[CW] Exclamation Point

[Richard Knoppow]

    The International/Continental code was changed in, I think 
1938. The change affected three punctuation marks: period, comma, 
exclamation point.
    Originally the period was .. .. .. Since one purpose of the 
Continental code was to avoid spaced characters this was a 
violation of the principle. It may have caused some errors in 
automatic equipment or in transcribing from tapes since it could 
be copied as III. The new regulation changed it to the 
combination formerly used for the comma -.-.- and changed the 
comma to the combination formerly used for the exclamation point 
--..--  Nothing replaced the exclamation point, I suppose it was 
not often used. One could use the combination in the Philips 
code. The exclamation was also used as a "Warning High Power" 
sign in the days of arc and spark where many stations had a 
selection of power output. That was long gone by the time the 
change in the code was made.
    Curiously, the old combination for the period still shows up 
in the forth edition of "Reference Data for Radio Engineers", 
published in the mid-1950s. Since the first edition (I have one) 
was published after the change its curious that they sort of 
skipped over this. The was a book published by ITT/Federal 
Radio/MacKay.
    Punctuation marks, procedural signs, Q signals, were all 
changed periodically which I think leads to endless argument 
about their meaning.

On 2/14/2021 5:09 AM, D.J.J. Ring, Jr. wrote:
> American Morse used dah-dah-dah-dit and I've heard that used.
>
> 73
>
> DR
>
>
>
> On Sun, Feb 14, 2021, 7:37 AM Bruce Prior <n7rr at hotmail.com 
> <mailto:n7rr at hotmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     There is no ITU-recognized Morse code rendering of the
>     exclamation point (!). In the Wikipedia article Morse code
>     - Wikipedia <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_code> the
>     exclamation point is given as *dah di dah di dah dah*.
>     Other suggestions have been made over the years. For
>     ragchewing and for some formal messages, the exclamation
>     point would be quite useful. Shall we now adopt the
>     Wikipedia version and actually use it on the air?
>
>     73,
>     Bruce Prior N7RR
>
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-- 
Richard Knoppow
1oldlens1 at ix.netcom.com
WB6KBL