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Morse Code Enters The 21st Century 267

Posted by simoniker 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."
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Morse Code Enters The 21st Century More

Morse Code Enters The 21st Century

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  • Cool, but not essential (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Larry David ( 738420 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @07:12AM (#8325084)
    Obviously, morse code operators have had ways of getting around using 'at' signs for almost two hundred years, but it's a cool addition, and is as big a deal as they make out.

    I find morse code interesting because so many old timers complain about how the Internet makes 'ppl tlk lk this' and say 'nce 2 c u l8r', but that sort of abbreviation has been used in Morse Code for decades! The typical banter you see on IRC or in SMS cellphone text messages is pretty tame compared to what those operators could pump out on the wires :-) If any Morse operators here have some good examples, do post!

    • Re:Cool, but not essential (Score:5, Informative)

      by dysprosia ( 661648 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @07:17AM (#8325093)
      Take a look at some examples of the Q code [wikipedia.org] for some TLAs that were commonly used, along with a whole lot of casual abbreviations [wikipedia.org], for example...
      • It should be noted that this isn't some arcane lore that nobody uses anymore, either. The Q-signals are required knowledge for ham radio operators (although only a few of the most common ones are actually on the test.) Nonetheless, several of them are so common as to have come into common use in voice communications (up to and including face-to-face meatworld chatting) by hams. These include:

        QSL: "Please Confirm", or "I confirm", or, a card that a ham sends to another as a written acknowledgement of com
    • They say that every computer program attempts to grow until it can read mail.

      I guess that's going to be true for technologies too! Or your refrigerator...
    • Of course, interesting it is!

      Morse code - binary, it is! ;-)
    • Obviously, morse code operators have had ways of getting around using 'at' signs for almost two hundred years

      Yes but you're missing the point : at the pace international Morse code is updated, we'll be able to do decent Morse ASCII art in less than 185 years!

      By the way, and more seriously, people who do Morse code didn't wait for the ARRL to okay the use of this or that sign : a full international Morse code set with almost all ASCII signs, as well as regional sets, such as Russian and Japanese, have bee

    • There's the Q-codes that have already been mentioned, and prosigns [qsl.net], but for real message word count reduction look no farther than the ARRL numbered radiogram [arrl.org] messages.

      Were I on vacation in Florida when a hurrican hit, I could send the message back home that "We are all safe, don't worry. There was only slight damage were we are, and we will be coming home soon." as: ARL ONE ARL FOUR ARL TWO

      There is some header information needed by the message passing system (NTS), but the base message goes from 21 wo

    • Back in the '60s or so, Irv Hoff (who later was instrumental in developing ham packet radio) was a radioteletype ham. 110-bps ASCII was around and in heavy use for landline teletype and those new-fangled minicomputers. But hams were still limited to 60-bps Baudot (5-bit) teletype and obsolete machines. (This was apparently because the FCC didn't have the budget for buying new moniitoring equipment, so it wouldn't legalize the new coding scheme and speed.)

      Irv wanted to go faster. Morse wasn't speed-limi
  • Now I can just plug my relay right into my ISP and just surf the web and get email through Morse code!

    Playing ut2003 will be a pain though. Hopefully ut2004 will have a "Morse" input option.

  • Sorry, it has to be done (Score:5, Funny)

    by JamesD_UK ( 721413 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @07:16AM (#8325092) Homepage
    I was going to 'First Post!' in morse but the lameness filter won't let me. Dang now I'll just get modded to hell and back.

  • Rats... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by The-Bus ( 138060 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @07:17AM (#8325094)
    --_- -- -_- --- _ A -__- ___ --- _ A _- ___ A -__ -_ -- _ A _-- -_ __ _-

    (Check this link to translate: http://www.translatum.gr/converter/morse-code.htm) . Let's hope Slashdot's filter lets me post this.

