge solar and geomagnetic storm, much bigger than anything that has happened since, and one of the few contemporary indications was that the telegraph system went crazy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859 A quote: "Telegraph systems all over Europe and North America failed, in some cases shocking telegraph operators. Telegraph pylons threw sparks. Some telegraph systems continued to send and receive messages despite having been disconnected from their power supplies." It is estimated that, were such a storm to occur today, it would bring modern electronics -- and society -- to its knees. > What works best for a beginner who wants to develop a good 'fist'? Well, one, listening to good sending certainly helps. Also not trying to send too quickly at first, and listening more than sending until one acquires a sense of what good telegraphy sounds like.
- grandalf 13y ago
  I learned morse at age 11 when I first got interested in ham radio. It took a couple of months of frequent use before it really felt natural, and this was probably about when I started perceiving words rather than characters. It gets easier and easier the more you use it...
- xradionut 13y ago
  As a ham operator, there are standard phases and exchanges that make contacts easier. (Especially in a contest.) After time it becomes second nature. In "normal" or "ragchews" exchanges with older hams, you may have to brush up on medical and anatomic words and phases.
- nlh 13y ago
  Other great answers here -- I'll add my $.02, well, just because. Ham here as well (K2KD). I had most of my experiences as a kid (6th - 8th grade), had an HF rig in my bedroom, and made my way through Extra class (which, I think, required a 20 WPM morse test). I'd liken hearing common CW phrases not so much as hearing "the phrase" in its entirety / natively, but more akin to listening to a song or tune you're familiar with. Your brain knows what the next word / note is going to be, so that's queued up in your head (and why you can hum along with a tune you know). Same with morse code -- you'll start to hear a familiar pattern and you'll just know how it's going to continue. Things like "CQ" were VERY common to hear and you always knew that pattern (-.-. --.-). Or signing off, you knew when someone was starting to say 73 (--... ...--) so you'd end up "singing along" with the words to the song you knew (metaphorically-speaking). I was quite experienced with it and even now, 20 years later, I still know the alphabet. But I'd never say I got to true language-less fluency -- the code always translated into letters for me (either written or in my head), except in the cases above (I can hear a CQ now and not think "CQ" but instead hear it as the universal beacon call...da dit da dit..da da dit da......da dit da dit..da da dit da...) Good memories - glad you're giving it a try!
- rkuester 13y ago
  There was a time when you could identify the entire country of Cuba by the "accent" of their CW signals. For whatever reason, probably the popularity of certain homebrew gear designs there, most Cuban CW signals had a characteristic "chirp" due to the frequency shifting a little at the start of each dot and dash. That, and sometimes their average frequency would drift up or down the band, and you'd have to chase them around. I had a lot of fun with radios as a kid (15--20 years ago). It was so magical to talk all across the world from your bedroom. Then this whole Internet thing happened. ;)
jliechti1 13y ago
>> This brings me to my fascination with Morse code. Granted, learning Morse code today may be a futile exercise. After all, I don’t know a single person who speaks it! From what I understand, ham radio operators still use morse code, although they phased out the requirement to be proficient in Morse code somewhat recently. So I don't think it is completely futile to learn. "Demonstrating a proficiency in Morse code was for many years a requirement to obtain an amateur license to transmit on frequencies below 30 MHz. Following changes in international regulations in 2003, countries are no longer required to demand proficiency.The United States Federal Communications Commission, for example, phased out this requirement for all license classes on February 23, 2007." Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_radio http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_radio Ham radio operators also perform duties in emergency situations, including disasters such as Hurricane Katrina. "More than a thousand ham operators from all over the U.S. converged on the Gulf Coast in an effort to provide emergency communications assistance. Subsequent Congressional hearings highlighted the Amateur Radio response as one of the few examples of what went right in the disaster relief effort." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_radio_emergency_communications http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_radio_emergency_communi...
