[Elecraft] CW DAY

[Fred Jensen]

On 5/24/2013 6:26 AM, Carey Magee wrote:
> Hi. Possibly a statement regarding the opening of the railroad line he was
> there at?

He was in DC, and I believe the telegraph line was at least partially 
Federally funded and not directly connected to any railroad, however the 
Annapolis end was in a B&O building.  I remember seeing a pen-and-ink 
drawing of the reception of the message years ago.

> When you think of it, I wonder if he even thought of the impact Morse code
> would have on society back then.

If life were fair, he would have been thinking about the impact of the 
Vail code.  Sam's plan was to translate a message into a sequence of 
numbers using a dictionary he worked to come up with, and then send the 
numbers.  The receive op used a "un-dictionary" to recreate the message. 
  Some historians suggest that in fact, he downplayed the 
electromechanical part of the telegraph and saw his "dictionary" as the 
true genius.  Sam was a somewhat vain fellow and did not take kindly to 
the advice of others.

Alfred Vail was probably the first to come up with the idea of a code of 
marks on the tape to denote letters, and just use the code to spell out 
words, and that idea finally prevailed over Sam's dictionary.  Early ops 
rather quickly discovered they could decode the message just by 
listening to the click-clack of the receiving mechanism.  For a period 
of time, Sam pursued a cause that messages copied "by ear" were less 
reliable than those read off of the tape.  I think he even took someone 
to court over it.

The ring tone on my smartyfone sends the name of the caller if in my 
phone book, or the number if not, at 25 WPM.  Interesting responses from 
folks when standing in a line. :-)

73,

Fred K6DGW
- Northern California Contest Club
- CU in the 2013 Cal QSO Party 5-6 Oct 2013
- www.cqp.org