[CW] American vs Continental (was Origin of 'ES'?)

[Neal McEwen]

Donald Chester wrote:
> 
> >From: Neal McEwen <nmcewen@metronet.com>
> 
> >When American ships could not communicate
> >with British ships, we transitioned to the International Morse code.
> 
> Could they really "not communicate"?  Since so many of the characters in the
> two alphabets ARE identical,

  With 13 letters and all the numbers different, I doubt little could be
communicated.  The "dot-space" letters of the American Morse code would
be very confusing.  The Continental operator would copy the American
Morse "C" as "I E" and "Z" would be "S E", "Y" would be "I I" and so
on.  And the transposed letters would also play havoc.  The American
Morse operator would copy the Continental "C" as "J" and so on and on.
  To make it even worse, in the infant years, the Navy had the Navy
code.  So you had ships at sea using three codes.  American Morse and
Navy code were largely gone by 1910.   Altho American Morse was used
longer on American ships working up and down the coast and Am. Morse was
used on the Great Lakes into the 1930s.

  See the two charts below..   I'll post the Navy code if anyone is
interested.  It was based on the old General Service semaphore code.

Morse Code (American)
U.S.A. & Canada landline
1 .--.
2 ..-..
3 ...-.      A .-  B -...  C .. . D -..  E .
4 ....-      F .-.  G --.  H ....  I ..  J -.-.
5 ---        K -.-  L __  M -- N -.  O . .
6 ......     P .....  Q ..-.  R . ..  S ... T -
7 --..       U ..-  V ...-  W .--  X .-..
8 -....      Y .. ..  Z ... .
9 -..-
0 . .  or - (optional)

Continental (International)
Wireless and Undersea Cable, USA and Canada
All services rest of world
1 .----
2 ..---
3 ...--      A .-  B -...  C -.-.  D -..  E .
4 ....-      F ..-.  G --.  H ....  I ..  J .---
5 .....      K -.-  L .-..  M -- N -.  O ---
6 -....      P .--.  Q --.-  R .-.  S ... T -
7 --...      U ..-  V ...-  W .--  X -..-  
8 ---..      Y -.--  Z --..
9 ----.
0 -----



-- 
73 de K5RW, Neal McEwen, at "The Telegraph Office", nmcewen@metronet.com
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