- bkanber 13y ago
  You're 100% correct. There is definitely an amateur radio community out there, and many of them are fluent in Morse. I guess I was just trying to say that nobody in my "natural" social circles knows Morse. But if I start hanging out with the right types of people, I'm sure I could communicate in dahs and dits all day!
toddrew 13y ago
I spent nine years as a naval communicator and am fluent in morse. It's been a few years so I would definitely need a bit of practice to get back up to 12 words a minute on a flashing light. I can speak three languages and morse was similar to learn. From the first day of training they gave us sheet of paper with the alphabet and the morse translation and told us to memorize a couple of letters. Then they sent us outside to spend hours staring at a flashing lightbulb. When you recognize a letter your writer (someone with a clipboard standing facing you and away from the light) would write it down, and when you didn't recognize the letter you said "MISS". The first day was spent saying "MISS... MISS... MISS..." It was extremely frustrating, the same way being immersed in a new language can be. It felt useless... as if I would never get it. Every day we'd spend the morning staring at the light, and little by little we started to get more letters. Once we mastered it (100%) they would turn up the speed and we'd be back to where we started... "MISS... MISS... ECHO... MIKE... MISS... MISSS..." until we perfected that speed and were moved up again. It took about three months of daily practice to get up to the military's standard. I catch myself years later spelling out words in morse in my head.
- bkanber 13y ago
  I love anecdotes like this. Were you taught Morse purely visually, with the flashing bulb? Do you find it easier to watch a bulb or to listen to a tone?
  - toddrew 13y ago
    It was always visual. It seemed useless at the time, spending hours out in the pouring rain on a ship, sending a message with a flashing light to another ship, but they always reminded us that even with all our technology and cryptography, flashing light is still the most secure method of close ship-to-ship communications because it's directional when using focused light.
    - bkanber 13y ago
      That's actually pretty great. I always loved "going back to basics", and flashing a light to talk to another naval ship is as basic as you can get. It works, it's robust in all but the worst conditions, and it's easy. Love it!
andrewcooke 13y ago
when i used to walk an hour to work (and another back), i considered using morse as an interface to a portable computer (for editing and playback of text). it's easy to hear and understand, even when there's considerable ambient noise, and data entry would only require a single button (plus perhaps a rocker switch or similar to scan through existing data). at the time i had no real idea how to implement it. now i think i could do something with an arduino or similar. but thankfully i now work from home...
- bkanber 13y ago
  I've also thought about a pocket-sized clicker device that you could use to send Morse to your friends, perhaps interfaced with your phone. Or maybe, as you said, you could use it as an input device. One day when I have some extra time on my hands I'm sure I'll sketch one out. But I've got to learn Morse first! ;)
grandalf 13y ago
I've been licensed as a ham radio operator since I was a kid (had an odd, early fascination with radio) and recently got back into it a few years ago. I find using morse code extremely relaxing b/c it taxes your perceptual system in a way that is fairly uncommon in today's world. Either b/c it is being sent very fast or b/c of a weak signal and ionospheric noise, it's a "full brain" immersion exercise that leaves me feeling relaxed and contented (yes I know it sounds a bit odd). I recommend it highly. Even for those not interested in radio, there are competitions for high speed morse (it's big in eastern Europe)... check out some of the training software: http://fkurz.net/ham/qrq.html http://fkurz.net/ham/qrq.html and http://www.rufzxp.net/ http://www.rufzxp.net/ Of course, real ham radio contests offer the best combo of adrenaline and strategy...
zbinga 13y ago
Titrate is invisible.
RougeFemme 13y ago
I learned Morse Code as a Girl Scout and became fluent for the intellectual challenge. I'm definitely no longer fluent but could get by in an emergency with a quick refresher.
xradionut 13y ago
