[HN Gopher] High speed Morse telegraphy using a straight key [vi...
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High speed Morse telegraphy using a straight key [video] (2011)
Author : raptorraver
Score : 20 points
Date : 2022-09-19 06:34 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
| asix66 wrote:
| Morse code, or CW, is very alive and well [1].
|
| [1] https://longislandcwclub.org/
| sparrish wrote:
| Great demonstration of skill from someone who's used it for
| thousands of hours. Impressive.
| waynesonfire wrote:
| ah shit, it's not even plugged in.
| vvoid wrote:
| And if you want to hear what morse telegraphy sounds like in
| 2022, you're in luck because it's still alive and well. Simply
| tune your shortwave radio to 7.028-7.045 or 14.028-14.045 MHz
| every Wednesday between 1300-1400z & 1900-2000z, and every
| Thursday at 0300-0400z & 0700-0800z. Or, try 7.050-7.060 MHz any
| evening to listen for operators using straight keys.
|
| If you do not have a shortwave radio there are plenty online at
| http://websdr.org/.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I'm always curious about how long this will continue (e.g. see
| the recent post on how Gen Z never learned cursive).
|
| I got my ham radio license (since lapsed a long time ago) when
| I was a kid, back when you still had to pass a Morse code test.
| I was totally infatuated by it, and remember the excitement of
| being able to communicate with folks all around the world. I
| just lost interest with it when the Internet became widespread.
|
| Also, unrelated point, but another reason that what this guy is
| doing is so impressive is that he is using a straight key. When
| I was a ham radio operator, pretty much all the ham's I knew
| used paddle keys, where you press the paddle to the right to
| get the "dots", and to the left to get the "dashes", but the
| interrupts are automatically done for you (i.e. holding it to
| the right gives you "dot dot dot ..." and holding it to the
| left gives you "dash dash dash ...", and the speed is set with
| a dial setting on the key), no need to tap. I can't imagine
| being this fast with a paddle key, let alone a straight key.
| kube-system wrote:
| You can do CW entirely in software without learning it. I've
| been considering trying this out because the lower bands that
| technicians are permitted to use here in the US are CW and
| not voice.
| vitaflo wrote:
| Most of the software that decodes CW isn't that great
| unless you have a consistent S9 signal and the keying is
| even (IE, not straight keyed). Once the signal wanders or
| is even partially in the noise the software will just spit
| out gibberish but a human would still easily be able to
| copy it.
| vitaflo wrote:
| There was a bit of a resurgence of CW during the pandemic. I
| know a few people who took to learning it during that time.
| Will it continue? I don't know but there seems to be more CW
| traffic than SSB some days. So it's certainly not dying.
| vvoid wrote:
| That's a fair question. The time slots I called out above are
| occupied by learners in the CWops academy. The density of
| transmissions can be so high that the waterfall resemble the
| opening to the Matrix. But clearly demographics are stacked
| against this part of the hobby.
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| The modern replacement seems to be some of the new mesh
| packet radio systems. Hard to argue with the
| simplicity/resiliency of the current setup though.
|
| I've been ready to take the HAM test for a while but just
| keep procrastinating on doing it.
| olliecornelia wrote:
| I really have no sense of the speed or accuracy of what he's
| doing. If we assume he started that page right when the video
| started it works out to 168 characters per minute. That sounds
| like a lot; is that good?
| WalterBright wrote:
| The telegraph network was the true origin of the internet.
| tialaramex wrote:
| I don't think this really follows. A crucial thing about the
| Third Network (made with the Internet Protocol, but in a
| parallel universe it could have been X.25) was that it's packet
| switched. The telegraph network is connection oriented in
| practice, like the Second Network (the PSTN).
| nomel wrote:
| I think you're on the wrong abstraction layer. The telegraph
| was the physical layer. Messages from telegraphs would be
| passed to other lines, or even other systems (telephone,
| mail, etc) if the person meant to be contacted wasn't
| standing right there.
| retrac wrote:
| Absolutely. Circa 1900, the delay from a major event occurring
| in New Zealand, and newspapers carrying the story in London,
| could be as little as a few hours. And the 24 hour news cycle
| was born. The revolution wasn't just for the newspapers,
| either. Telegraphy meant you could sell your ship's cargo at
| the destination port before you even arrived! No more prices
| always two weeks out of date. And so the modern supply chain
| was born, too. (As I understand it, that economic force, more
| than anything else, is what really financed the first
| transatlantic cables.)
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