    • Re:Rats... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by FeriteCore ( 25122 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @07:44AM (#8325183)
      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

      • Re:Rats... (Score:2, Interesting)

        by dysprosia ( 661648 )
        It's as many Morse instructors say, Morse is an aural language, not a visual one. The dots and dashes are really only aids to learning the sounds...

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

        Yes, I had to do the same thing. Morse code is not intended to be written. It isn't supposed to have an X and a Y axis, but a T an V (Time and Voltage) axis. As such, a written representation has to be sounded out in order to be legible to anyone who actually uses the code....

        73 DE KC2IDF

      • Re:Rats... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by MaxNerd ( 717220 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @09:52AM (#8326193)
        I learned cw listening to this old timer on 80 sending at 50, 40, 30 and finally 20wpm...By the time he got to 20, I felt like I was driving behind a bluehair in the fast lane. It's too bad the the requirement is down to 5wpm now. The code is quickly becoming something obscure that people view as something that only telegraph operators use.

        Some people are impressed by old people. hihi

        DE KE4VYS

  • The @ is good but.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Gnascher ( 645346 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @07:17AM (#8325095)
    Morse will truly have arrived in the 20th century when you can :) ;) and :)~ -G

  • wrong spelling.... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pe1rxq ( 141710 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @07:19AM (#8325101) Homepage Journal
    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

  • New Morse Code Messages (Score:5, Funny)

    by Channard ( 693317 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @07:21AM (#8325107) Journal
    Well, given how illiterate today's generations of texters and emailers are becoming we can presumably look forward to ship bound soses such as ... 'OMG! U sUnK mY BatT13sH1p U Camp1ng fAg! Plz snd he1p! GG'

  • Obsolete? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I thought the Morse code was declared obsolete a few years ago.

    • Re:Obsolete? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Trurl's Machine ( 651488 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @08:06AM (#8325279) Journal
      Yes and np. You cannot "declare obsolete" any particular code - if you wan't to count in Roman numbers, you are free to do so (and I'm pretty sure there is an emacs macro to facilitate this). However, in 1999 Morse code indeed was withdrawn [zetnet.co.uk] from "officlal" maritime distress communication. When you find yourself in deep caca on a sinking wessel, you are no longer obliged to yell "dee dee dee daa daa daa dee dee dee" to your satellite phone. In twenty first century, you can just scream "heeeeellllp!". That's what I call progress!

    • Re:Obsolete? (Score:5, Informative)

      by PiratePTG ( 608376 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @08:51AM (#8325537)
      I thought the Morse code was declared obsolete a few years ago.

      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

  • Morse Code enters the 21st Century (Score:4, Funny)

    by Hodge ( 530651 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @07:22AM (#8325111) Journal
    Bugger - I was going to reply purely in Morse but the damned /. filter reckoned it was a lame posting. Clearly, eben without the Morse it still is!

    Great news for all fans of morse code. This now means that when we send an SOS we can supply an email address to let us know help is on its way!

    ...-....-.

  • spelling it out is faster? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by edwinolson ( 116413 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @07:22AM (#8325114) Homepage
    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?

    • Re:spelling it out is faster? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 19, 2004 @07:31AM (#8325140)
      That wont work, figure an email address like

      cat@atnt.org
      which when transmitted letter by letter min morse
      code would in your case be;
      c a t a t a t n t . o r g

      where is the 'at'==@ in that letter sequence?
      • Tony Finch [dotat.at] managed to snap up one of the cooler domains: dotat.at His email address?

        dot at dot at dot at dot at.

      • yes it does work... it's called spaces....

        dit dah dah ... dit dah dah .... dit dah dah

        is ... at at at which is distinguishable from atatat

        it's worked for over 15 years without the new useless @ sign. and it's use will not be used except by those that obviousally dont send code but use a computer to generate their morse code.

        I.E. it's a poser detector character...

        • dit dah dah ... dit dah dah .... dit dah dah

          is ... at at at which is distinguishable from atatat

          Of course it's distinguishible from 'atatat'. What you typed is morse for 'www'.