Ex-ham and ex-military radio operator/tech here. Morse code, (CW), is a semi-valuable skill for radio operators, especially hams that do HF and weak signal work. It takes experience, but at a certain point the letters become words and the words become phases. It's no longer a requirement for a amateur radio license, but it's still used and useful. (If you want to learn, I suggest the Koch method.) With the advance of radio technology, especially computers, DSP and SDR, digital modes modes other than CW have better performance. You can decode a whole band of signals digital/CW with the combination of a SDR receiver and software on a decently powered computer. But the advantage of CW is that you can use really "primitive" inexpensive radios as transmitters and flexible humans as encoders/decoders.
- HeyLaughingBoy 13y ago
  And as a teenager with almost no money this was important to me. I built the classic "Tuna-tin Two" transmitter from the schematic I found in the high school library and most of my money went to buying the $15 brass and plastic transmitter key from some (probably long defunct) store in downtown Brooklyn, NY.
capkutay 13y ago
Cool article! "Code" by Charles Petzold[0] talks about morse code while covering ways that we encode data. May be a good read for anyone interested in this topic. [0]: http://www.amazon.com/Code-Language-Computer-Hardware-Software/dp/0735611319 http://www.amazon.com/Code-Language-Computer-Hardware-Softwa...
pjbrunet 13y ago
I tried learning in middle school and just memorizing all the letters was a pain. At that age it's just not that exciting, at least for me it wasn't. I can totally appreciate the value of it now, the ability to send messages around the world with just an antenna. My wave is bigger than yours, or something like that, LOL.
- unoti 13y ago
  It's easier to just memorize, say, 2 letters, then practice telling those two letters apart from each other. Then you add another letter...
Todd 13y ago
I learned Morse Code as a 12 year old while working towards my ham radio license. It was a challenge, especially getting to 13 WPM. The 20 WPM requirement of the Extra class was the main reason I didn't go for that one at the time. Even to this day, over two decades later, I can still generate and recall Morse (albeit slowly). This is one reason I urge young people to study something meaningful and lasting while they're still in school. I wish I had an adult who had told me that when I was young. I still know a lot about electronics, RF, antenna design, etc. but I wish I had internalized mathematics fundamentals or a foreign language instead. I still believe that one reason Richard Feynman was so facile with physics and mathematics was because of the notebooks he and his friend kept while they were kids.
unoti 13y ago
There are practical reasons to learn it, if you do radio operations. A morse signal doesn't require the same bandwidth that a voice signal requires, so you're able to focus the power of the transmitter into a tighter bandwidth, and broadcast with more power than a voice signal. In addition, you can understand the information in a morse signal in the presence of much more interference than you can understand a voice signal. So it's actually quite practical when doing radio operations to use morse, even today.
- 16s 13y ago
  In many cases, you need only a few watts (5 or less) and with a good antenna can transmit globally.
rdl 13y ago
I'm not really into morse/CW, but I'd strongly encourage people to try out ham radio. You can buy an adequate radio for $31 on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/BaoFeng-UV-5R-136-174-400-480-Dual-Band/dp/B007H4VT7A http://www.amazon.com/BaoFeng-UV-5R-136-174-400-480-Dual-Ban...) and can get licensed in about 2-4 hours for $0-30. There was a period of maybe the 1980s-2000 where radio was dying (it was all old people who were defending their turf), but in the past 13 years it seems to have really turned around -- more activity on the 2m/440 HT scene, disaster stuff, etc. You can do crazy things like run 1500W wifi. Operate RC. Work space stations (satellites, the ISS, etc.) Weird propagation stuff (sunspot related, meteors, the moon...). The only lingering problem I have with amateur radio is the ban on crypto, but you can get around that by developing encrypted protocols but publishing the keys in routine use, or moving the equipment to non-ham bands with secret keys later.
- viraj_shah 13y ago
  Is the test 2-4 hours or is the learning process and test 2-4 hours for the basic license?
  - rdl 13y ago
    Learning process and test, if you're smart, can be done in 4h total for Technician. There are lots of programs to do it in 8h, but IMO a tech person should be able to do it in less time. I used http://www.baears.com/ http://www.baears.com/ to do tech (and then studied for General during the rest breaks and got General at the same time!); it's a good choice in the Bay Area. I should be an Extra and a Volunteer Examiner myself in a month or so, so along with 2 friends with Extra/VE could run classes. I'm planning to do crypto meetups/keysignings/etc on the Peninsula on the first friday of the month anyway (5-10pm somewhere in MV or PA, probably near Google, nominally a 2600 meeting), so doing ham exams during that would be fine, if people studied before that.
