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International Morse Code Day.....

I have almost certainly posted this dit elsewhere, but it doesn't hurt to repeat it. Back in 1960, Episkopi, the last place I ever saw a permanent radio room within the Commcen - working to Malta, Benghazi and Tripoli, with all UK traffic to Libya coming through at night, as there were teleprinter circuits to both Libyan stations in daylight hours from Malta. During the day there was some Morse traffic to them, but mainly from our HQ.

My personal Morse hero, a National Service TG Op. Christmas Day. I bimble into the radio room where he is sitting on the desk, feet on his chair. Right arm round a WRAC lass who is sitting on his lap holding his copy. His right hand held a glass of whisky as well. He is sending with his left hand almost behind his back at about 22 wpm (I could manage to take about 18 at the time, though it wasn't my trade, so was able to give a pretty good guess). Under normal conditions, as long as the op at the other end could handle it, as Morse definitely 'takes two to tango' he could do 32. All the ops were good because of the fact that unlike most TG Ops, it was the 'day job', but this guy was a natural.
 
60 plus years on and still easy to read examples on this thread. A really good operator can receive bad morse through QRM AND QRN and is that which separates the readers from the professionals.
 
The Trucial Oman Scouts [pre UAE] radio ops were young boys who could send and receive fast morse. Most of them couldn't speak English but that was not a requirement as they just took down and sent the characters.
 
The Trucial Oman Scouts [pre UAE] radio ops were young boys who could send and receive fast morse. Most of them couldn't speak English but that was not a requirement as they just took down and sent the characters.
How did they get on with cct or net maint? e.g. freq changes etc. Or were the grownups brought in at that point?
 
When the French transmitted for the last time on morse code they sent

“Calling all. This is our last cry before our eternal silence.” 31 Jan 1997
 
My late father was handy with morse, I remember when I was a kid he pointed out that the theme tune to Some Mothers do Ave Em was the title of the show in Morse Code. I'd forgotten all about it until I heard it being discussed on a radio show a couple of months back, I'd thought my dad was having me on due to him being a wind up merchant of monumental proportions.
 
For those seeking to recover their morse skills the ARRL in the US has a radio station in Connecticut in the US. They broadcast morse training material from 1300zulu to 0300 zulu with an hour off 1700zulu until 1800zulu (lunchtime in eastern US). They broadcast on all HF amateur bands from 2m to 160m and a few VHF/UHF bands also. I believe all transmissions are at 1.5kW except for 1kW on 160m. I suspect that if they can cover all of the US from the east coast they should be readable in the UK. Schedule is here:
W1AW schedule

If that does not work the ARRL has streaming and downloadable files here:
W1AW audio files

As to current use of morse code, it is used as a recorded station identifier on most police, fire, etc radio transmitters.
During Hurricane Katrina in 2005 there was a massive communication failure of the various public safety services as they has transitioned to trunked UHF and without repeaters a trunked radio is not much use for anything other than a paperweight. A friend from Louisiana was, during hurricane Katrina, the Lieutenant Colonel of the Louisiana State Police (i.e. the no 2 man in the LSP). He was amazed at all the help they received from amateur radio operators and how communications was reestablished and quite efficient. In some areas the ham operators were the 911 operators and dispatchers for the duration. As the amateur repeaters were mostly down also most communications were morse or voice on HF. He said it worked.

de KB1ETU
 
SOE operators use to do things like carry a heavy suitcase for a while before sending, to disguise their fist.
I'd heard that the other way round - operators, after carrying the heavy radio (in a suitcase), had 'lost' their 'fist'.
730-2010427102818_468x382.jpg

Hence questions being asked on the receiving side whether it was actually Agent X sending, or he had been captured/turned.
 
Many years ago I am sure I read that in the 1920's Reuters had employees who could receive Morse in French , the international diplomatic language , translate into English and using a typewriter produce a hard copy of the message . If true that was impressive skill .
 
Mush_lad was commenting on this, and asserting that "nobody uses morse code these days". I was just about to contradict him when he got a text message on his achingly hip and trendy, retro non-smart Nokia phone, so he points out that SMS has long overtaken morse.

After he'd read it I asked what the notification tune for his text message was. After he thought about it he smiled, and conceded defeat.

... -- ...
 
The Trucial Oman Scouts [pre UAE] radio ops were young boys who could send and receive fast morse. Most of them couldn't speak English but that was not a requirement as they just took down and sent the characters.

Not so far different from some of the world class Scrabble champions who may not actually speak English much if at all. In both cases as long as the letters line up job jobbed.
 
You sure about that? :mrgreen: QRK is intelligibility, QSA is signal strength.

Interestingly in commercial morse we use the question mark (di di da da di dit) rather than INT so 'What is the strength of my signal would be QSA?


QSA ? - I still get the odd Message on my Mobile from ex - 216 & 613 (?) lads , always ending with QSA , whether voice or Msg...old habits , die hard , eh ? ;)
 

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