          I.E. it's a poser detector character...

          *Cough*

      • > c a t a t a t n t . o r g
        >
        > where is the 'at'==@ in that letter sequence?

        Simple, I and my other fellow HF CW friends have been doing it for years. Per your example:

        "c a t a t a n t . o r g"

        Itsnotasifyoucruncheverythingtogetherduringanex c ha nge. Especially in Morse. You were able to read that mashed sentence with only a little extra trouble. Try that in Morse code and it's a total parsing disaster due to the binary symbols and the variable-length sequences that denote letters and symbols.

        Ne

    • Re:spelling it out is faster? (Score:5, Informative)

      by lussmu ( 638495 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @07:40AM (#8325167)
      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.
    • dit dah dah is already the letter 'W'

  • Lets see spammers use this! (Score:5, Funny)

    by NecroDeemer ( 751700 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @07:24AM (#8325117) Homepage
    Just picture the scene, its the middle of a major terrorist attack, the control centres can only communicate via morse code, and suddenly...

    Reading from piece of paper "Get The Cheapest Viagra now!"Oh dear, spam hit an all time low.

  • Nobody is listening (Score:5, Interesting)

    by daBass ( 56811 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @07:24AM (#8325118)
    While it is cool and all that, forget sending your email address as morse code when your ship is in trouble because nobody is listening! [qsl.net].
    • If you're interested in how the current Mayday system is used ship to shore take a look at; http://www.hmcoastguard.co.uk/comms/mayday.php
    • Interesting...

      Still, everybody knows what morse sounds like, and if you were really in trouble and somebody heard/saw your signal, they could easily find someone to decipher it. I can certainly think of a few situations, admittedly extraordinary, where morse could be useful or even life saving (you're crushed under a toppled building but manage to peck out "I'm under the girder" etc.)

      The only morse I bothered to learn, and I think everybody should, is SOS. dit dit dit dash dash dash dit dit dit. It's easy
      • The only morse I bothered to learn, and I think everybody should, is SOS

        Yeah, you're right. Maybe I should learn SOS too. A few nights in with a book studying it hard, and I reckon I should be able to grapple with it.

    • nobody is listening because of MANY factors...

      first is the exorbant cost of the radios.. most ham's can't afford a HF rig.. and the old hallicrafters or drake tube monsters take a day to get ready to work.. Secondly it's the lack of the FCC enforcing the laws that protect ham's. I CAN NOT put up my antennas and the feds will not do anything to help me as they are required to. so now not only cant I afford a radio (Let's see $2000.00+ for a low end HF radio that doesnt require a EE degree to operate) and

      • Re:Nobody is listening (Score:2, Informative)

        by trg83 ( 555416 )
        Let's see $2000.00+ for a low end HF radio that doesnt require a EE degree to operate

        With all due respect, Icom and Yaesu both have HF rigs out now in the neighborhood of $600-700. They are all very capable.

        Also, you may want to search the web for stealth antennas. I worked about 25 states and Canada on CW with a triband dipole in my attic and never more than 100W of power.

        AA0ZB

      • Re:Nobody is listening (Score:2, Informative)

        by N3Bruce ( 154308 )
        I got started with an old Hallicrafters HT-37/SX-111 setup, and I agree that they are a handful to work, generate a lot of heat, and take up a lot of space. That being said, there are still plenty of '80s and '90s used solid state HF rigs out there for less than $500 USD. A Kenwood TS-440 has automatic antenna tuning, a decent front end, and digital display, and can be had for less than $500.00. Other candidates in this class are Icom 725/735, Drake TR-7, and Kenwood TS-120/130/430.

        If you are willing to pe
  • I thought nobody used Morse anymore, is it still used in shipping? If not where is it used?

    • Re:Morse?! (Score:4, Funny)

      by dubbayu_d_40 ( 622643 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @07:33AM (#8325147)
      I recently saw it used in a movie...