    - viraj_shah 13y ago
      Interesting, thanks for the information. The meetup sounds cool. You should post it here if you get it going.
shitgoose 13y ago
well, if i knew morse code, i could drive and text easily. or type an email in the middle of a meeting without anyone noticing. looks like a good skill. considering learning it.
macleodan 13y ago
Morse is not all in the past tense, as you write. I have learnt it, a bit, for amateur radio, where it is still used. There are lots of wee applications for it too, like showing status messages on a small electronic device using a single LED. There have been times I have wished more people know it, for example for communicating with light accross a mountain valley, or communicating underwater.
xb95 13y ago
In amateur radio, the characteristics of someone's CW (morse code) is called their "fist". I used to be able to do 5 WPM and one year I participated in field day (the annual ham competition to contact as many people as you can, etc) with it -- that year was magical because I used morse code for my first time to talk to someone. The feeling of dits and dahs coming across the airwaves actually being communication from somewhere far away? It was brilliant. So: kudos for learning an aging and mostly deprecated form of communication. Some folks still do it for hobby (I've lost all skill by this point), and I highly recommend the experience. If nothing else, find a local ham group and go poke around in late June and see if they're doing anything for field day. It's worth checking out.
- hyperbovine 13y ago
  I'm not sure if deprecated is the right word. When the zombie invasion comes, I do not feel confident in my ability to get the cellular network back up running. I could easily build a spark gap transmitter though, using spare parts that can be found anywhere and high-school level electrical engineering. In seriousness, it seems somehow foolish to deprecate an extremely reliable, cheap and time-tested form of communication. That said, I never got far in my own attempts to learn Morse code :-)
Niten 13y ago
I got an early start in morse code thanks to my grandfather, who was a Navy radioman in World War II and later became a ham operator. Sadly I never got my ham license, but it was my grandfather's obsession with radio which got me into electronics and, ultimately, software engineering. I still practice coding now and then, and morse is my go-to "hello world" for playing with new microcontrollers: https://github.com/markshroyer/msp430-morse/blob/master/morse.ino https://github.com/markshroyer/msp430-morse/blob/master/mors...
asgard1024 13y ago
I wonder, given that Morse Code is pretty old, are there any better (for humans) codes for text as a binary stream? I mean better in different ways - easier to learn, less error prone, shorter,..
Apocryphon 13y ago
It seems like the sort of universal, deprecated but never gone, sort of system of communication that would be useful in a post-apocalyptic scenario.
jlgaddis 13y ago
Like many of the others in the thread, I first learned CW in order to upgrade my ham license (I started as a "No-Code Tech" and wanted HF privileges, which required passing a Morse Code exam). > As you develop proficiency in receiving–or “copying”–Morse, you start hearing the characters rather than the dashes and dots. I was attempting to explain this to someone else a long time ago and they had trouble really understanding what I meant until I described it another way -- think about how toddlers first learn to read. They initially begin by learning each individual letter, then how a couple letters in a specific order make a specific sound and form different words. As your reading comprehension increases, you no longer read letter by letter. Instead, your brain recognizes a sequence of letters as words. As you are reading this post, you are reading words, not the individuals letter that compose them. When trying to increase the speed at which you can "copy" Morse Code (which is done simply by reducing the space (time) between characters), you stop hearing the dits and dahs and instead learn to recognize individual letters. After a while, you'll even begin to recognize (some) words just by their sound. Past the age of 17 or 18, I've never "used" Morse Code for anything practical but it is still stuck in my brain and I can still "copy". At least I know that if I were to ever become paralyzed and unable to speak or move my appendages, I could at least still communicate with others (by "blinking" the dits and dahs).
KaiserPro 13y ago
.._. ..- -.-. -.-
- 16s 13y ago
  http://www.livephysics.com/tools/mathematical-tools/morse-code-conversion-tool/ http://www.livephysics.com/tools/mathematical-tools/morse-co...

