Posted on 02/23/2007 6:45:07 PM PST by vintage patriot
Morse code is in need of some serious SOS.
The language of dots and dashes, first used during the infancy of electronic communication in the mid-1800s, is going the way of Latin.
Beginning today, amateur or "ham" radio operators in the United States won't be tested in Morse code – also known as Continuous Wave – in order to be licensed by the federal government.
In an effort to advance the hobby, the Federal Communications Commission in December agreed to eliminate the five-words-per-minute Morse code requirement for people seeking their upper-level class licenses.
(Excerpt) Read more at ocregister.com ...
I first saw semaphore as a kid in my Uncle's 1943-edition US Navy Blue Jackets' Manual. Pretty cool. From it I know how to make an emergency life vest out of a pair of dungarees (tie knots in the ankles, wet, trap air in them, and lay across the inseam with the inflated legs up under your arms!) among many other cool things.
I understand that the circuitry is simpler, but is there any reason for improved intellegibility other than reduced bandwidth? If one had equipment so that to send a voice 'message' one recorded a short tape and then played it back at quarter speed, and if the recipient recorded the audio in such fashion that it could selectively be played at 4x speed, would the intelligibilty not be as good as CW?
Yeah, I know mechanical recording technology has gone downhill with all the newfangled digital stuff, but I wouldn't think it'd be hard.
"tubes are still used in high power RF transmitters "
And the Internet. The Internet is a series of tubes. Of course now the internet is too big, but when Al Gore first invented it, you could bring right into the local Rexall plug it right into the tester.
On some phones, the default sound for getting a text message is bip bip bip, beeeep beeeep, bip bip bip. I wonder how many owners of such phones recognize the significance of that. On a related note, the arcade game Pleaid(e)s made morse-code-ish beepings when the player was going into the base. I wonder if the programmers put in any real message there?
They are not taking it away they are simply not making it a requirment for a license. The portions of the bandwidth reserverd for CW and other digital type communications still stand.
5WPM Code is extremely easy. I passed the exam by listening to two tapes starting two days before the exam, but I never took it past that. (and I don't remember any of it.) Look for tapes/CDs by a guy named Gordon West. He's taught thousands of amateurs with success.
Far be it from me to expect high standards of bureaucrats! Thanks for the pointer.
From The Official Site of the Red Sox:
Behind the manual scoreboard (inside the Green Monster) is a room where the walls are covered with signatures of players who have played at Fenway Park over the years. Also, the initials TAY and JRY — for Tom Yawkey and Jean Yawkey — (former owners of the Red Sox) appear in Morse code in two vertical stripes on the scoreboard.
They have not outlawed CW. We can still put our ham fists on the air. The tradition will be carried by old timers as well as FNGs who will learn CW just because it is cool.
How about radio lighthouses? I've never encountered one, but from what I've read they seem clever. Given a chart of radio lighthouses and an omnidirectional receiver with an uncalibrated tuner, one can determine one's whereabouts simply by listening to CW radio transmissions.
I learned Morse code in Scouts...made it all the way to Eagle. After graduation from college, I decided to go for my radio licenses. First Class Radiotelephone with Ships RADAR endorsement in 1976. My first ham license was a Tech in 1976. Some months later after practicing to a level of 18 WPM, I upgraded to Advanced. A couple year ago I upgraded to Extra. The code had been reduced to 5 WPM for everyone and the written exam was pretty simple for me.
My wife earned her Tech+ license on the last day that a Morse code test was required for Tech. She plans to upgrade to General shortly.
CW requires much less bandwidth and simpler technology. Anything that can be key on/off can transmit Morse code. A simple wig/wag flag, a flashlight, a car horn, a touchtone pad on a phone...anything means of signaling on/off will work.
SSB requires stable transmitters and receivers. The bandwidth is fairly narrow for voice purposes. The minimum receiver is an AM receiver with a beat frequency oscillator. The transmitter is more complex. You need a local oscillator and a balanced modulator to generate the double sideband, suppressed carrier. A filter is used to select the upper or lower sideband (the single sideband). From that point, it is usually mixed up to the desired transmit frequency, amplified and coupled to an antenna. If the oscillators aren't stable, the frequency wanders around. Lots of distorted "Mickey Mouse" and "growling" distortions.
There's a good place for each form of modulation. CW just happens to exploit the simplest, most reliable mode. It might not be "required", but it is a skill worth cultivating.
It's not a mistake. The "default sound" is Morse code for SMS. SMS is Short Message Service. It's what people use to send short text messages.
As are the airport identifiers in the ATIS broadcast.
I know that's what it is. I was wondering how many of the phones' owners do. Insidentally, the default sequence on Ensonic's digital sampling keyboard was just one pitch played in the rhythm
dah dit dit dit dit dah dit dah.Should have had a couple gaps in, but I think I can figure out what it meant. Wonder how many DSK owners figured it out.
Thinking about it, I guess the problem with voice is that while humans are very good at picking out a voice amidst noise, such ability is severely impaired by the distortions generally associated with SSB transmission. While amplitude modulation may seem to be a waste of bandwidth, the improved accuracy of audio frequencies may improve a lister's ability to detect the speaker's voice amidst noise.
I do certainly recognize that there is value in having a standard universal on-off code. Morse is pretty good for human-readable communications (though I wonder why "O" is longer than "U"). Is there any good mnemonic system for remembering the patterns of dots and dashes? I know all the ASCII codes, but probably only about half of the Morse alphabet.
Even if it is not used for official (military) purposes, still, there will be people that will learn, maintain and eventually teach this fascinating skill.
In the 1980's, we had to master Morse code just before the digital stuff took over. In bad weather and during twilight hours, though, Morse code proved to be a reliable way of signalling.
"Real operators saturated the low end of 20 with 4 element yagis and 3 element quads and worked the world with 100 watts at 30wpm."
I was one of those, finally making it to "Top of the Honor Roll" in DXCC, but ended when fire destroyed my house and station in 1991.
De W4EX (former K4ZKZ)
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