Yeah, LCWO is the gold standard for Koch training on the web, and I'd second the suggestion for CW Academy. Having a commitment to learning with other people tends to help you ride out the rough patches.
To help with my own learning, I built a mobile friendly web app/game which includes Koch as an option. It's also open source - https://github.com/mdp/morse.mdp.im - morse.mdp.im
Interesting! I found myself struggling a lot on the linked site because the random groupings made it very easy for me to lose my place and feel like i've gotten behind, but LCWO's fixed groups of 5 help my find my place a lot better.
My father, who is an expert in matters relating to early wireless, was asked by the National Geographic to recreate the SOS message sent by the Titanic. This has historical significance as it was the first time that the SOS was used. In order to make it as authentic as possible, he used an ancient brass Morse code key wired to a spark transmitter. The spark signal was picked up by an old radio he had wired up to a tape recorder.
Caveat: I may have got a few details wrong. It’s been a long time since he shared the story.
CQ is what we use to hail another station ("seek you"). Hams use this all the time to call out to the ether for someone to respond. It's been used since telegraph days and early wireless was no different.
BUT, the distress call before SOS was CQD.
That's very difficult to hear if you're trained your brain to filter out all the other ops calling "CQ CQ CQ" all the time. Your brain will hear the incessant CQ every time you tune where other stations are sending Morse. But to hear CQD, your brain must be actively listening and making sense of what's being said - hard to hear when you're not actively listening to the incoming signals.
That's one (primary?) driving reason why SOS became the de facto distress signal. It's unmistakable (... --- ...) and not a sequence heard often. It took the responding ships a moment to remember that's what was being called out over the air.
"It's a CQD, old man!" was famously recorded from the account of radio operators on responding ships.
("Old man" is a friendly term for one another on the radio. In Morse, we just abbreviate as OM.)
Note that in a ham radio setting, morse code is only part of the equation. The conversations typically follow patterns that aren't very readable, even when transcribed to ASCII.
While training for Amateur radio license, I came across interesting things which I hadn't observed before, mainly to do with the ProSigns (like the SOS °°°---°°°)
* There is no word in English dictionary with HH (°°°° °°°°). Hence it's a code to indicate scratch the last word.
* The washing machines & microwaves of many manufacturers often beeped AS (°-°°° i.e. Wait) in Morse when they were done, to indicate machine is "standing by"
More commonly, "uhh", "ahh", and "ehh" (and their elongations) -- though I imagine their function is either fulfilled in other ways in Morse (prosigns?) or simply not needed.
My reference was towards unconjugated words. GP posted 'beachhead' - which is a colloquially derived American English word by conjugation of two common English words. Normally you don't see conjugated or stretchy words in amateur radio to facilitate esse. So Simple Wikipedia level of vocabulary, having words which are rather unambiguous to all English speakers. Outside of US, I am sure most people will pause to grasp whats a beachhead. Over HF your taps can be heard half way around the globe. Its considered good manners to be clear & concise
'Ahh uhh' etc aren't useful in a mode of telegraph communication which is rather very terse & commonly does not even include is/are/and etc in transmission. Pithy sentences relaying the content matter is encouraged - to speed up typing & also not to block useful airwave. Most HAMs are sharing a narrow set of channels & only one operator pushes-to-'talk' at any given time
That's totally fair! It sounds like these words simply aren't used in Morse communication, which seems reasonable due to its purpose. I imagine HH as a prosign is also fairly unambiguous in grammatical context, even if someone did need to key it as part of a word.
do you realistically see yourself, or anyone else keying in those ?
Using morse is all about efficient transmission in high noise environments.
Personally, I think I'd be annoyed if i had to decode that whilst sitting on a mountain top, or wherever (not being hyperbolic SOTA[1] and POTA[2] are real things folks participate in).
I'm not a Morse operator, so I wouldn't know. That's why I said the function of these words may simply not be needed.
The poster earlier claimed that no English word contains the digraph "hh", however, which is simply untrue. It's quite uncommon, and I'm sure the prosign use of HH is grammatically unambiguous in general, but it being invalid otherwise is not a well-founded reason.
> The poster earlier claimed that no English word contains the digraph "hh"
Context, my friend.
If you pick up regular non-colloquial words & unconjugated words, there actually is no word with a double H. I read this trivia in the ARRL handbook. Extremely well written covering everything HAM.
But like others are posting to prove a point in contrary, fishhook beachhead exist - but are either conjugated or colloquial. By that reasoning, every second word in Asian languages such as Vietnamese/Laotian has double H when scripted - but is it to be considered a standard mode of unambiguous communication over international frequency spectrums?
> I read this trivia in the ARRL handbook. Extremely well written covering everything HAM.