77 points by bkanber 13y ago

danso 13y ago

It's too bad we don't teach this as part of language development at the primary school level. As someone who's tried to teach programming to lay persons, I can't help but think that having first-hand practical knowledge of how language can be encoded in a kind-of-binary (quinary, according to Wikipedia) system would be an extremely useful abstract concept to have in mind. It's certainly more useful than learning cursive.

zw123456 13y ago

If you think Morse code is cool, and it is, what is say is cooler, in my very humble and probably worthless opinion is this; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quipu,The http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quipu,The Inca, over 500 years ago, encoded information in binary format using knots on a rope. Think about that. Cool, I think. What do you think?

vanni 13y ago
Working link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quipu http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quipu

bkanber 13y ago

If any of you are already fluent in Morse, I'd love to hear from you! Were you able to hear full words or phrases "natively"? Did you ever have the experience of being able to identify the person on the other end merely by accent?

lutusp 13y ago
First I want to answer one of your other questions -- could a skilled Morse operator identify a person by his sending style, what we called his "fist". The answer is yes, absolutely. But there's more to it than that -- each CW (continuous wave) transmitter had different characteristics, in the days when most of them were built by their operators -- some of them changed frequency slightly during each dash, some of them had noticeable clicks caused by too fast a transmitter activation and deactivation around each Morse element -- these helped one identify a specific operator along with his personal sending style. A few years ago, about the time that the FCC abandoned the code sending/receiving requirement, I assumed that CW was dead. But lately, listening to the ham bands, I see there's a surprising amount of CW activity still present. > Were you able to hear full words or phrases "natively"? Over time one begins to hear entire words, especially at high sending rates. This is especially true for common words, words that are part of every contact ... example "Name is (name)": "-. .- -- . .. ... .--. .- ..- .-.." Here's a sample: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ad6oibxzhzk4rvy/morse_example.mp3 https://www.dropbox.com/s/ad6oibxzhzk4rvy/morse_example.mp3 As this example MP3 shows, in modern times we can avoid the quirks of manual keying by letting a computer create perfectly shaped Morse characters for us. :)
- bkanber 13y ago
  Thank you for this! It's so cool (and I'm glad you were able to confirm) that you can recognize an operator by his fist--just like a voice. I had also read about each radio having its own quirks, but in my excitement forgot to include that in the article!
- jloughry 13y ago
  I encourage any hacker to take a look some time at the beautiful 'bugs' still (!) made by Vibroplex [1]. I have wanted to learn Morse ever since I read The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage [2]. I know people use keyboards nowadays---and even software to read Morse and translate it automatically into text---but I want to learn to send it by hand. Do you recommend a straight key or a bug to begin with? (I just love the look of those beautiful machines with tiny pendulums and jewelled bearings and neodymium magnet 'springs'...). I also wonder about electronic keyers with paddles. What works best for a beginner who wants to develop a good 'fist'? [1] http://www.vibroplex.com/ http://www.vibroplex.com/ [2] Standage, Tom. The Victorian Internet. New York: Walker and Company, 1998. ISBN 978-0-8027-1604-0.
  - lutusp 13y ago
    > Do you recommend a straight key or a bug to begin with? I'm biased because (before the computer era) I never used anything but a straight key. I recommend a normal telegraph key for beginners -- they're easier to control and they produce an appreciation for the simplest possible form of radio and wired communication: This picture -- http://www.mtechnologies.com/ameco/k4a.jpg http://www.mtechnologies.com/ameco/k4a.jpg -- is of a real antique, but one still available today. Unchanged, it dates back to the land telegraph era, during which one operator, when finished sending, would throw the switch visible at the top center, thus closing his end of the circuit and allowing the other end to reply, in what was a simple two-wire one-battery telegraph circuit. Interestingly, in 1859, there was a huge solar and geomagnetic storm, much bigger than anything that has happened since, and one of the few contemporary indications was that the telegraph system went crazy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859 A quote: "Telegraph systems all over Europe and North America failed, in some cases shocking telegraph operators. Telegraph pylons threw sparks. Some telegraph systems continued to send and receive messages despite having been disconnected from their power supplies." It is estimated that, were such a storm to occur today, it would bring modern electronics -- and society -- to its knees. > What works best for a beginner who wants to develop a good 'fist'? Well, one, listening to good sending certainly helps. Also not trying to send too quickly at first, and listening more than sending until one acquires a sense of what good telegraphy sounds like.
grandalf 13y ago
I learned morse at age 11 when I first got interested in ham radio. It took a couple of months of frequent use before it really felt natural, and this was probably about when I started perceiving words rather than characters. It gets easier and easier the more you use it...
xradionut 13y ago
As a ham operator, there are standard phases and exchanges that make contacts easier. (Especially in a contest.) After time it becomes second nature. In "normal" or "ragchews" exchanges with older hams, you may have to brush up on medical and anatomic words and phases.
nlh 13y ago
Other great answers here -- I'll add my $.02, well, just because. Ham here as well (K2KD). I had most of my experiences as a kid (6th - 8th grade), had an HF rig in my bedroom, and made my way through Extra class (which, I think, required a 20 WPM morse test). I'd liken hearing common CW phrases not so much as hearing "the phrase" in its entirety / natively, but more akin to listening to a song or tune you're familiar with. Your brain knows what the next word / note is going to be, so that's queued up in your head (and why you can hum along with a tune you know). Same with morse code -- you'll start to hear a familiar pattern and you'll just know how it's going to continue. Things like "CQ" were VERY common to hear and you always knew that pattern (-.-. --.-). Or signing off, you knew when someone was starting to say 73 (--... ...--) so you'd end up "singing along" with the words to the song you knew (metaphorically-speaking). I was quite experienced with it and even now, 20 years later, I still know the alphabet. But I'd never say I got to true language-less fluency -- the code always translated into letters for me (either written or in my head), except in the cases above (I can hear a CQ now and not think "CQ" but instead hear it as the universal beacon call...da dit da dit..da da dit da......da dit da dit..da da dit da...) Good memories - glad you're giving it a try!
rkuester 13y ago
There was a time when you could identify the entire country of Cuba by the "accent" of their CW signals. For whatever reason, probably the popularity of certain homebrew gear designs there, most Cuban CW signals had a characteristic "chirp" due to the frequency shifting a little at the start of each dot and dash. That, and sometimes their average frequency would drift up or down the band, and you'd have to chase them around. I had a lot of fun with radios as a kid (15--20 years ago). It was so magical to talk all across the world from your bedroom. Then this whole Internet thing happened. ;)

