[SFDXA] Washington Post Article - Morse code revolutionized communications 175 years ago

[Bill]

Morse code revolutionized communications 175 years ago
Washington Post - By Eddie King
June 2

The first message sent by Morse code???s dots and dashes across a long 
distance traveled from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore on Friday, May 24, 
1844 ??? 175 years ago. It signaled the first time in human history that 
complex thoughts could be communicated at long distances almost 
instantaneously. Until then, people had to have face-to-face 
conversations; send coded messages through drums, smoke signals and 
semaphore systems; or read printed words.

Thanks to Samuel F.B. Morse, communication changed rapidly, and has been 
changing ever faster since. He invented the electric telegraph in 1832. 
It took six more years for him to standardize a code for communicating 
over telegraph wires. In 1843, Congress gave him $30,000 to string wires 
between the nation???s capital and nearby Baltimore. When the line was 
completed, he conducted a public demonstration of long-distance 
communication.

Morse wasn???t the only one working to develop a means of communicating 
over the telegraph, but his is the one that has survived. The wires, 
magnets and keys used in the initial demonstration have given way to 
smartphones??? on-screen keyboards, but Morse code has remained 
fundamentally the same, and is still ??? perhaps surprisingly ??? relevant 
in the 21st century.

Although I have learned, and relearned, it many times as a Boy Scout, an 
amateur radio operator and a pilot, I continue to admire it and strive 
to master it.

Morse???s key insight in constructing the code was considering how 
frequently each letter is used in English. The most commonly used 
letters have shorter symbols: ???E,??? which appears most often, is 
signified by a single ???dot.??? By contrast, ???Z,??? the least used letter in 
English, was signified by the much longer and more complex ???dot-dot-dot 
(pause) dot.???

In 1865, the International Telecommunications Union changed the code to 
account for different character frequencies in other languages. There 
have been other tweaks since, but ???E??? is still ???dot,??? though ???Z??? is now 
???dash-dash-dot-dot.???

The reference to letter frequency makes for extremely efficient 
communications: Simple words with common letters can be transmitted very 
quickly. Longer words can still be sent, but they take more time.

The communications system that Morse code was designed for ??? analogue 
connections over metal wires that carried a lot of interference and 
needed a clear on-off type signal to be heard ??? has evolved significantly.

The first big change came just a few decades after Morse???s 
demonstration. In the late 19th century, Guglielmo Marconi invented 
radio??telegraph equipment, which could send Morse code over radio waves, 
rather than wires.

The shipping industry loved this new way to communicate with ships at 
sea, either from ship to ship or to shore-based stations. By 1910, U.S. 
law required many passenger ships in U.S. waters to carry wireless sets 
for sending and receiving messages.

After the Titanic sank in 1912, an international agreement required some 
ships to assign a person to listen for radio distress signals at all 
times. That same agreement designated ???SOS??? ??? ???dot-dot-dot 
dash-dash-dash dot-dot-dot??? ??? as the international distress signal, not 
as an abbreviation for anything but because it was a simple pattern that 
was easy to remember and transmit. The Coast Guard discontinued 
monitoring in 1995. The requirement that ships monitor for distress 
signals was removed in 1999, though the U.S. Navy still teaches at least 
some sailors to read, send and receive Morse code.

Aviators also use Morse code to identify automated navigational aids. 
These are radio beacons that help pilots follow routes, traveling from 
one transmitter to the next on aeronautical charts. They transmit their 
identifiers ??? such as ???BAL??? for Baltimore ??? in Morse code. Pilots often 
learn to recognize familiar-sounding patterns of beacons in areas they 
fly frequently.

There is a thriving community of amateur radio operators who treasure 
Morse code, too. Among amateur radio operators, Morse code is a 
cherished tradition tracing back to the earliest days of radio. Some of 
them may have begun in the Boy Scouts, which has made learning Morse 
variably optional or required over the years. The Federal Communications 
Commission required all licensed amateur radio operators to demonstrate 
proficiency in Morse code until a rule change in December 2006. The FCC 
does still issue commercial licenses that require Morse proficiency, but 
no jobs require it anymore.

Because its signals are so simple ??? on or off, long or short ??? Morse 
code can also be used by flashing lights. Many navies around the world 
use blinker lights to communicate from ship to ship when they don???t want 
to use radios or when radio equipment breaks down. The U.S. Navy is 
actually testing a system that would let a user type words and convert 
it to blinker light. A receiver would read the flashes and convert it 
back to text.

Skills learned in the military helped an injured man communicate with 
his wife across a rocky beach using only his flashlight in 2017.

Perhaps the most notable modern use of Morse code was by Navy pilot 
Jeremiah Denton, while he was a prisoner of war in Vietnam. In 1966, 
about one year into a nearly eight-year imprisonment, Denton was forced 
by his North Vietnamese captors to participate in a video interview 
about his treatment. While the camera focused on his face, he blinked 
the Morse code symbols for ???torture,??? confirming for the first time U.S. 
fears about the treatment of service members held captive in North Vietnam.

Blinking Morse code is slow, but has also helped people with medical 
conditions that prevent them from speaking or communicating in other 
ways. A number of devices ??? including iPhones and Android smartphones ??? 
can be set up to accept Morse code input from people with limited motor 
skills.

There are still many ways people can learn Morse code, and practice 
using it, even online. In emergency situations, it can be the only mode 
of communications that will get through. Beyond that, there is an art to 
Morse code, a rhythmic, musical fluidity to the sound. Sending and 
receiving it can have a soothing or meditative feeling, too, as the 
person focuses on the flow of individual characters, words and 
sentences. Sometimes the simplest tool is all that???s needed to 
accomplish the task.

Eddie King is a PhD student in electrical engineering at the University 
of South Carolina. This report was originally published on 
theconversation.com.

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