Radiotelegraphy-(Morse Code)

Wireless telegraphy is the discipline of sending and receiving signals in Morse
code and, although it started “only” as a technical tool, it soon proved to be an art.
Definitely a special kind of art: like a butterfly, it had a shiny but short life, rising and
falling throughout the 20th century. The first implementation of Morse code was
created in 1832, employing a numeric code for the most common English words, and
the numbers translated into a sequence that used just two symbols: dash and dot.
Morse code, as we know it today, i.e., encoding letters and numbers in a series
of dots and dashes, is actually an invention of Alfred Vail, an assistant to Samuel
Morse in 1844. It is a historical reality that Morse, in fact, stole the idea from Vail.
Morse code was created initially as a combination of dots, dashes, long dashes, short
and long spaces. We had to wait for wireless telegraphy, and therefore the twentieth
century, to find the definition of the standard Morse code or “International Morse”,
made of dots and dashes, spaced according to standard criteria.
It was only thanks to the genius of Guglielmo Marconi that telegraphy "took
off", by leaving the ground (i.e. transmission cables) in the true sense of the term, and
getting “on the air”. On December 12th, 1901 Marconi sent the first Morse signals
across the Atlantic, and a new invention, whose gigantic power was still to be fully
understood, arose: wireless telegraphy. Since then, many lives were saved, as in the
famous case of the Titanic (1912), and the wireless telegraph has evolved and
excelled as no one could have imagined.
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After a century of successes, in 1998, coastal maritime radiotelegraphy
installations have been replaced by satellite communications, which eventually
provided a much more secure and reliable connection. As a result, telegraphy is
slowly sliding into oblivion. As a direct and inevitable consequence, in 2005
telegraphy also disappeared from amateur radio exams. Surprisingly, this condition of
uselessness elevated radiotelegraphy to the rank of an art.
Despite this aging process, telegraphy is still very much alive with radio
amateurs, because it offers the possibility of communicating over great distances
using inexpensive transmitting and receiving devices. Such devices are even simpler
to build. A contact based on telegraphy is made in a universal language that, like
Esperanto, pulls down any social, geographical and cultural barrier. The amateur
radio operator uses a code that not only shortens the speech, but also allows him to
communicate with people living in any part of the world, near or distant, regardless
their language or culture. Thus, wireless operators can greet each other using a
common language even if one is Chinese and the other Guatemalan.
The question is: what is so special about radiotelegraphy, in the era of the
Internet and global mass communication, compelling us to accept a long and arduous
path of learning, requiring mental and practical training, trying harder and harder to
learn such a language?
Anyone starting the exciting and hard journey into radiotelegraphy is attracted
by the fact of pursuing an art requiring style and precision, two characteristics that
may be obtained only through study and practice. It is also matter of aesthetics: a
contact in telegraphy made with precision and respect for procedures is a work of art,
unique and unrepeatable in time. The wireless telegraphy radio operator, today, is a
person who not only learns to "play" a very special instrument, but also learns a new
language, made of a single tone, cadenced by rhythmic intervals. Learning
radiotelegraphy is a journey within our own emotions and feelings that requires a
transformation of the way we learn and how we feel. Much like a child, who must
learn to speak, revealing a new mode of expression and communication with the
outside world. It is a steep and thorough experience requiring continuous contact with
the deeper layers of our being.
So strong is the passion for radiotelegraphy that, in Italy, Elettra Marconi,
president of Marconi Club ARI Loano and daughter of Guglielmo Marconi, today
releases the honorific title of wireless radio operator to whom excels in the practice of
this art. Oscar Wilde used to say that art is useless: as such radiotelegraphy is, too.
Having fallen into disuse for practical applications, it lives its moment of glory as an
art in the hands of the few people who, in a "swinging mood" made of sweet
intermittent sounds, are keeping it alive.
This book is distributed under the Creative Commons license and can be freely
copied or distributed, under certain conditions (see the Copyright Notices chapter for
details). This work is “QSLWare”: if you like it, just send me a QSL card via the
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Zen and the Art of Radiotelegraphy by Carlo Consoli, IK0YGJ is licensed
under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.