Foundations of Amateur Radio Nothing like the standard of Morse Code ... Morse Code is a way of communicating with people across the globe using dits and dahs and the spaces between them to convey a message. It's no longer required to get an Amateur License, but that doesn't mean that it's not useful, in fact, far from it, Morse is still heavily used in this hobby. I've been attempting to learn Morse code for quite some time. To do this I was told, time and time again, over and over, ad nauseam, that Morse is an Auditory Language. I was told that the way to success was to listen before sending, to be able to decode before ever touching a key and to learn with tapes. I also was told that if I learned it slowly, I'd run into trouble later on when I wanted to hear a beacon, which identifies itself with much faster Morse Code. Morse is an interesting phenomenon. We describe it in words in day-to-day terminology as having dots and dashes, which is how the International Telecommunications Union, the ITU defines it, but I have been assured that I should think of it in terms of dits and dahs, because that more closely mimics the sound of the language, and from my current experience, I have to agree. This is an audio language and it's defined in terms of how long a dit takes to transmit. A dit is one time unit. A dah is three dits. The space between a dit and a dah within one letter is one dit. The space between two letters is three dits and the space between two words is seven dits. I'm not expecting you to learn that right here and now, just pointing out that there is a definition of how this is supposed to work. If you make a dit last longer, everything else lasts longer, so determining how fast you're sending something is not simple to do, unless there's a standard. Of course there's a standard. The way that the speed in Morse is defined, is by counting how many times a standard word can be sent per minute. The Paris standard uses the word PARIS, because it is precisely 50 dits in terms of timing. There's another word, CODEX, which has 60 dits, so the two Words Per Minute are different depending on which standard you use. And to make things even more interesting, some people measure with 5 dits between words where the ITU specifies 7 dits between words. So, speed is variable, depending on who's measuring. The ITU doesn't specify which is right, but it gets better. As I said, this is an audio language, so you need to listen to it to learn it. Over the years it's been hammered into me, don't write Morse, don't use dits and dahs, listen, listen, listen. I did. At 25 Words per Minute, at what ever standard that was calculated, I can now hear Morse, that is, I can detect the gaps between letters and words and I can hear the rhythm of the code. Great, so I'm done, right? Not so fast. While I can hear the individual letters, I still don't actually know what a G sounds like, or what makes the letter X, or an Open Parenthesis, or a Question Mark. Easy, look them up, learn the sound, done. Morse Code is standard, right? Right? Seriously, Morse Code is standard, right? No. Not so much, not even a little bit. If you search the globe for Morse Code Charts so you can look up a Question Mark you'll end up with hundreds of different charts. Everyone agrees the letter A or Alpha is dit-dah, but they cannot even agree that N, November, is dah-dit. Some show the difference between an open and a close parenthesis, others use the same character. There's charts that put dits-and-dahs inside the letters of the alphabet, but don't specify in which order the parts are heard. The Wireless Institute of Australia doesn't even appear to bother specifying, the FISTS Down Under Morse Preservation Society doesn't show a copy, the ARRL has an abomination on their website that you cannot even link to, the ACMA defines the end of transmission as a cross and then there are the special ones, survival charts and power point slides and using words to describe a symbol, so you can know that a fraction bar is a dah-dit-dit-dah-dit, but you don't actually know what it looks like. You'll be pleased to learn that the ITU actually publishes a document, ITU-R M.1677-1, last updated in October of 2009, that specifies the International Morse Code. It goes into great detail on what characters are defined, how to start and stop transmissions, how to transmit things like percentages, what to do if you need to send a multiplication symbol, inverted commas, minutes and second signs, fractions and as a bonus it has the phrase that this document and I quote: \"should be used to define the Morse code characters and their applications in the radiocommunication services\". Nothing quite like a standard that should be adopted, rather than must be adopted. The ITU also tells us that \"the code needs to be updated from time-to-time to meet the needs of the radiocommunication services\". The French word \"arobase\", which in English is pronounced \"at\" and looks like the letter a with a circle, used today in an email address was added to Morse Code in 2002 by the French General Committee on Terminology, quick off the mark for a symbol that appeared on a typewriter in 1889 and first used in an email address in 1971, but if you look for an Exclamation Mark, an Ampersand, a Dollar Symbol, a Semi-Colon or an Underscore, you won't find anything about it in the ITU standard. Oh, here's a fun fact. The ITU document says: \"No part of this publication may be reproduced, by any means whatsoever, without written permission of ITU.