jliechti1 13y ago

>> This brings me to my fascination with Morse code. Granted, learning Morse code today may be a futile exercise. After all, I don’t know a single person who speaks it! From what I understand, ham radio operators still use morse code, although they phased out the requirement to be proficient in Morse code somewhat recently. So I don't think it is completely futile to learn. "Demonstrating a proficiency in Morse code was for many years a requirement to obtain an amateur license to transmit on frequencies below 30 MHz. Following changes in international regulations in 2003, countries are no longer required to demand proficiency.The United States Federal Communications Commission, for example, phased out this requirement for all license classes on February 23, 2007." Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_radio http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_radio Ham radio operators also perform duties in emergency situations, including disasters such as Hurricane Katrina. "More than a thousand ham operators from all over the U.S. converged on the Gulf Coast in an effort to provide emergency communications assistance. Subsequent Congressional hearings highlighted the Amateur Radio response as one of the few examples of what went right in the disaster relief effort." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_radio_emergency_communications http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_radio_emergency_communi...

bkanber 13y ago
You're 100% correct. There is definitely an amateur radio community out there, and many of them are fluent in Morse. I guess I was just trying to say that nobody in my "natural" social circles knows Morse. But if I start hanging out with the right types of people, I'm sure I could communicate in dahs and dits all day!

toddrew 13y ago

I spent nine years as a naval communicator and am fluent in morse. It's been a few years so I would definitely need a bit of practice to get back up to 12 words a minute on a flashing light. I can speak three languages and morse was similar to learn. From the first day of training they gave us sheet of paper with the alphabet and the morse translation and told us to memorize a couple of letters. Then they sent us outside to spend hours staring at a flashing lightbulb. When you recognize a letter your writer (someone with a clipboard standing facing you and away from the light) would write it down, and when you didn't recognize the letter you said "MISS". The first day was spent saying "MISS... MISS... MISS..." It was extremely frustrating, the same way being immersed in a new language can be. It felt useless... as if I would never get it. Every day we'd spend the morning staring at the light, and little by little we started to get more letters. Once we mastered it (100%) they would turn up the speed and we'd be back to where we started... "MISS... MISS... ECHO... MIKE... MISS... MISSS..." until we perfected that speed and were moved up again. It took about three months of daily practice to get up to the military's standard. I catch myself years later spelling out words in morse in my head.

bkanber 13y ago
I love anecdotes like this. Were you taught Morse purely visually, with the flashing bulb? Do you find it easier to watch a bulb or to listen to a tone?
- toddrew 13y ago
  It was always visual. It seemed useless at the time, spending hours out in the pouring rain on a ship, sending a message with a flashing light to another ship, but they always reminded us that even with all our technology and cryptography, flashing light is still the most secure method of close ship-to-ship communications because it's directional when using focused light.
  - bkanber 13y ago
    That's actually pretty great. I always loved "going back to basics", and flashing a light to talk to another naval ship is as basic as you can get. It works, it's robust in all but the worst conditions, and it's easy. Love it!

andrewcooke 13y ago

when i used to walk an hour to work (and another back), i considered using morse as an interface to a portable computer (for editing and playback of text). it's easy to hear and understand, even when there's considerable ambient noise, and data entry would only require a single button (plus perhaps a rocker switch or similar to scan through existing data). at the time i had no real idea how to implement it. now i think i could do something with an arduino or similar. but thankfully i now work from home...

bkanber 13y ago
I've also thought about a pocket-sized clicker device that you could use to send Morse to your friends, perhaps interfaced with your phone. Or maybe, as you said, you could use it as an input device. One day when I have some extra time on my hands I'm sure I'll sketch one out. But I've got to learn Morse first! ;)

grandalf 13y ago

I've been licensed as a ham radio operator since I was a kid (had an odd, early fascination with radio) and recently got back into it a few years ago. I find using morse code extremely relaxing b/c it taxes your perceptual system in a way that is fairly uncommon in today's world. Either b/c it is being sent very fast or b/c of a weak signal and ionospheric noise, it's a "full brain" immersion exercise that leaves me feeling relaxed and contented (yes I know it sounds a bit odd). I recommend it highly. Even for those not interested in radio, there are competitions for high speed morse (it's big in eastern Europe)... check out some of the training software: http://fkurz.net/ham/qrq.html http://fkurz.net/ham/qrq.html and http://www.rufzxp.net/ http://www.rufzxp.net/ Of course, real ham radio contests offer the best combo of adrenaline and strategy...

zbinga 13y ago

Titrate is invisible.

