[Elecraft] Morse on the Tonight Show, Tonight, Friday the 13th

[Paul Bruneau]

On May 13, 2005, at 11:12 AM, Ken Miller, K6CTW wrote:

> All,
>
> Tonight Chip, K7JA and I, K6CTW will be having a "contest" on "The 
> Tonight Show with Jay Leno".  It will pit morse code vs text messaging 
> (by the current US champions).  Please watch, and if you enjoy the 
> segment, please write, telegram, call or email the Tonight show and 
> tell them you want to see more about this!  It's a great chance for us 
> to plug Morse, telegraphy and ham radio!  Thanks.

A noble idea to write them to try to plug the hobby, but realistically, 
the reason they chose morse code is because in the public's eye, it is 
a ridiculously archaic (to the point of humor) method of communication 
from the turn of the century.

To have it beat text messaging kids and their amazing modern electronic 
devices from this century is funny.

The last thing they care about is broadening the public's understanding 
of a fading hobby. They are after all, a comedy/entertainment show, not 
any kind of educational resource.

I wish you the best of luck and I will certainly be cheering you on 
because I love the hobby and all it has done for communication over the 
years, but I can't imagine that this is going to do anything to promote 
amateur radio.

The contest shows the weakness of the small instant messaging devices' 
human interfaces more than anything else. Any competent keyboardist on 
a full size keyboard could whip any coder, and for reliable point to 
point communication, the instant messaging devices are way better in 
every way.

For a real race, they would set you up with a radio and the other guy 
with a Blackberry and have each contestant send a message to a buddy 
without any pre-arrangement. The winner would be the first one whose 
buddy got the message. You'd likely lose that one!

But I'll certainly Tivo it!