NW-Mailing-List Digest, Vol 62, Issue 27

[NW Mailing List]

Thanks ever so much Abram for the explanations. We out there who have
never experienced either code find it almost mind boggling that anyone
still knows this stuff, but thanks to a dedicated few, it survives.
Thanks to you it's working and that you know and can take the time to
explain it to us neophites.

Bob Cohen


>

> Ed Svitil wrote:

>

> Mostly gone but not forgotten; I apologize for the inanity of the host but I seem to remember  two gentlemen on the Leno show but I can't find it. In that bit the telegraphers handily beat the texters not only in time but in clarity. Not sure what city this is in but if this guy is still the host of "BT" remind me to change the channel.....

>

> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSqRSNQwDwg&feature=related

> ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

>

> Ed, et al --

>

> Be aware that the chaps in the video are NOT using >> THE << Morse Code that was used in "land line" telegraphy by railroads, Western Union and the other commercial telegraph companies in the USA. They are using the radio operators' version of the code. I'll give you a very, very brief synopsis of the situation...

>

> Samuel Morse and his student, Alfred Vail, perfected both the technology (electromagnetic telegraph instruments) and the dot-and-dash code at Speedwell Village (an "iron plantation" owned by Vail's father, which had a rudimentary machine shop) in Morristown, NJ, during the years 1842-1844. Morse patented both the instruments and the code. His invention was an immediate success and within fifteen years both the North American and the European continents were "wired."

>

> Now come in the crafty Europeans, who wanted to evade Professor Morse's patents and associated royalties. Somewhere around 1857, they changed the dot-and-dash combinations for 13 or so letters of the alphabet of the code and used it as their own. Morse, of course, sued them in a European court, and lost. (Hostile jury...?)

>

> The 1857 European version of the code has a huge proportion of dashes in it, whereas the original Code, Morse's 1844 Code, was principally a code of dots. Even the untrained ear can easily hear the difference... the "Continental" (a.k.a. "International") version of the code is slow and draggy, whereas the "American Morse Code" is quick and snappy, and when sent fast sounds like rain drops hitting on a tin roof. Over the years, there have been various attempts to compare the relative speeds of the two codes, and conclusions have ranged from 12% to 20% in favor of "American Morse."

>

> "American Morse" (1844) also has some features which are not found in the Continental Code (1857,) namely spaces which are used within the dot patters for the letters C,R, O and Z, and a long dash for the letter L.

>

> When Gulielmo Marconi invented the radio in 1901, he opted for use of the Continental Code... He was a European from Italy, so what would you expect?

>

> I once tried to learn the "Continental" or "radio" code and it drove me crazy. Being familiar with the 1844 "American Morse" (called "Railroad Morse" by some,) I found the radio code frustratingly slow and draggy, and I gave up on the endeavor. The other side of the equation, however, is that one can communicate with perhaps several million people in the world today using the later "Continental" version of Morse, but "American Morse" and "railroad" telegraphers are almost as rare as Civil War veterans.

>

> All North American and South American "land line" telegraph installations used the original 1844 "American Morse Code." All radio outfits, and probably almost all of the "land line" telegraph installations outside of North and South America, used the "Continental Code," which later came to be styled the "International Code."

>

> Probably the easiest way for the casual observer to distinguish what he is hearing is this... Real " American Morse" as used by the railroads is copied off an electromagnetic sounder which makes "clicks" as the lever travels up and down, responding to the energization of the electromagnets, whereas radio code is copied in "beeps" made by a tone oscillator .

>

> One more thing needs to be said. The trans-Atlantic ocean cable, completed in 1866, used the European or "Continental" version of the code. Due to the great length of these cables, there were serious problems with the electric parameters of resistance, capacitance, inductance and reactance, and the cable would not respond quickly to changes in reversals of the electromagnetic field (current.) The slow, draggy, largely-dash combinations of the 1857 European/Continental Code were better suited to cable work. The cables could never have kept up with the high speed, largely-dot Code as invented invented by Professor Morse.

>

> I feel like I have explained this history 5,000 times in my life. I really need to write up a summary and just hand it out when the issue of "the two Codes" comes up !

>

> -- abram burnett

>

> "SW" Telegraph Office

> New Cumberland, Penna.