RougeFemme 13y ago

I learned Morse Code as a Girl Scout and became fluent for the intellectual challenge. I'm definitely no longer fluent but could get by in an emergency with a quick refresher.

xradionut 13y ago

Ex-ham and ex-military radio operator/tech here. Morse code, (CW), is a semi-valuable skill for radio operators, especially hams that do HF and weak signal work. It takes experience, but at a certain point the letters become words and the words become phases. It's no longer a requirement for a amateur radio license, but it's still used and useful. (If you want to learn, I suggest the Koch method.) With the advance of radio technology, especially computers, DSP and SDR, digital modes modes other than CW have better performance. You can decode a whole band of signals digital/CW with the combination of a SDR receiver and software on a decently powered computer. But the advantage of CW is that you can use really "primitive" inexpensive radios as transmitters and flexible humans as encoders/decoders.

HeyLaughingBoy 13y ago
And as a teenager with almost no money this was important to me. I built the classic "Tuna-tin Two" transmitter from the schematic I found in the high school library and most of my money went to buying the $15 brass and plastic transmitter key from some (probably long defunct) store in downtown Brooklyn, NY.

capkutay 13y ago

Cool article! "Code" by Charles Petzold[0] talks about morse code while covering ways that we encode data. May be a good read for anyone interested in this topic. [0]: http://www.amazon.com/Code-Language-Computer-Hardware-Software/dp/0735611319 http://www.amazon.com/Code-Language-Computer-Hardware-Softwa...

pjbrunet 13y ago

I tried learning in middle school and just memorizing all the letters was a pain. At that age it's just not that exciting, at least for me it wasn't. I can totally appreciate the value of it now, the ability to send messages around the world with just an antenna. My wave is bigger than yours, or something like that, LOL.

unoti 13y ago
It's easier to just memorize, say, 2 letters, then practice telling those two letters apart from each other. Then you add another letter...

Todd 13y ago

I learned Morse Code as a 12 year old while working towards my ham radio license. It was a challenge, especially getting to 13 WPM. The 20 WPM requirement of the Extra class was the main reason I didn't go for that one at the time. Even to this day, over two decades later, I can still generate and recall Morse (albeit slowly). This is one reason I urge young people to study something meaningful and lasting while they're still in school. I wish I had an adult who had told me that when I was young. I still know a lot about electronics, RF, antenna design, etc. but I wish I had internalized mathematics fundamentals or a foreign language instead. I still believe that one reason Richard Feynman was so facile with physics and mathematics was because of the notebooks he and his friend kept while they were kids.

unoti 13y ago

There are practical reasons to learn it, if you do radio operations. A morse signal doesn't require the same bandwidth that a voice signal requires, so you're able to focus the power of the transmitter into a tighter bandwidth, and broadcast with more power than a voice signal. In addition, you can understand the information in a morse signal in the presence of much more interference than you can understand a voice signal. So it's actually quite practical when doing radio operations to use morse, even today.

16s 13y ago
In many cases, you need only a few watts (5 or less) and with a good antenna can transmit globally.

rdl 13y ago

I'm not really into morse/CW, but I'd strongly encourage people to try out ham radio. You can buy an adequate radio for $31 on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/BaoFeng-UV-5R-136-174-400-480-Dual-Band/dp/B007H4VT7A http://www.amazon.com/BaoFeng-UV-5R-136-174-400-480-Dual-Ban...) and can get licensed in about 2-4 hours for $0-30. There was a period of maybe the 1980s-2000 where radio was dying (it was all old people who were defending their turf), but in the past 13 years it seems to have really turned around -- more activity on the 2m/440 HT scene, disaster stuff, etc. You can do crazy things like run 1500W wifi. Operate RC. Work space stations (satellites, the ISS, etc.) Weird propagation stuff (sunspot related, meteors, the moon...). The only lingering problem I have with amateur radio is the ban on crypto, but you can get around that by developing encrypted protocols but publishing the keys in routine use, or moving the equipment to non-ham bands with secret keys later.