    • Re:Morse?! (Score:5, Informative)

      by lussmu ( 638495 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @08:25AM (#8325355)
      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.

  • Look for SMTP-over-MORSE RFC soon :)) (Score:3, Funny)

    by mmu_man ( 107529 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @07:26AM (#8325120)
    Even more robust than UUCP !
  • ... that refuses to die: MIDI

  • RFC 1926 (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Stavr0 ( 35032 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @07:28AM (#8325130) Homepage Journal
    Nuff said...

  • Morse Code gets here (Score:3, Funny)

    by Larry David ( 738420 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @07:29AM (#8325134)
    The International Telecommunications Union has decided to bring Morse Code into the 21st century

    All those morse code operators who have been unable to find it in this century can now breathe a sigh of relief! Morse code has made it to the 21st century, just four years late.

  • Currency codes (Score:4, Funny)

    by LarsWestergren ( 9033 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @07:35AM (#8325157) Homepage Journal
    I demand those insensitive clods make a new Euro code. It is vital now that I communicate with my stock broker by rapping morse code with my mug on the prison bars. Oh, and they had better reserve a code for the upcoming "Afro" currency too. Ta.

  • Morse over Morse (Score:5, Funny)

    by Graspee_Leemoor ( 302316 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @07:48AM (#8325202) Homepage Journal
    Since there is a hypen and a period in Morse, you can send Morse Code over Morse Code.

    You know, er, just to be stupid or something.

    graspee

  • The @ symbol you say? Well if you wouldn't mind helping me leaf through the papers in this draw I think you'll find a patent for "Expressing the typographical symbol commonly known as "at," through the method of representing it as a sequence of "dots" and "dashes" and especially through the medium of sound or electricity.

  • Morse is an early data compression standard (Score:5, Interesting)

    by G4from128k ( 686170 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @07:49AM (#8325206)
    Morse code is an early variable-length data compression stanard (similar to Huffman [wikipedia.org] codes or Shannon-Fano [wikipedia.org] codes). By representing common letters [askoxford.com] with shorter codes ("E = "," and "T" = "-") and rare letters with longer codes ("Z" = "--.." an "Q" = "--.-"), Morse code manages to encode the 26 letters of the alphabet in 4 bits maximum and much less than 4 bits per letter on average.

    Although Morse did use letter frequencies in constructing his code, it is not a truely optimized code, from what I can tell. Numbers are encoded with a cumbersome 5 bits per digit. Also, the transmission time of messages might be further reduced with minor rearrangements of the code to use more dots (short transmission time) in more frequent letters and more dashes (long transmission time) in the less frequent letters.

  • Kernel panics (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gohai ( 554042 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @07:50AM (#8325210)
    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.

  • Doesn't this point out a problem in Cryptonomicon? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Ratface ( 21117 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @07:58AM (#8325240) Homepage Journal
    The main character in Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon uses his keyboards LEDs to read a set of documents about cryptography. He uses the LEDs to spell out the documents in Morse code and writes some code using his space key as a morse tapper.

    However, looking at the Morse chart he would have a problem writing code and reading mathematical notations with the limitations of the Morse alphabet.

    I'd never thought about that before! You're owned Stephenson ;-)

  • How long... (Score:5, Funny)

    by kerry-buckley ( 647774 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @08:02AM (#8325261)
    ...before the server gets dash-dotted?

  • Nothin' but jokes (Score:5, Funny)

    by eclectro ( 227083 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @08:04AM (#8325268)
    from all you whippersnappers. You don't know nuthin'

    We were talking across the world and making friends with strangers before Al Gore was a twinkle in his father's eye, and we were doing it for free. Not only did we invent 133t speak, we but we refined it [alltel.net].

    We had to deal with inteference from the neighbor's electronic organ, changing band conditions, sloppy handkeying, line interference, nests on the antennas, having to make our own equipment, the massive russian woodpeckers [qsl.net] equipment problems that we had to fix ourselves, and having to log our operations.

