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Why I'm Learning Morse Code

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Re: Why I'm Learning Morse Code

#51

Post by jlgaddis »

Like many of the others in the thread, I first learned CW in order to upgrade my ham license (I started as a "No-Code Tech" and wanted HF privileges, which required passing a Morse Code exam).

> As you develop proficiency in receiving–or “copying”–Morse, you start hearing the characters rather than the dashes and dots.

I was attempting to explain this to someone else a long time ago and they had trouble really understanding what I meant until I described it another way -- think about how toddlers first learn to read. They initially begin by learning each individual letter, then how a couple letters in a specific order make a specific sound and form different words.

As your reading comprehension increases, you no longer read letter by letter. Instead, your brain recognizes a sequence of letters as words. As you are reading this post, you are reading words, not the individuals letter that compose them.

When trying to increase the speed at which you can "copy" Morse Code (which is done simply by reducing the space (time) between characters), you stop hearing the dits and dahs and instead learn to recognize individual letters. After a while, you'll even begin to recognize (some) words just by their sound.

Past the age of 17 or 18, I've never "used" Morse Code for anything practical but it is still stuck in my brain and I can still "copy". At least I know that if I were to ever become paralyzed and unable to speak or move my appendages, I could at least still communicate with others (by "blinking" the dits and dahs).

Re: Why I'm Learning Morse Code

#52

Post by thaumasiotes »

e12e wrote: post #42
toddrew wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why I compare it to learning a new language is because after a certain speed it becomes almost impossible to read it out letter by letter. When you get good enough you start to see complete words in the light. When you learn a new language you go through a stage where you're going back word for word to your own language in your head. Eventually you become good enough to start thinking in the new language.

I think* that for those of us that don't have any language learning disability, or "glyph" learning disability -- all symbolic communication is best understood as flow of words/phrases, not symbols -- at least when you're talking about fluency/proficiency/literacy. I believe that's simply how our brains work. Yes, spoken language is technically built out of phonemes (sounds that we can distinguish, and which carry me…

> (hence most Japanese's problems distinguishing between r/l -- two sounds that are almost identical, and do not carry distinct meaning in Japanese, but do in most(?) European languages)

As someone who watched a fair amount of anime with Japanese audio and has some very basic linguistic training, I want to comment on this idea. It's not totally clear what you mean by "two sounds that are almost identical, and do not carry distinct meaning in Japanese", so you get some non-orthogonal untargeted thoughts.

The R and L sounds are in fact closely related. That said, you, as a native speaker of a language distinguishing them, will do so with extreme accuracy.

A possible interpretation of your sentence is that the "sounds are almost identical [...] in Japanese". That's not a particularly coherent idea (and I stress I'm not trying to attribute it to you); a Japanese speaker will hear them as the same sound, but may vary (in terms of what you would hear) from one extreme to the other in what sound they produce when they need that "one".

If you listen to spoken Japanese (it will help to have a transcript of what's being said, since I assume you don't actually know Japanese), you'll notice that sometimes their R/L is more R-like and sometimes it's a definite L. There are all kinds of reasons why this might be the case (most obviously regional accent or phonetic context), but it's also possible that there's just free variation (a la either/either). I have no idea what's the actual reason is. It isn't possible for me, as an English speaker, to process those as the same sound (although prolonged exposure to Japanese might eventually do it; I've become much more comfortable with losing the s/sh distinction as a side effect of exposure to chinese speakers)

Finally, your idea that we read word-pictures, and not words, is quite wrong; the best exposition I'm aware of is at http://www.microsoft.com/typography/ctfonts/WordRecognition....

Re: Why I'm Learning Morse Code

#54

Post by INTPenis »

toddrew wrote: post #7

I spent nine years as a naval communicator and am fluent in morse. It's been a few years so I would definitely need a bit of practice to get back up to 12 words a minute on a flashing light. I can speak three languages and morse was similar to learn. From the first day of training they gave us sheet of paper with the alphabet and the morse translation and told us to memorize a couple of letters. Then they sent us out…

That gives me a great idea, to write a program that flashes the terminal bell in order to give a similiar educational experience in learning morse.

