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October 8, 2007
There aren’t many of us still around who can read the title of this article. In fact, I don’t blame you if you are bored stiff by dots and dashes. When I received my first amateur radio license in 1947 (I think), I had to pass a code test at a speed of 15 words-per-minute. From the Wall Street Journal I learn that there is one Chuck Adams who is busy translating novels into Morse code. Aren’t you impressed?
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Nostalgic for simpler days, retired astrophysicist Chuck Adams is translating classics of boys’ lit into a language he fears is going the way of kit radios and marbles: Morse code.
Holed up in his high-desert home crammed with computers, radio receivers and a very patient wife, Mr. Adams uses homemade software to download online books with expired copyrights, convert the typed words into Morse code tones and record them on compact discs he sells on the Internet.
Several years ago, as I walked along on my daily save-my-heart stroll, I wondered if there were any remnants of Morse code still lodged in my memory bank. I started dah-ditting street signs along my route. It was slow going at first, but after a while it came back to me. At first I had to stop to recall the Morse code for certain infrequently used letters, but after a while I had my translation speed up to, maybe, 5 wpm.
Many of those who still know Morse code test their skills with a German computer game called Rufz, the standard for determining world transcription-speed rankings. Players listen to coded, five-character call signs, combinations of letters, symbols and numbers that identify individual license holders. The faster and more correctly they type them, the more points they score. (Transcribing regular text is much slower.)
Last month in Belgrade, Goran Hajosevic broke 200 words per minute — an extraordinary pace. Mr. Adams is tied for eighth in the world, at more than 140 words per minute.
I ham radio’d away using CW (continuous wave, read Morse code) for several years, but I never reached real proficiency, topping out at perhaps 30 wpm.
Dave who has a tendency to lie about some things.
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Brings back memories of my days as a railroad station agent - mid 50’s. The telephone was coming in (no radio yet) but the old timers still used the telegraph and the constant clacking of the telegraph (all stations on the particular rr line shared the same circuit) was a sort of comforting background noise. I never had to learn morse (thanks to the RR phone) but I always stood in awe of the ability of the old timers to pick out their station call from the clatter - it was loud so you could hear it anywhere in the station. The really proficieint(sp?) ones clipped a sprung horizontal swinging key into the line and really flew. Hank who stopped at 0 wpm.
That special key is called a ‘bug’ and came in all mechanical and, later, electronic versions. The key part was called the ‘paddle.’ I owned one and got fairly proficient using it. It took very little wrist movement. When you pushed the paddle one way you got a “dash.” The other way you got a dot or a series of dots if you held the paddle over. As I disremember, to the left was a dash and to the right a dot or dots, depending on how long you dwell. You adjusted the speed of sending by sliding the weight back or forward on the paddle arm.
It was a good test of whether you ‘got rhythm.’ It was also a temptation to send faster than you could read, which was a sure route to problems, since the other end usually tried to adjust his speed to yours.