    And we were grateful

    NA7E

  • End of contact (...-.-) (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anders Andersson ( 863 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @08:09AM (#8325288) Homepage

    There are a number of morse code [wikipedia.org] 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!

  • Stupid Question (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Drunken_Jackass ( 325938 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @08:11AM (#8325296) Homepage
    ...but 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.

    If they're just adding the @ now, what other symbols that are necessary for "communication in the 21 century"?

    • Period "." is .-.-.-
      Slash "/" is -..-. (pronounce "upper and lower" to memorize the rhytm)

      I don't know about underscore or backslash, as I don't have a definitive list of interpunctuation characters in morse, but some of those you may think of (comma, colon, semicolon, question mark) do exist. However, there may be a problem with all the different kinds of matching brackets, braces and angles. In addition to that, there is no way (that I know of) to differentiate between upper and lower case letters. I'd

    • Re:Stupid Question (Score:5, Informative)

      by Phreakiture ( 547094 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @10:01AM (#8326289) Homepage

      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. [msp.mn.us]

  • Using the Word "AT" is Faster (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This wasn't a very good idea. Just using the word "AT" is faster than the new character, which is an "A" and a "C" run together into one letter. A "T" plus an inter-letter space is shorter than a "C".

    Therefore, this new character WAS NOT NECESSARY. The word "AT" can be used and the context will show that the "@" symbol was meant.

    73 de N8KH

  • Chinese Morse Code? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by 4of12 ( 97621 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @08:21AM (#8325342) Homepage Journal

    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....

    • AFAIR, they converted each glyph to a number, and then sendt the nunmbers. I seem to recall hearing that it was a four digit number, but I'm not certain.

    • I would guess (wildly) that by the time there were telegraphs in wide use in china, there already was a method of writing chinese words in latin alphabet.

      Like, you know, writing "Beijing" instead of "$@".

    • Re:Chinese Morse Code? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      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...

  • Oh my... (Score:5, Funny)

    by MattRog ( 527508 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @08:24AM (#8325350)
    The first thing I thought of was that they were going to start sending XML down the line.

    Imagine that horror:
    <message sender="Titanic">
    <word>
    <char>dot</char>
    <char>dot</char>
    <char>dot</char>
    <char>space</char>
    <char>dash</char>
    <char>dash</char>
    <char>dash</char>
    <char>space</char>
    <char>dot</char>
    <char>dot</char>
    <char>dot</char>
    </word>
    </message>

  • 21st century (Score:5, Insightful)

    by QuasiDon ( 215923 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @08:41AM (#8325456)
    Since email was one of the first things used on the internet, why would adding the @ symbol bring Morse Code into the 21st century? Wouldn't it just bring it later into the mid 20th century?

  • No exclamation mark? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mblase ( 200735 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @08:42AM (#8325461)
    Some ham operators wouldn't mind more changes to spice up the language. While Morse code has a period, a question mark, and even a semicolon, it offers no simple way to articulate excitement. "I was hoping they'd add a character for the exclamation point," said Yocanovich....

    Which leads me to wonder: how many emoticons can you express in Morse Code? Or do they have their own equivalent already?

  • Anybody remember this one? (Score:4, Funny)

    by coulbc ( 149394 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @08:46AM (#8325496)
    3 dots, 4 dots, 2 dots, dah
    Radio, Radio RAH, RAH,RAH

  • Not just radio hams (Score:3, Informative)

    by Tim Ward ( 514198 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @08:59AM (#8325587) Homepage
    "There's really no reason to use it anymore," ... Today it's largely the province of ham radio operators

    Er, and radio navaids, there are still quite a lot of those around, and quite a lot of aeroplanes flying around listening to them.

    "TITS":

    - tune
    - identify (ie listen for the Morse code bleeps and make sure you've tuned the right navaid)
    - test
    - um, nobody can remember what the S stands for.
  • .. and now all they need to do anymore is to add a Windows button.

