Why I'm Learning Morse Code • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I'm Learning Morse Code

#21

Post by xradionut » Mon, Aug 19, 2013, 1:08 AM UTC

Ex-ham and ex-military radio operator/tech here.

Morse code, (CW), is a semi-valuable skill for radio operators, especially hams that do HF and weak signal work. It takes experience, but at a certain point the letters become words and the words become phases. It's no longer a requirement for a amateur radio license, but it's still used and useful. (If you want to learn, I suggest the Koch method.)

With the advance of radio technology, especially computers, DSP and SDR, digital modes modes other than CW have better performance. You can decode a whole band of signals digital/CW with the combination of a SDR receiver and software on a decently powered computer.

But the advantage of CW is that you can use really "primitive" inexpensive radios as transmitters and flexible humans as encoders/decoders.

Re: Why I'm Learning Morse Code

#22

Post by bkanber » Mon, Aug 19, 2013, 1:12 AM UTC

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.

That's actually pretty great. I always loved "going back to basics", and flashing a light to talk to another naval ship is as basic as you can get. It works, it's robust in all but the worst conditions, and it's easy. Love it!

Re: Why I'm Learning Morse Code

#23

Post by capkutay » Mon, Aug 19, 2013, 1:23 AM UTC

Cool article! "Code" by Charles Petzold[0] talks about morse code while covering ways that we encode data. May be a good read for anyone interested in this topic.

[0]: http://www.amazon.com/Code-Language-Computer-Hardware-Softwa...

Re: Why I'm Learning Morse Code

#24

Post by xradionut » Mon, Aug 19, 2013, 1:34 AM UTC

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?

As a ham operator, there are standard phases and exchanges that make contacts easier. (Especially in a contest.) After time it becomes second nature. In "normal" or "ragchews" exchanges with older hams, you may have to brush up on medical and anatomic words and phases.

Re: Why I'm Learning Morse Code

#25

Post by bigiain » Mon, Aug 19, 2013, 1:51 AM UTC

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.

Ahhh, the days before a $250 quadcopter existed to provide a plausible attack vector.

I wonder if Navy personnel are flashing base64 (base36?) encoded GPG encrypted Morse code messages to each other?

Re: Why I'm Learning Morse Code

#26

Post by pjbrunet » Mon, Aug 19, 2013, 1:56 AM UTC

I tried learning in middle school and just memorizing all the letters was a pain. At that age it's just not that exciting, at least for me it wasn't. I can totally appreciate the value of it now, the ability to send messages around the world with just an antenna. My wave is bigger than yours, or something like that, LOL.

Re: Why I'm Learning Morse Code

#27

Post by Todd » Mon, Aug 19, 2013, 2:18 AM UTC

I learned Morse Code as a 12 year old while working towards my ham radio license. It was a challenge, especially getting to 13 WPM. The 20 WPM requirement of the Extra class was the main reason I didn't go for that one at the time.

Even to this day, over two decades later, I can still generate and recall Morse (albeit slowly). This is one reason I urge young people to study something meaningful and lasting while they're still in school. I wish I had an adult who had told me that when I was young. I still know a lot about electronics, RF, antenna design, etc. but I wish I had internalized mathematics fundamentals or a foreign language instead. I still believe that one reason Richard Feynman was so facile with physics and mathematics was because of the notebooks he and his friend kept while they were kids.

Re: Why I'm Learning Morse Code

#28

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Aug 19, 2013, 2:19 AM UTC

bigiain wrote: post #25

toddrew wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ahhh, the days before a $250 quadcopter existed to provide a plausible attack vector. I wonder if Navy personnel are flashing base64 (base36?) encoded GPG encrypted Morse code messages to each other?

[deleted]

Re: Why I'm Learning Morse Code

#29

Post by unoti » Mon, Aug 19, 2013, 2:24 AM UTC

There are practical reasons to learn it, if you do radio operations. A morse signal doesn't require the same bandwidth that a voice signal requires, so you're able to focus the power of the transmitter into a tighter bandwidth, and broadcast with more power than a voice signal. In addition, you can understand the information in a morse signal in the presence of much more interference than you can understand a voice signal. So it's actually quite practical when doing radio operations to use morse, even today.

Re: Why I'm Learning Morse Code

#30

Post by rdl » Mon, Aug 19, 2013, 2:30 AM UTC

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 really turned around -- more activity on the 2m/440 HT scene, disaster stuff, etc. You can do crazy things like run 1500W wifi. Operate RC. Work space stations (satellites, the ISS, etc.) Weird propagation stuff (sunspot related, meteors, the moon...).

The only lingering problem I have with amateur radio is the ban on crypto, but you can get around that by developing encrypted protocols but publishing the keys in routine use, or moving the equipment to non-ham bands with secret keys later.