> [...] a standard mode of unambiguous communication over international frequency spectrums
That's exactly the context that's missing for most participants in this thread :) Thanks for making it explicit for us! When you lead with "There is no word in English dictionary with HH", it sounds like the context is literally the English dictionary. What you're actually judging against is the practical lexicon of radio operators, which is very different and worthy of investigation independent of the lexicon the rest of us plebians use ;)
> There are three in general use: AR signifies the end of the message, KN marks the end of your transmission and an invitation to the other station to reply, and SK says it’s the end of the contact and your last transmission to that station
> TLDR: We can thus conclude that the Morse code can be understood, and easily analyzed, as the composition of a prefix binary encoding of a 3 symbols alphabet {dot, dash, sep} into a binary alphabet, and a prefix encoding of a 58 symbol alphabet (57 characters and one space) into the 3 letters alphabet.
> The composition itself is a prefix encoding of the 58 symbols into a binary representation.
Check this part:
> However, some people would be inclined to recognize the space DET at level 2, thus making the alphabet quaternary, then using it directly at level 3, encoded as itself in level 2.
> This would meet the standard definition, for DET encoded in binary as 0000. But it would prevent the analysis of the binary encoding C2→1 as a prefix code, making it harder to show that CMorse is a prefix code, hence unambiguous.
In your link, AR, KN and SK can be considered in a similar way, but applied to the decoded message.
Combination of Koch and Farnsworth is how I've learnt morse code in the last year. Has been a challenge at times, but keeping the speed up makes a huge difference. The struggle I still have is catching words my just listening.
Also worth pointing out CWops https://cwops.org/cw-academy/ and the Long Island Club (it's all online) as a classed based way of learning. CWops is intensive but very effective
The book Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software, talks about morse in its first chapter.
The beauty of how morse encoding expands out from the binary dots and dashes in to letters and sentences is a lovely thing to read about. Think of it more as a tree graph allowing you to find your ideal letter, branching out from a root of common letters to less common as you fan out.
Brail is mentioned in the second chapter with a similar enlightening description.
Is there a good reason to learn Morse in modern day besides just for kicks? Some sort of survival situation in which your only form of communication would be Morse, and you can't get out of it by sending ASCII binary?
Not knocking on anybody's learning for fun, just curious.
It's useful in any situation where you're trying to make the most efficient use of the power available to you. The classic example is communicating with the other side of the world with minimal power, but it's also useful in any situation where there's a lot of path loss, like when HF propagation conditions to your desired station are terrible or if you're bouncing radio signals off the moon.
There are computer-based digital modes these days that accomplish the same or similar things like FT8 in terms of bandwidth efficiency allowing communication in situations where voice modes would not work. There's still a lot of stations still working in Morse code. If you're chasing DX (long range contacts), it is still very useful.
From a social perspective, using morse code instead of voice modes tends to filter out most of the political and health talk I try to avoid.
Very fair question, I had the same thinking two years ago. Since then I got interested in amateur radio, and in particular low power, portable operations as well as homebrewing transceivers.
Using only 5W when conditions are right can work from Australia around the planet using a $30 radio and a 20m wire antenna thrown in a tree.
Also, while its definitely possible to homebrew equipment that transmits voice, morse code is much simpler as you are approximately connecting power from an oscillator to a small amplifier (a couple of garden variety transistors works just fine here)
Initially, I learned it for fun and ham radio emitting. But I find it fascinating that you can use it with anything that can be turned on and off with a rythm.
I used a flashlight to say "hello" while waiting for a fireworks event, but the other person far away just blinked their flashlight randomly in response.
I guess it could be used for worst scenario speech, like blinking eyes for examples if I ever have a terrible accident somehow (has been used by tortured persons, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZ256UU8xJ0). When I saw Tuco’s grandpa in Breaking Bad taking so much time to write words with his bell, I just tought about using morse (but with something more elaborate than a bell, because you want to use long and short tones; same problem applies if you want to knock on walls or doors).
It is more power efficient than voice. You put the same power into roughly 50Hz of bandwidth vs 2.2k for voice, so you can work the world on a modest station. Its also easier to pick out in the noise than voice.
Amateur radio is more than just "have a conversation with a random person". There are contests, challenges where you try and contact some number of states, countries, etc, and events.
One popular event is Parks on the Air where people go to a designated park and set up a temporary station then try and make contacts. It has a sibling event called summits on the Air where you do the same thing on top of a summit. Using CW lets you do that with less gear and in more adverse conditions.
Finally, its a brain workout. If you like the feeling of being " in the zone" then getting into a Morse conversation or participating in a contest is just the ticket.
"Amateur radio is more than just "have a conversation with a random person". There are contests, challenges where you try and contact some number of states, countries, etc, and events."
For me the technical learning and building projects was the most fun (although I never could get that damn ubitx to work well).
It's impressive to see / hear a good operator communicating right in the middle of a pile of noise. When I saw it done, it was with an older tube receiver, warmed up and stable, running a 100Hz crystal filter in tandem with a BFO.
A friend and I used to "tap" out Morse during church. There is a rhythm to it I find difficult to explain, but when one puts a bit of emphasis on the dash, tapping it all out comes through just fine. It's weird. At first it's just tapping, then one groks the other person's flavor of emphasis on the "dash" or "dah" and the characters sort of appear in the mind.
