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Why I'm Learning Morse Code

burakkanber.com

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Re: Why I'm Learning Morse Code

#31

Post by shitgoose »

toddrew wrote: post #13
bkanber wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love anecdotes like this. Were you taught Morse purely visually, with the flashing bulb? Do you find it easier to watch a bulb or to listen to a tone?

It was always visual. It seemed useless at the time, spending hours out in the pouring rain on a ship, sending a message with a flashing light to another ship, but they always reminded us that even with all our technology and cryptography, flashing light is still the most secure method of close ship-to-ship communications because it's directional when using focused light.

- Is he the only one looking? - Probably. - We'll have to chance that.

:) still my favorite movie

Re: Why I'm Learning Morse Code

#32

Post by viraj_shah »

rdl wrote: post #30

I'm not really into morse/CW, but I'd strongly encourage people to try out ham radio. You can buy an adequate radio for $31 on Amazon ( http://www.amazon.com/BaoFeng-UV-5R-136-174-400-480-Dual-Ban... ) and can get licensed in about 2-4 hours for $0-30. There was a period of maybe the 1980s-2000 where radio was dying (it was all old people who were defending their turf), but in the past 13 years it seems to have reall…

Is the test 2-4 hours or is the learning process and test 2-4 hours for the basic license?

Re: Why I'm Learning Morse Code

#34

Post by grandalf »

rdl wrote: post #30

I'm not really into morse/CW, but I'd strongly encourage people to try out ham radio. You can buy an adequate radio for $31 on Amazon ( http://www.amazon.com/BaoFeng-UV-5R-136-174-400-480-Dual-Ban... ) and can get licensed in about 2-4 hours for $0-30. There was a period of maybe the 1980s-2000 where radio was dying (it was all old people who were defending their turf), but in the past 13 years it seems to have reall…

I agree with this except would encourage anyone interested to check out HF communication before investing even $30 in VHF :)

Re: Why I'm Learning Morse Code

#35

Post by nlh »

bkanber wrote: post #4

If any of you are already fluent in Morse, I'd love to hear from you! Were you able to hear full words or phrases "natively"? Did you ever have the experience of being able to identify the person on the other end merely by accent?

Other great answers here -- I'll add my $.02, well, just because.

Ham here as well (K2KD). I had most of my experiences as a kid (6th - 8th grade), had an HF rig in my bedroom, and made my way through Extra class (which, I think, required a 20 WPM morse test).

I'd liken hearing common CW phrases not so much as hearing "the phrase" in its entirety / natively, but more akin to listening to a song or tune you're familiar with. Your brain knows what the next word / note is going to be, so that's queued up in your head (and why you can hum along with a tune you know).

Same with morse code -- you'll start to hear a familiar pattern and you'll just know how it's going to continue. Things like "CQ" were VERY common to hear and you always knew that pattern (-.-. --.-). Or signing off, you knew when someone was starting to say 73 (--... ...--) so you'd end up "singing along" with the words to the song you knew (metaphorically-speaking).

I was quite experienced with it and even now, 20 years later, I still know the alphabet. But I'd never say I got to true language-less fluency -- the code always translated into letters for me (either written or in my head), except in the cases above (I can hear a CQ now and not think "CQ" but instead hear it as the universal beacon call...da dit da dit..da da dit da......da dit da dit..da da dit da...)

Good memories - glad you're giving it a try!

Re: Why I'm Learning Morse Code

#36

Post by macleodan »

Morse is not all in the past tense, as you write.

I have learnt it, a bit, for amateur radio, where it is still used. There are lots of wee applications for it too, like showing status messages on a small electronic device using a single LED.

There have been times I have wished more people know it, for example for communicating with light accross a mountain valley, or communicating underwater.

Re: Why I'm Learning Morse Code

#37

Post by rdl »

viraj_shah wrote: post #32
rdl wrote: post #30

I'm not really into morse/CW, but I'd strongly encourage people to try out ham radio. You can buy an adequate radio for $31 on Amazon ( http://www.amazon.com/BaoFeng-UV-5R-136-174-400-480-Dual-Ban... ) and can get licensed in about 2-4 hours for $0-30. There was a period of maybe the 1980s-2000 where radio was dying (it was all old people who were defending their turf), but in the past 13 years it seems to have reall…

Is the test 2-4 hours or is the learning process and test 2-4 hours for the basic license?

Learning process and test, if you're smart, can be done in 4h total for Technician. There are lots of programs to do it in 8h, but IMO a tech person should be able to do it in less time. I used http://www.baears.com/ to do tech (and then studied for General during the rest breaks and got General at the same time!); it's a good choice in the Bay Area.

I should be an Extra and a Volunteer Examiner myself in a month or so, so along with 2 friends with Extra/VE could run classes. I'm planning to do crypto meetups/keysignings/etc on the Peninsula on the first friday of the month anyway (5-10pm somewhere in MV or PA, probably near Google, nominally a 2600 meeting), so doing ham exams during that would be fine, if people studied before that.

Re: Why I'm Learning Morse Code

#38

Post by rdl »

grandalf wrote: post #34
rdl wrote: post #30

I'm not really into morse/CW, but I'd strongly encourage people to try out ham radio. You can buy an adequate radio for $31 on Amazon ( http://www.amazon.com/BaoFeng-UV-5R-136-174-400-480-Dual-Ban... ) and can get licensed in about 2-4 hours for $0-30. There was a period of maybe the 1980s-2000 where radio was dying (it was all old people who were defending their turf), but in the past 13 years it seems to have reall…

I agree with this except would encourage anyone interested to check out HF communication before investing even $30 in VHF :)

VHF (2m) is going to be vastly more useful for emergency communications than HF in most urban areas, and for people who live in apartment buildings, etc., VHF is going to be a lot easier to actually use. I'm using a Yaesu 8800 mobile in my car now so I can cross-band repeat UHF to VHF as well, which would probably work pretty well for disaster communications.

(I'm personally most interested in UHF/EHF, myself, mainly satellite and point to point. I ran an iDirect TCP/IP Ku-band commercial/government/military network for a few years, and would love to buy some space segment on Ka band or possibly X and get back into it at some point. But I don't have a home/office with space for a dish farm right now, nor the $1-5k/MHz to lease transponders.)

If I had the ability to put up a tower or even a patio for antennas, I'd probably get a home HF station, true.

Re: Why I'm Learning Morse Code

#39

Post by xb95 »

In amateur radio, the characteristics of someone's CW (morse code) is called their "fist". I used to be able to do 5 WPM and one year I participated in field day (the annual ham competition to contact as many people as you can, etc) with it -- that year was magical because I used morse code for my first time to talk to someone. The feeling of dits and dahs coming across the airwaves actually being communication from somewhere far away? It was brilliant.

So: kudos for learning an aging and mostly deprecated form of communication. Some folks still do it for hobby (I've lost all skill by this point), and I highly recommend the experience.

If nothing else, find a local ham group and go poke around in late June and see if they're doing anything for field day. It's worth checking out.

Re: Why I'm Learning Morse Code

#40

Post by viraj_shah »

rdl wrote: post #37
viraj_shah wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the test 2-4 hours or is the learning process and test 2-4 hours for the basic license?

Learning process and test, if you're smart, can be done in 4h total for Technician. There are lots of programs to do it in 8h, but IMO a tech person should be able to do it in less time. I used http://www.baears.com/ to do tech (and then studied for General during the rest breaks and got General at the same time!); it's a good choice in the Bay Area. I should be an Extra and a Volunteer Examiner myself in a month or…

Interesting, thanks for the information. The meetup sounds cool. You should post it here if you get it going.
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