Re: Why I'm Learning Morse Code

#55

Post by lutusp »

jloughry wrote: post #47
lutusp wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First I want to answer one of your other questions -- could a skilled Morse operator identify a person by his sending style, what we called his "fist". The answer is yes, absolutely. But there's more to it than that -- each CW (continuous wave) transmitter had different characteristics, in the days when most of them were built by their operators -- some of them changed frequency slightly during each dash, some of the…

I encourage any hacker to take a look some time at the beautiful 'bugs' still (!) made by Vibroplex [1]. I have wanted to learn Morse ever since I read The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage [2]. I know people use keyboards nowadays---and even software to read Morse and translate it automatically into text---but I want to learn to send it by hand. Do you recommend a straight key or a bug to begin with? (I just love t…

> Do you recommend a straight key or a bug to begin with?

I'm biased because (before the computer era) I never used anything but a straight key. I recommend a normal telegraph key for beginners -- they're easier to control and they produce an appreciation for the simplest possible form of radio and wired communication:

This picture --

http://www.mtechnologies.com/ameco/k4a.jpg

-- is of a real antique, but one still available today. Unchanged, it dates back to the land telegraph era, during which one operator, when finished sending, would throw the switch visible at the top center, thus closing his end of the circuit and allowing the other end to reply, in what was a simple two-wire one-battery telegraph circuit.

Interestingly, in 1859, there was a huge solar and geomagnetic storm, much bigger than anything that has happened since, and one of the few contemporary indications was that the telegraph system went crazy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859

A quote: "Telegraph systems all over Europe and North America failed, in some cases shocking telegraph operators. Telegraph pylons threw sparks. Some telegraph systems continued to send and receive messages despite having been disconnected from their power supplies."

It is estimated that, were such a storm to occur today, it would bring modern electronics -- and society -- to its knees.

> What works best for a beginner who wants to develop a good 'fist'?

Well, one, listening to good sending certainly helps. Also not trying to send too quickly at first, and listening more than sending until one acquires a sense of what good telegraphy sounds like.

Re: Why I'm Learning Morse Code

#56

Post by iopq »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #52
e12e wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think* that for those of us that don't have any language learning disability, or "glyph" learning disability -- all symbolic communication is best understood as flow of words/phrases, not symbols -- at least when you're talking about fluency/proficiency/literacy. I believe that's simply how our brains work. Yes, spoken language is technically built out of phonemes (sounds that we can distinguish, and which carry me…

> (hence most Japanese's problems distinguishing between r/l -- two sounds that are almost identical, and do not carry distinct meaning in Japanese, but do in most(?) European languages) As someone who watched a fair amount of anime with Japanese audio and has some very basic linguistic training, I want to comment on this idea. It's not totally clear what you mean by "two sounds that are almost identical, and do not…

The same way that you perceive "a" and "A" to be the same grapheme despite seeing different shapes, Japanese speakers consider [r] and [l] to be the same phoneme /R/ despite hearing different sounds.

The same way that you might write A or a or even α to write the letter we pronounce as "aye", a Japanese speaker might choose to pronounce [r] or [l].

A Japanese speaker won't be able to tell that they're saying [r] in an English word that has an /l/. The same way that an English speaker might SWEAR they say writer and rider differently until you record them and they have no clue which one they said when.

Re: Why I'm Learning Morse Code

#57

Post by notdrunkatall »

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…

Why was crypt banned?

Re: Why I'm Learning Morse Code

#58

Post by lmm »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #52
e12e wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think* that for those of us that don't have any language learning disability, or "glyph" learning disability -- all symbolic communication is best understood as flow of words/phrases, not symbols -- at least when you're talking about fluency/proficiency/literacy. I believe that's simply how our brains work. Yes, spoken language is technically built out of phonemes (sounds that we can distinguish, and which carry me…

> (hence most Japanese's problems distinguishing between r/l -- two sounds that are almost identical, and do not carry distinct meaning in Japanese, but do in most(?) European languages) As someone who watched a fair amount of anime with Japanese audio and has some very basic linguistic training, I want to comment on this idea. It's not totally clear what you mean by "two sounds that are almost identical, and do not…

>It isn't possible for me, as an English speaker, to process those as the same sound (although prolonged exposure to Japanese might eventually do it; I've become much more comfortable with losing the s/sh distinction as a side effect of exposure to chinese speakers

I can confirm that it happens: if I've been listening to Japanese for a few hours I find myself struggling to distinguish the first few r/ls I hear in English. Even more bizarrely, I've noticed my speech drifting, vocalising an intermediate sound when I'm saying an English world with an l or r in. Strange how the mind works.

Re: Why I'm Learning Morse Code

#59

Post by 16s »

unoti wrote: post #29

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 s…

In many cases, you need only a few watts (5 or less) and with a good antenna can transmit globally.
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