Posted on 04/01/2012 2:18:11 PM PDT by GATOR NAVY
“I find that incredibly hard to believe. For starters, an “O” is three long dashes. By the time you are done with those, a good texter could type a word while the morse operator has produced one letter.”
When morse is done properly at high speed you don’t here it as individual dots and dashes but more like music tones of dits and dahs. Each letter has a recognizable rhythm. Good operators hear the rhythm as complete words.
Usually musicians make the best code operators.
Try sending over the air. CW is a kick. Ya never know who you’ll pickup, or where.
HF bands have lots of CW ops.
Actually it is a direct descendant ...Morse code evolved in to 5 bit teletype code...teletype code evolved in to 7 bit ASCII and 8 bit EBCDIC ...
Bottom line the first "two state"/binary electronic encoding for transmission/transport of data was Morse
And the Internet is just that a data transmission/transport system...
PC's process data ...the Internet is mass hi-speed transports of data for PC's to have something to process
I’ve tried both. While I don’t find any speed advantage to Dvorak over QWERTY, I find that there’s less strain on my left hand.
The reason I don’t use Dvorak, tho, is that re-mapping the keyboard makes using Emacs nearly impossible. I don’t think of what letter I’m typing for a particular command in Emacs, I just know muscle patterns to do some editing function.
Good operators hear the rhythm as complete words.
Usually musicians make the best code operators.
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Also doesn’t hurt to be a little ‘whacko’....
I used to get into a ‘trance’ copying long grouped messages but was able to carry on a conversation while doing so.
I also did some encryption/decryption so I did have to be accurate when copying....
3 dits 4 dits 2 dits daaah
Radio Radio RAH RAH RAH
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs back
123456789 times.
I copied Morse for 20 years and it didn’t affect me a bit
Did it. Did it. Did it.
I always wanted to learn Morse Code.
And And Happy April Fool's Day to you too, Google.
REAL telegraphy uses clicks and clacks, not beeps. And yes, REAL telegraphers use the American Morse code, not the International code.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSqRSNQwDwg
Learning Morse was what I hated most in my training. The RAN expected all officers to be competent with it and there were certainly times when it came in handy and I did use it. But it took a lot longer than most of our other components for me to reach competency.
Everybody is using custom tones now but a few years ago, it used to really impress my students when I pointed out that every time they got a text message on their phones (they all seemed to have the same phone) the beeping said “SMS” in Morse. They thought that was really cool - that it wasn’t just a random beep.
I just had a block against above 20 wpm. I could copy in my head faster, but could not remember what I copied, so I had to write it down and 20 wpm was as fast as I could write. Of course I could send faster since I knew where I was going.
The way I built my speed for the extra class test was lots of on the air qso’s. Lots more fun than listening to code tapes.
Typing was out because I was never able to type and copy at the same time.
Typing was out because I was never able to type and copy at the same time.
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The Navy required one to copy on a mill.
The Army and Marines basically by stick — I guess its bad enough lugging all the important gear (weapons, ammo etc) in and to the field, and not much room for typewriter and not many ‘level places to put it’.
I was fortunate that I took typing in HS (not exactly a guy ‘thing’ in 1955) but oddly enough ‘they’ (instructors) would rather you couldn’t type or not very well at the least.
I went to CT”R” School (Intercept operators) and ended up as RM in the Fleet with a Speed Key license (CNFJ 5-61)
At 1:00 this morning the neighbor’s car alarm went off. It actually “tapped” out SOS.
“I was fortunate that I took typing in HS (not exactly a guy ‘thing’ in 1955”
I did about the same time, but the only reason I passed was my girlfriend was the teacher’s aid. I can type but have to concentrate on the typing to much to do anything else at the same time.
What I find almost comical about this is that I remember reading a story a few years ago that, if I remember correctly, Morse Code was being abandoned by the military just as they abandoned the slide rule.
skivvy waver!
During my 1950s USN days, one radio guy showed me a WWII gadget that they were still using to send Morse Code. It looked like a regular telegraph key but had a long arm that would rapidly vibrate every time the guy hit the key. They were so trained that they could bang out the dits and dahs in seconds. Another deal he said they used was to copy the code to a phonograph record and then speed up the rotation when broadcasting so the whole message just took seconds. The receiving station would record it and slow their record player down.
Our radio guys drove us nuts as they wouldn't talk regular at chow time - just sit there and talk to each other in dits and dahs. When they'd REALLY get ticked off, they'd yell "THREE DITS, FOUR DITS, TWO DITS, DAH!" and think it a knee-slapper.
Look it up. :-)
I was supposed to know it for visual signaling but I never used it enough to stay proficient at it. My most common flashing light signal was AS (wait while I go get a signalman.)
From video: "A classic technology. Reinvented."
The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
Bwahahahahaha!
My favorite line from the video was
“You can tap it in the morning. You can tap it at night. You can tap it in the bathroom.”
Right - that’s called a “semiautomatic key” or in radio lingo, a “bug.”
The most famous manufacture of bugs was/is Vibroplex:
http://vibroplex.com/original_bug.html
...to the plumbing in the Hanoi Hilton.
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