Talk:Morse code

W8IMP submission on aviation

The following was added to the "Applications for the general public" section, but it really doesn't belong there, and I wasn't sure if it fits in anywhere else:

Morse was an integral part of aviation. According to airline authorites, Anne Morrow Lindbergh had an efficient and famous "fist", developed during flights with her husband. Into the 90's aeronautical charts listed the three letter ID of each airport in Morse. During WWII army pilots were required to "head copy" 10WPM. After the war and into the 60s some navigational beacons gave continuous signals of the three letter code, as well as an A (dit-dah) and a N (dah-dit) leg. Depending on which leg Pilots were on, they copied an A or an N, and in the middle heard a steady buzz mixed with weather reports from many airports. More sophisticated aircraft had a pair of needles on the dash, enabling pilots to follow the beam by keeping the needles pointing at each other. Morse is frequently heard as repeater ID's, minimally required at ten minute intervals, by public service and amateur services.

I'm not sure this kind of detailed review belongs in a general overview of Morse code. Instead, the various facts could be split between pages on Lindbergh, military aviation, general aviation, etc. Its also not clear whether this information is exclusively about U.S. practices or international standards. And some of the summary information would need to be better explained for a general audience, since while it would be instantly understandable by pilots, as a non-pilot I'm not really clear what the review is referring to when it talks about "head copy", "A and N legs", "repeater ID's", etc.Thomas H. White 22:43, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Mr. White,

Thank you for your concerned and timely input on this page. I question your contention that my contribution is inappropriate for inclusion. When I submitted, I did so directly above a rather detailed rendition of how SMS text messaging competes with Morse. I have been a Morse operator and amateur co-pilot since 1962, and a cell phone user for over five years, yet I had no idea what SMS text messaging was, until I read this page.

I agree that my submission is somewhat specialized and technical, but is the SMS information any less so? Why would my submission belong on the Lindbergh, Military or General Aviation pages, (unless, of course, they are already there), if every aeronautical chart I have seen, used by ALL aviators; commercial, military, and general, has Morse code printed on it? I believe "head copy" is referenced elsewhere in the article, but did I fail to explain "legs" or "repeater ID's"? Your question about whether these are strictly US practices is somewhat naive. In their book, The Story of English, Robert MacNeil and Robert McCrum well document the fact that American English is overwhelmingly the World-wide language of trade, commerce and aviation.

I cannot understand your contention that my contribution does not belong in the "Applications for the general public" section. Are the general public not at least secondary consumers of the aviation and public service radio systems?

This article is very much in need of balance. If it includes technology about SMS text messaging, how does my submission fail as an attempt to balance it? As a member of the amateur radio community, I feel obligated to point out that very little communication technology, including cell phones, would not exist if not for the volunteer efforts of hams. --W8IMP 07:25, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

dits and dahs vs. dots and dashes

I just noticed that the article seems to use the words dit/dot and dash/dah interchangeably. The article should be consistent. Which should it be? Dits and dahs, or dots and dashes? If we go with Dits and dahs, the first picture used in the article might stand to be changed since it uses dot and dash. If I understand it correctly, "dot" and "dash" is outdated lingo, but I could be wrong. PMHauge 06:33, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

IMHO, they are just different words for the same thing, unlikely to cause confusion. Nothing wrong with using them to avoid boring repetition. Lou Sander 13:58, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, dit/dah is widely used by amateur radio operators, while the general public is still more familiar with dot/dash, and also has an inate understanding that a dot is short and a dash is long. (I personally had to look it up to find out which one was the dit and which one was the dah). I also think that dit/dah is more reflective of auditory reception, while dot/dash covers more general applications, although I'm not sure about that. In any event, I don't think it is a problem to use both terms the way this page does.Thomas H. White 01:25, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

External Link Cleanup

Someone just slapped on an external link cleanup tag on the article. Are the links that bad? I cut out a lot of the translators and other things that looked bad, so I am freash out of ideas on what else to remove. Anyone else going to take a wack? PMHauge 03:53, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi! I'm the "someone".

By my count, the current version of the article has 28 external links listed. I think that's excessive and needs to be severely trimmed down per WP:EL & WP:NOT#REPOSITORY. The fact is that a lot of those links could easily be found with a Google keyword search such as this one. Some of the links could be source material and should be worked into the text as citations; as for the rest, most of them can go, IMHO. I'd do it myself, but I figured you all would get POed with me if I didn't give you a chance to do it yourselves. Have a great day! --Elipongo ^{(Talk|contribs)} 16:53, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I just cut it down to four links per section. I've worked long and hard on this article, so I will take the brunt of it if anyone has a problem with what was cut. I'll try to keep the links under control from now on, if nobody else does it. I left the cleanup tag up just in case someone else wants to take a slash at it. PMHauge 20:07, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I just removed the translators and the trainers sub-sections from the external links section. As one new editor pointed out when a link he tried to post was removed, his wasn't different from the other links there. I think that WP:EL, WP:NOT & WP:SPAM back me up in deleting those links because the lists are supposed to be short. If you who regularly edit the article think I've gone too far, feel free to revert me. Have a great day! —Elipongo (Talk|contribs) 16:30, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Are you trying to crawl out of it?

• BYOXO ("Are you trying to crawl out of it?")
• LIOUY ("Why do you not answer my question?")
• AYYLU ("Not clearly coded, repeat more clearly.")

Can someone find a reference for these? Some other things online say that BYOXO means "Are you trying to weasel out of our deal?", but they appear to be Wikipedia mirrors, so maybe it said that in a past version. "Crawl out of it" seems like a machine translation from the equivalent phrase in some other language. — Omegatron 00:14, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I've wondered about that stuff, too. Googling 'telegraphy five letter groups' quickly found the Mother Lode and something contemporary. There are probably more, since I stopped looking after finding two good ones. The Morse code article is already pretty huge, but I'm thinking these references could open up a whole new section, or at least a rewritten paragraph or two. Maybe there should be an article on code books, referenced from Morse code. Anyway, some light has been shed on BYOXO and its cousins. Lou Sander 01:15, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Definitely new article material. — Omegatron 00:37, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Re: Adding this to the existing article--BYOXO? ;-) Yep, sounds like one to me. Then Morse code could just say "they sometimes used code books" (properly worded, of course), with a link to code books. Lou Sander 01:32, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

There were several different commercial codes in common use, many large companies used their own, and of course there were military codes too. They were used not only with telegraphy but also over public and private teletype networks. If wiki wants to be neutral one could just make up a few arbitrary assignments as examples, then link to the code books site for real ones. Jeh 23:42, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I have moved the Commercial code discussion to the Telegraph code page, since this is more a part of historical telegraph practice than Morse code usage.Thomas H. White 00:41, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi there

Not quite what this part was intended for, I am aware, but I sort of wanted to know if anyone would could help me with decoding something.

I know it is a number and probably one which starts 07 but what exactly does this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gGmN3Sha80

mean? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.135.88.57 (talk) 19:09, 11 February 2007 (UTC).

Morse vs. SMS

I've been impressed (but unsurprised) by the Morse winners of these contests. I have to point out, though, that the SMS message has to be buffered and relayed through the wireless telephone network. With a direct (or even radio) connection between telegraph key and headphones, the receiver has the message essentially the instant the last symbol is sent. This gives a huge advantage to the Morse users, one that would disappear if Morse was simply used as a text input method to the SMS feature of a mobile phone. (Which is not to say that such an option isn't a "gr8" idea, of course. I don't know if this observation should be in the article or not. Jeh 23:43, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

The SMS users haven't even been close to finish typing the message before Morse code operators are done.

- Jalla, February 26 2007