viraj_shah 13y ago
Is the test 2-4 hours or is the learning process and test 2-4 hours for the basic license?
- rdl 13y ago
  Learning process and test, if you're smart, can be done in 4h total for Technician. There are lots of programs to do it in 8h, but IMO a tech person should be able to do it in less time. I used http://www.baears.com/ http://www.baears.com/ to do tech (and then studied for General during the rest breaks and got General at the same time!); it's a good choice in the Bay Area. I should be an Extra and a Volunteer Examiner myself in a month or so, so along with 2 friends with Extra/VE could run classes. I'm planning to do crypto meetups/keysignings/etc on the Peninsula on the first friday of the month anyway (5-10pm somewhere in MV or PA, probably near Google, nominally a 2600 meeting), so doing ham exams during that would be fine, if people studied before that.
  - viraj_shah 13y ago
    Interesting, thanks for the information. The meetup sounds cool. You should post it here if you get it going.

shitgoose 13y ago

well, if i knew morse code, i could drive and text easily. or type an email in the middle of a meeting without anyone noticing. looks like a good skill. considering learning it.

macleodan 13y ago

Morse is not all in the past tense, as you write. I have learnt it, a bit, for amateur radio, where it is still used. There are lots of wee applications for it too, like showing status messages on a small electronic device using a single LED. There have been times I have wished more people know it, for example for communicating with light accross a mountain valley, or communicating underwater.

xb95 13y ago

In amateur radio, the characteristics of someone's CW (morse code) is called their "fist". I used to be able to do 5 WPM and one year I participated in field day (the annual ham competition to contact as many people as you can, etc) with it -- that year was magical because I used morse code for my first time to talk to someone. The feeling of dits and dahs coming across the airwaves actually being communication from somewhere far away? It was brilliant. So: kudos for learning an aging and mostly deprecated form of communication. Some folks still do it for hobby (I've lost all skill by this point), and I highly recommend the experience. If nothing else, find a local ham group and go poke around in late June and see if they're doing anything for field day. It's worth checking out.

hyperbovine 13y ago
I'm not sure if deprecated is the right word. When the zombie invasion comes, I do not feel confident in my ability to get the cellular network back up running. I could easily build a spark gap transmitter though, using spare parts that can be found anywhere and high-school level electrical engineering. In seriousness, it seems somehow foolish to deprecate an extremely reliable, cheap and time-tested form of communication. That said, I never got far in my own attempts to learn Morse code :-)

Niten 13y ago

I got an early start in morse code thanks to my grandfather, who was a Navy radioman in World War II and later became a ham operator. Sadly I never got my ham license, but it was my grandfather's obsession with radio which got me into electronics and, ultimately, software engineering. I still practice coding now and then, and morse is my go-to "hello world" for playing with new microcontrollers: https://github.com/markshroyer/msp430-morse/blob/master/morse.ino https://github.com/markshroyer/msp430-morse/blob/master/mors...

asgard1024 13y ago

I wonder, given that Morse Code is pretty old, are there any better (for humans) codes for text as a binary stream? I mean better in different ways - easier to learn, less error prone, shorter,..

Apocryphon 13y ago

It seems like the sort of universal, deprecated but never gone, sort of system of communication that would be useful in a post-apocalyptic scenario.

jlgaddis 13y ago

Like many of the others in the thread, I first learned CW in order to upgrade my ham license (I started as a "No-Code Tech" and wanted HF privileges, which required passing a Morse Code exam). > As you develop proficiency in receiving–or “copying”–Morse, you start hearing the characters rather than the dashes and dots. I was attempting to explain this to someone else a long time ago and they had trouble really understanding what I meant until I described it another way -- think about how toddlers first learn to read. They initially begin by learning each individual letter, then how a couple letters in a specific order make a specific sound and form different words. As your reading comprehension increases, you no longer read letter by letter. Instead, your brain recognizes a sequence of letters as words. As you are reading this post, you are reading words, not the individuals letter that compose them. When trying to increase the speed at which you can "copy" Morse Code (which is done simply by reducing the space (time) between characters), you stop hearing the dits and dahs and instead learn to recognize individual letters. After a while, you'll even begin to recognize (some) words just by their sound. Past the age of 17 or 18, I've never "used" Morse Code for anything practical but it is still stuck in my brain and I can still "copy". At least I know that if I were to ever become paralyzed and unable to speak or move my appendages, I could at least still communicate with others (by "blinking" the dits and dahs).

KaiserPro 13y ago

.._. ..- -.-. -.-

16s 13y ago
http://www.livephysics.com/tools/mathematical-tools/morse-code-conversion-tool/ http://www.livephysics.com/tools/mathematical-tools/morse-co...