  • hidden morse code (Score:2, Interesting)

    by parawing742 ( 646604 )
    I recently wrote a PHP program that hides morse code messages into other sentences. Guess I'll have to update it now. Check it out here: CodeBreak - Hidden Morse Code [rudygreene.com]

  • Just the beginning. (Score:3, Funny)

    by rabs ( 208464 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @10:29AM (#8326562)

    Breaking news from www.telegraph.co.uk:

    World Wide Morse Conference in Oxford

    By Harold Banfry in Oxford
    Filed 19 February 2004

    World Wide Morse Consortium begins a week-long meeting today in Oxford. The distinguished but beleagurered coterie of academics from around the world will discuss the apparently dim future of Morse, its public perception, and paths for its future.

    One of the most exciting developments planned for Spring 2005 is the roll-out of Morse Unicode, to accommodate the requirements of the international developer community. Each dot ("dit") or dash ("dah") in the previous scheme will be replaced with four dots or dashes.

    "This enhancement is long overdue," says Dr. Davit Dannaugh. "Now we can represent any letter uniquely in any language. With the increasing availability of dedicated broadband Morse lines, there will be no practical impediments."

    Also in the limelight for the Oxford meeting are Morse cryptography, Morse security, and Voice over Morse.

    - rabs

  • Any spammers who try to advertise on 20 meter cw will no doubt find themselves quickely DFed and shut down for commercial use of amateur radio.

  • web addresses (Score:3, Funny)

    by sleepypants ( 599905 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @10:58AM (#8326988)
    I need a tilde, damnit! My unix-hosted web page address has a tilde! There go my hopes of reaching new audiences via morse...

  • Exclamation Point (Score:4, Funny)

    by ScottSpeaks! ( 707844 ) * on Thursday February 19, 2004 @11:25AM (#8327378) Homepage Journal
    At least there's still no code for "!", which should discourage most Morse spam.

  • As a distant relative of Samuel F.B. Morse... (Score:5, Funny)

    by dbirchall ( 191839 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @11:28AM (#8327431) Journal
    (11th cousin 5 times removed or some such; our shared ancestor Anthony Morse lived 1606-1686) I suspect he's spinning in his grave, but I can't be sure, so I'll spin on my desk chair a few times for good measure.











    Okay, now I'm all dizzy.

  • Morse is a terrible code (Score:4, Interesting)

    by pclminion ( 145572 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @12:23PM (#8328143)
    First: it's ambiguous. You can interpret a particular series of da/dit in multiple ways. Sure, a human can figure out from context, but what about a computer?

    Second: it's inefficient. It's a binary code (dit and da) and yet it's redundant. The Shannon entropy for English is lower than the calculated average message length for Morse. They should be using a Huffman code.

    Suggestion: Create a Huffman code from well-known English letter frequencies. When constructing this code, always put the more-common subtree on the left side of the new Huffman node. Then, when translating to das and dits, always use dit for a left-going branch and da for a right-going branch (dit = 0, da = 1). This accounts for the fact that the "da" symbol takes longer to transmit than "dit".

    The result won't be Morse code, but we could name it something else... "Huffman-Morsoid," or say, "Horse code."

    • Re:Morse is a terrible code (Score:4, Informative)

      by vhfer ( 643140 ) on Thursday February 19, 2004 @12:56PM (#8328519)
      Morse is not ambiguous unless you have a sloppy fist. There's rules for the length of a dash vs. that of a dot at any sending speed (I forget-- 1.5 times? 3 times? Can't remember) so that it scales up and down. If you send carefully a program in a PIC using a few K of code can decode you reliably.

      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

  • ...I expect that my royalty checks will start rolling in soon. If not, I may have to claim a patent on this incremental new advancement so that I can charge users a licensing fee.

    My lawyers will be contacting you shortly...via Morse code, of course.

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