[ARC5] American Morse

[Richard Knoppow]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dennis Monticelli" <dennis.monticelli at gmail.com>
To: "Robert Rode" <midnitetoaker58 at gmail.com>
Cc: "ARC-5" <arc5 at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Wednesday, August 27, 2014 9:35 PM
Subject: Re: [ARC5] American Morse


>I have a couple of old sounders (pre-1900) that are in 
>working condition
> but have not attempted to communicate with them.  I 
> suspect one could
> rectify International Morse audio tones and amplify the DC 
> level via a
> simple driver circuit to activate the sounder.  Then the 
> Morse could be
> decoded by ear.  Might be fun.
>
> But I don't know if any American Morse is used on the air. 
> Perhaps there
> is an on-line group that communicates with this code.
>
> Dennis AE6C
>
>
> On Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 8:45 PM, Robert Rode 
> <midnitetoaker58 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> ..."Morning, gang,.any body involved with hobby 
>> telegraphy , sounders and
>> such things ?
>> ______________________________________________________________
     Try the Morse Code mailing list

http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/morsecode

Also
http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/cw

     Lots of folks there working with American Morse.
     It _is_ possible to rectify tone signals to work a
sounder. I've seen diagrams for drivers on the web but don't
have a web site at hand. A Google search will find one.
There is also an Americal Morse group who meet via the
internet.

     Many years ago I used to work American Morse on the air
with a fellow who was a retired railroad telegrapher. We
just read the regular CW tones.  I doubt if I could read any
now but it might not take long to catch up.  Code sounds
different on a sounder, for one thing a sounder in a
resonater (those triangular boxes) is _very_ loud.  I don't
know for certain when resonators began to be used but
suspect it may have been when typewriters became popular. A
telegraph office must have been a very noisy place with the
sounders and relays chattering constantly.
     You probably know that American Morse was probably
thought up by Alfred Vail, who was Samuel Morse's assistant.
The Germans came up with Continental code which has
advantages for cable use. American Morse has very slightly
lower bandwidth for a given speed than Continental code,
probably not significant.
    There are in general two kinds of sounders; "main-line"
and "local" with differing sensitivity.  The main-line kind
was meant to work from long telegraph lines with high
rsistance, the local sounder was meant to work from a local
relay which itself was on the main line.  There is lots more
on the web.


--
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles
WB6KBL
dickburk at ix.netcom.com