I thought this was going to be a plugin that would allow a user to click in Morse code on a text input in order to "type" their text. I'm kind of disappointed that it's not, since I've been meaning to write a browser extension to enable Morse code input on all text fields after someone suggested it as an addition to Tapsure (http://www.chrisfinke.com/addons/tapsure/).
You'd imagine someone would do this sooner or later. My skills are horribly rusty, but they might be worth brushing off. Lots of people did it for their ham licenses and it's certainly faster then t9, possibly qwerty-on-touchscreen. Especially with two-switch repeating ones (i.e. one button does dot dot dot dot.. one does dash dash dash... at a set speed).
I would have gotten a General license back in the day instead of a Tech+ if I could have managed a few more WPM worth of Morse code. Then again, I was in a rush to study before the test (it was hard to find an exam in rural Iowa), so I barely managed the slowest Morse code test with the amount of time I had to study. I passed the written test for General just fine, though.
Me too. I learned it so I could listen to propagation beacons, since I started primarily on 10m. I still don't use it much with other humans, unfortunately.
I haven't started writing any code yet, but I'll get to it eventually here: https://github.com/cfinke/Telegraph.js if anyone is interested in following the project's progress.
If you like that, be sure to check out his his altoid-tin electro etching [1], Girl Genius trilobite broach [2], and Victorian RV (school bus conversion) [3].
bringing back some bad memories. I was forced to learn Morse code in the Navy and to type it at 20 words per min, and write at 10 words per minute. I have been trying so hard to forget it, and now all I can hear is long and short tones in my head.
fun stuff. i recently set up my old ham radio station again and it's been really fun. morse code is alive and well and is still a highly efficient way to make contact with distant stations.
I put up my 54" mast on my suburban, whip out my hp200lx for logging, put the bencher on the console, attached with a couple major rubber bands, and I am rollin.
JA, other pacfic; A russian near the south pole, all with 100 watts.
I know I could have found a translator to convert the code for the title into plaintext, but I downloaded the list of Morse Code and gave it a go manually.
I know. I'd have failed my HAM radio test, back when Morse Code was a requirement.
Morse Code, BSL and Pitman shorthand are three skills I really regret not learning when I was very young (not because the opportunities were there and I refused - the opportunities were not there; not, at least, where I grew up).
Want to learn Morse Code? Harry Lorayne, the memory expert, has a mnemonic way to do it.
The system is as follows.
1) t and d represent dash; r represents dot
2) commit 26 phrases to memory
Here are some of the phrases:
Awful rat
Big terror
Crazy torture
Dreamy tearer
Translating "Awful rat": This phrase means "A" is dot dash, because Awful starts with an A, and rat has an R and a T in it.
Likewise, B is represented as dash dot dot dot, because "Big" starts with a B, and "terror" has trrr in it.
Look at this link, and you'll know Morse Code in no time. This can get you over the initial hurdle of memorization, but obviously doesn't relieve you of the need for practice!
That's not an ideal way to go. Morse is an aural language and needs to be learned by sound. Knowing what combinations of
'dots and dashes' compose various symbols is next to useless: A is didah, not "dot dash".
The optimal way to learn it is by having a partner or computer app transmit individual letters at relatively fast rates, so you don't have time to parse them into their elements. Then, adjust the transmission speed by varying the time between letters, gradually ramping things up as your recognition skills improve.
I can't debate you on that. I'm just reporting what I read in Harry Lorayne's book. And with one simple reading, and about 5 minutes of rehearsal, I knew all 26 letter translations.
But I never tried to convert it to use.
It seems on the internet, some who have learned Morse Code recommend techniques like this, while others recommend against mnemonic techniques.
Wikipedia has a few other examples of other mnemonic devices, so it seems that someone has found these techniques useful. And people learn differently.
If I compare it to learning a foreign language, I know my experience with that was that the hurdle of memorizing vocabulary was large, and memory techniques helped that. But it wasn't until I practiced, that I was able to "think" in the foreign language, and all intermediate steps went away. And books on memory book say that same thing.
Short wave radio allows global scale communications with very little infrastructure, and Morse code has many advantages over other forms of communications in the short wave bands. A Morse code signal can be understood in a noisy radio environment better than a voice signal at the same amount of power. It requires less radio bandwidth, enabling very efficient use of the limited short wave spectrum.
Short wave radio is not near as important now with the global Internet in place, but it still has reach to some places that don't have Internet connectivity. It is also a good backup technology in the event that something like a natural disaster or terrorist attack severely damages our Internet infrastructure.
Finally, communicating using Morse code over Amateur Radio is a fun and intellectually stimulating hobby. I don't currently have a rig setup where I can do this, but when I did in the past, I really enjoyed it.
