Readers might be interested in this: Lake Edward Trump, AL7N is a skilled wire and radio telegrapher, and has been employed in both fields. I know him from Nome Alaska Radio / WKR, the Society of Wireless Pioneers and the Morse Telegraph Club.


From: Lake Trump <AL7N>
Date: Tue, Mar 1, 2022, 9:42 PM
Subject: Landline American Morse
To: fons.vandenberghen <fons.vandenberghen>

Fons:

Mr David Ring forwarded your request to me.  Perhaps my response will be of assistance to you.

I am 79 YOA, having learned American Morse through  self teaching, and also through my association with veteran Railroad Morse Telegraphers (many hired in the 1920's and 1930's) while employed as a Railroad Telecommuncations Engineer on the D&RGW Railroad in Colorado and Utah circa 1965-1973.

At that time, there were still working Morse telegraph wires on many railroads in the USA, and operators who knew how to use them.  Fortunately, many of these men and women noted my interest in the craft and were of huge assistance in my learning how to "work the wire".

American Morse used with telegraph sounders is a "sound" language, and must be learned by sound,  and not from a visual "dot-dash" printed aspect.

One must learn and commit to memory, the unique sound the sounder makes for each individual Morse character, numeral, and punctuation symbol in the American Morse Code.  

A telegraph sounder when properly adjusted, makes a "click-clack" sound for each stroke of the sounder lever.   The "click" sound is due to the downstroke of the sounder lever hitting the bottom or downstop of the sounder "bridge" as the telegraph circuit is energized (closed).    
The "clack" sound is due to the subsequent striking of the sounder lever against the upstop of the sounder bridge as the circuit is de energized (opened). 
The mechanical design of the sounder bridge is purposely asymetrical to produce this difference in sound.  

Thus, a "dot" (short element)  sounds like "click-clack".  A "dash" (long element)  sounds like
"click-----clack"   In other words, a slightly longer interval between the downstroke and the upstroke
of the sounder lever striking the up and down stops.

As an example,  the letter "A" is produced by the telegraph key opening and closing the circuit rapidly to form the "dot" and a bit less rapidly to form the "dash" .  This is analogous to the "DIDAH" sound in the Radio Morse tone code for the letter "A". 

One must learn the unique sound of each character and with practice, a mental construction of the letter, numeral or punctuation character is formed .   The learning process is enhanced if the "character" speed of each character is learned at a fairly fast rate.  At first, more space is inserted between complete characters as they are sent, and later this interval is shortened so that the characters can come more rapidly .

Once all the letters , numerals and punctuations are learned and committed to memory, combinations of
same can begin to form short words, such as 'AND", "THE", and so on.
More practice will enable the mind to associate more and more letter combinations together to form longer words.

In the end, what happens, finally, is the receiving operator just hears the "words" as they are sent, and does
not consciously hear the "click-clacking" of the sounder.  He or she just "hears" what the distant operator is "saying" as plainly as if they were being spoken directly to in regular words.  
if written copy is to be made, what the distant operator sends is just written down, or typed on a typewriter. Morse IS a "language".

This learning process can take some time.  

In my own personal case, it took a number of months, even years,  of listening to working telegraph wires
to begin to decipher the individual words being sent....
I practiced regular sending,  duplicating as closely as possible "correct" formation of all the characters, and included sending with the Morse key from written text when I could for sending practice.

Receiving "off the wire" did not come to me easily nor for quite some time , but when it did, I was amazed to find that I could actually "hear" what the distant operator was "saying" and did not have to consciously 
"decode" the clatter of the sounder...It was and is just like a "voice" speaking to me.
 
I well remember the day this happened:
I was sitting in the telegraph office of the railroad depot in a town called SALIDA, Colorado, talking with the telegraph operator and waiting to catch a freight train back to Denver to go home after some field work I had been there in the area to do. I often used my Company "Pass" to do this, as there was not always a convenient passenger train I could ride to or from where I needed to go on the job. 

The telegraph wire came to life,  The operator at Buena Vista,  up the line about 30 miles north came on and called Salida.: "S"  "S" "BV".  After the Salida operator answered:  "I" " I" " S"   , I heard, distinctly, these words come from the sounder:
"WHAT TIME DID RCW LEAVE SALIDA?" 
  
The Buena Vista operator was trying to find out from the Salida operator what time the Trainmaster
named R.C. Williams ("RCW") had left Salida to go north toward Buena Vista in his truck. 
This particular Trainmaster liked to go out along the line and hide in the bushes, waiting to observe train crews break some operating rule or other so he could discipline them.  
The operator at Buena Vista was trying to find this information out so he could pass a warning to southbound trains about the snooping going on.
At that time, few RR supervisory personnel could "read" the Morse wires, so the operators used them freely amongst themselves on any Division as a sort of "private and  secure" communicating system...It worked well.

Anyway, that was the first time I ever could "read" what was coming over a Morse wire.  It just "happened" to start making sense all of a sudden.  I have been able to "read" most any working Morse wire at speed ever since.

I cannot explain what happened, or why, it just did.  I have also heard of similar experiences from other telegraph operators over the years.

So.... There you have my story.

I hope it will help you understand the learning and use of the American Morse landline code a little at least.

If you have more questions, please feel free to ask.

73
Ed Trump
Fairbanks, Alaska