\" - so apparently I can't actually tell you that a dit-dit-dit-dah-dit-dah means that this is the end of my transmission. I'm Onno VK6FLAB To listen to the podcast, visit the website: http://podcasts.itmaze.com.au/foundations/ and scroll to the bottom for the latest episode. You can also use your podcast tool of choice and search for my callsign, VK6FLAB, or you can read the book, look for my callsign on your local Amazon store, or visit my author page: http://amazon.com/author/owh If you'd like to participate in discussion about the podcast or about amateur radio, you can visit the Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/foundations.itmaze Feel free to get in touch directly via email: onno@itmaze.com.au, or follow on twitter: @VK6FLAB (http://twitter.com/vk6flab/) If you'd like to join the weekly net for new and returning amateurs, check out the details at http://ftroop.vk6.net, the net runs every week on Saturday, from 00:00 to 01:00 UTC on Echolink, IRLP, AllStar Link and 2m FM via various repeaters.
I tired for several decades to get beyond 5wpm I got for my Novice in 1980 and upgraded to Tech in 1985. A few years ago I learned about Sound Alikes and how it was used in some Signal Cores to teach Morse to SIGINT code interceptors. Easy to learn and I can work 15 well and most of 20wpm as well. Still sending and practicing to get up to 25 by ear. This is the deal, the Letter R sounds like bur-RA-bit , and its a bunny siting on an frozen block of ice in the Arctic. Then you hear the MP3 play the sound and you say bur-RA-bit. The key is if you think di-DA-dit it will cause you to stumble with 2 brain table look ups where this does not. Do not learn CQ as da di da dit da da dit da; it will make you stumble at the faster speeds and why I could not get faster years ago. I paid a very small price for Code Quick MP3s download, but even a K-12 website has a slightly different set of Aural sounds for the letters heard so you can see what its like. The issue is you need to hear the Aural sounds while or slightly after you hear the code a 15-20wpm in practicing writing them down every day for 20 mins for a few weeks. http://hms.springfield.k12.or.us/curric/Morse Code sound-a-likes.pdf http://cq2k.com/index.html It works for those that can't learn other ways, there are several ways of learning for different folks and some that can learn other ways call this snake oil but their wired different Art
I always really liked this video of Morse VS Texting on Leno, looks like they are using Yaesu FT-817s with Bencher paddles ! edit: I loved that the woman agreed hearing the code was exciting to Leno's comment
When one 'writes' code as "dit-dit-dit-dah-dit-dah", it's not a correct representation of what one should aspire to hear, and could hinder one's mental 'picture' of the SK symbol. It should be presented as 'didididahdidah'; as one complete sound character. A is didah; N is dahdit. As an aside, no one should ever refer to code as 'dots' and 'dashes'; only dits and dahs. The media is terrible for this. didididit didit dahdidit dit ... didididah dit dahdahdididit dahdidit dahdahdidah That was a challenge to type correctly! doggone it! The forum software won't let me properly space the DE from my call!! Had to add the periods...
I can no longer hear it as di-da-dit that was my problem to not getting speed. I hear it as the Aural sound it makes at 15-23ish. Problem I still have is the letters K , C and Q... I was ingrained in 1980 that C was da di da dit and now when I hear that instead of hearing the C in my head , I think da di da dit da da dit da, not the character C. All kinds of folks learn different ways.
The semicolon is sent as DAH di DAH di DAH dit. Like a reversed period. I didn't learn that in Radioman School, but if I heard a stream of code at 50 wpm today I could pick out the semicolons, if nothing else.
I have a similar aural sound for Commas, generally only heard on W1AW code practice very excessively. I pick it out fast as it sounds like the radio noise the "Empire DRONE" sends on the Ice Planet of Hoth to show the Generators to the commanders on the Destroyer. Another one not usually used is the period. Stop a stop a stop is what a period to me sounds like.