> and you can't get out of it by sending ASCII binary?
It's a minor point, but I doubt you'll find many people who can decode binary ASCII in their head (especially in contexts like tapping), not to mention that you'll need 7/8 bits per char instead of the ~3 Morse code uses.
Why rule out a survival situation? While nuclear missiles would probably just end all life, there are a broad spectrum of other things that can go wrong in the next decade that just take out power grids. It would be good to be ready with more robust technology than GPS-aware microchips, I can see how it could come in handy.
I'm seeing a lot of energy security issues out there, and there are extreme economic pressures all over that could spill out in unexpected ways. There are some profoundly grumpy people out there right now.
I would 100% completely rule it out in survival situations. The probability of making a contact and that contact being of use is very low. There are far more productive uses of your time than bashing brass. I say that as a regular QRP CW operator.
In a survival situation you're better off with VHF/UHF HTs and a tested network of people that you already know who have them and how to use them. And even that is of dubious use.
Some infinitely more likely survival situations involve tooting on a horn or blinking a flashlight.
Survival situations are one of those power law distributions where the odds of one person being in a survival situation at some point in their life are surprisingly high, regardless how unlikely it would be for a couple billion people to simultaneously be in the same survival situation.
Generally CW mode (morse) can be transmitted farther on less power than most other modes, and can be sent and recieved without sophisticated electronics (build your own QRP rig for like $10).
But yeah, there's not a lot of utility, even in rare or hypothetical emergencies. Many other things one could focus on.
I don't know if you'd call it a "good" reason because its a rare skill to have, but for pilots the NDB beacons and VOR beacons usually transmit their ID in morse code, so you're a button press away from being certain you actually tuned in the correct navigation beacon.
Slightly improved situational awareness when navigating is probably more of a method to avoid a survival situation, than to be a survival situation itself.
In ‘The Diving Bell and the Butterfly’ there is a point where the author, who is suffering locked-in syndrome after a stroke, is communicating by having the letters of the alphabet shown to him one at a time, with him choosing by making the one small gesture he is capable of. Morse code could be much more efficient here, and perhaps more efficient than a binary-search version of the alphabet method.
If you are disabled or can only use a finger - you could control your computer or android with the morse keyboard with autocomplete, would work for termux as well. It'd be slow, but it'd work. The problem is, you'd need a knowledgable buddy to set up the system for you... or you can start right now and switch to morse code entry - force yourself within the limit of 20 wpm.
Yes, it is important for solving some of the more challenging bomb disposals in the game "Keep talking and nobody explodes" within the alotted time limit :-)
Also i think Morse is sometimes used in Geocaching riddles and CTFs.
OT, does anyone know of an app that will decode Morse code that I type in using a single key like the space bar, holding it down long for dah and pressing it quickly for dit? It should figure out the wpm I'm using on its own, like a human would, rather than making me specify it, or at least it should let me select an arbitrary (possibly fractional) wpm rather than offering only a fixed list like 15/20/25.
The "Morse Expert" App available for Android/iOS does a pretty good job of decoding CW 'in the wild'. It can adapt to different sending speeds and does a decent job with non-ideal character/element spacing.
Do you have a link for Morse Expert? It sounds like exactly what I want, but I don’t see any exact name matches when I search for it in Apple’s U.S. App Store.
15 years ago I worked with a guy who was a Navy Veteran. He’d served in Korea. He still knew Morse Code. He confirmed what many are saying here that it’s all about the rhythm.
Once we were asking him about his experience and when he had to go he wrote on the whiteboard. C U N T. I was shocked and embarrassed. He was a professional guy why would he write this word in our workplace? My coworkers and I laughed nervously. He was grinning and said when ships would leave the port you’d message them C U N T in Morse Code. Which stood for "See You Next Trip"
My father, who my entire family suspects is autistic, used to communicate with me at mealtimes using whistled more code. I learned a bit but have forgotten it all now, just as I have forgotten the Spanish that my mother taught me.
Wow this is interesting, I probably am going to learn this way. But I've read the Morse code is deprecated and isn't used anywhere IRL anymore. Isn't it?
Generally yes. Sending morse is much easier than receiving it. Once you are comfortable receiving morse at 25wpm for example, the amount of practice needed to send at that speed is pretty minimal.
Somewhat. There's a skill to the timing that needs to be picked up in addition to the patterns you learn when learning to copy. Ideally, you're also practicing sending with some kind of local oscillator or your radio set to monitor mode. One reinforces the other.
Yes, though it's not hard and fast. Many sites will teach the Koch method but often with subtly different ordering, and very different from his original ordering. CW Academy teaches based on how frequently you'll hear them on the air. Long Island CW Club has changed to another system.
Most systems these days though focus on learning a couple letters and then progressively adding more on as you improve.
https://lcwo.net/
Which uses a similar technique. It also has quite a few more types of practice such as words, callsigns, games, contests etc.
I learnt Morse code there last year before I did a CW academy online course and I really enjoyed the approach.