Talk:American Morse code

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Untitled

In the image of the 1911 Chart of the Standard American Morse Characters, what is the bottom character in the right column?

It is a stylized P, which is the typographical symbol for "new paragraph". According to G. M. Dodge's 1917 edition of The Telegraph Instructor, the four-dash Morse Code symbol meant "paragraph [drop a line]".Thomas H. White 19:28, 17 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

What hath god wrought?

I added some history of the first telegraphed message a while back, but I'm still unclear about one thing... Did the original message sent by Sam Morse include a quesiton mark? or was it simply "WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT" leaving the punctuation to be added by Vail when he received the message? Phauge 05:46, 25 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A photograph of the message tape is at: http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/n_telegraph_message.htm The transmission ended with a single dash for closing letter T of WROUGHT, and the question mark was added as being implied based on the sentence that was sent. Thomas H. White 6/16/2006

Thanks! Phauge 22:53, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Message predating "What hath god wrougth ?" according to Stephen Vail

In a response to the obituary of Annie Goodrich Ellsworth, Alfred Vail's son, Stephen Vail wrote about THE FIRST TELEGRAPH MESSAGE.

^[1] Lent (talk) 19:39, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ Vail, Stephen (January 26, 1900). ""THE FIRST TELEGRAPH MESSAGE." (Letter to the Editor)". The New York Times. Retrieved December 22, 2009. The announcement received by Mr. Vail from passengers on the afternoon train when it arrived at Annapolis Junction on May 1, 1844, (many of whom were delegates to the Whig Convention which had assembled that morning in Baltimore, nominated Henry Clay and Frelinghuysen as candidates for the Presidency and Vice Presidency, and had adjourned,) was at once transmitted to Morse at the Capitiol in Washington, and by him given immediately to the Washington newspapers.

Merge with Morse Code?

Maybe I just don't know enough about Morse Code in general, but I don't see the point to this article. It really seems as if this should be merged with the regular Morse Code article. There is no European Morse Code article, and the Wabun Code article is short enough so that it could also be covered in the Morse Code article. Does anyone have a problem if I merge the articles into one? Phauge 06:08, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This doesn't look like a good candidate for a merger, and consensus seems to be against it on the talk page for this. At the very least there is simply too much information on American Morse code to neatly merge into Morse code. I'm removing the tags so this gets out of the backlog. Orchid Righteous 18:54, 24 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Incredibly Confusing!

This is the most confusing entry I've seen on Wikipedia. Good writing is about CLARITY. You should NEVER present a subtopic that can be confused for the main topic. The average person looking up Morse Code can easily end up here from a Google seach, and not know the difference between International and American. They are probably looking for a lookup table and may print out the top chart thinking that is it. Some kid may be looking it up to try code with his friends, or may be doing a report and looking for a table to print.

Clarity requires an introduction that avoids this probable confusion and makes it crystal clear this is an OBSOLETE VARIANT of the Morse Code used in Ham Radio and other communications, and that this version is presented here for historical purposes only. Many kids would just assume Amercan must be the standard and (unless they are reading more deeply), not realize that it has been pretty much dead for generations. The difficulty in writing clearly (i..e., putting American Morse Code should be under a HISTORY subhead in main Morse Code article) is not much of an excuse for a poor presentation.

The International vs. American table is similarly deceptive. If you are learning code, NO ONE needs American other than for the history. If you try to use this information, you will be unable to communicate in code. Personally, I was just looking for a lookup table, not a history lesson, and would have printed the table and been fooled had I not known enough code to know the table was wrong. Any table presenting potentially confusing information should be clearly labeled and late in the article, with standard (i.e., International) Morse Code at the top

American / Continental Morse code crossovers

Some common prosigns used in radiotelegraphy today come directly from American Morse.

Commonly, the cipher -30- appears on wire service copy to indicate the end of a news article. In American Morse, it would be sent as DiDiDiDahDiDaaaaaah. Today, the letters SK run together (DiDiDiDahDiDah) are customarily sent at the end of a message. It should be noted that the prosign “SK” is used by some hearing impaired persons before hanging-up from a TDD telephone call.

Telegraphic laughter DiDiDit DiDit (HI HI) can confuse a newcomer to radiotelegraphy; in American Morse DiDiDiDit Dit Dit would be HO HO which makes far more sense.

There is no ampersand in international or continental Morse code; however, in American Morse it was Dit DiDiDit. Today, many radio telegraphers use the prosing ES to mean “and”.

The use of ciphers such as “73” for “Best Wishes” and “88” for “Hugs and kisses” also date to landline telegraphy where commonly used salutations and signatures were given numbers to help speed traffic on the line —Preceding unsigned comment added by Solderinggunslinger (talk • contribs) 17:14, 20 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Possible Corrections

The 'double hyphen' is used as a 'breaksign', and not "equals" (ref. Mills, M., G3ACC "The Morse Code for Radio Amateurs", 6th ed. London. Radio Society of Great Britain (RSGB), 1970.) Breaksign is used to end a sentence. Example: Ge om es tks fer call= vy psed to meet u fer first time= ur sigs rst 579 imi 579 hr QTH is Dulwich imi Dulwich S.E. London=

The American codes for slash (/) and Fraction Bar are the same -..-. I suspect that either one of these is bogus (and should be removed from the table) or that the table entries should be combined, as in: slash/fraction bar (/) -..-.

Nice coverage of an important historical subject. BTW, to whomever commented that American Morse code is a variant of Morse code, please note that American Morse code is the original, and predates the modern variant known as International Morse code! ;-)

Al

AJ4RF — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.148.94.222 (talk) 18:12, 25 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Length of the gaps between letters, words, sentences

Are these lengths also specified? If yes, their lengths shall be mentioned in the article. --RokerHRO (talk) 15:39, 2 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

[1] Vail, Stephen (January 26, 1900). ""THE FIRST TELEGRAPH MESSAGE." (Letter to the Editor)". The New York Times. Retrieved December 22, 2009. The announcement received by Mr. Vail from passengers on the afternoon train when it arrived at Annapolis Junction on May 1, 1844, (many of whom were delegates to the Whig Convention which had assembled that morning in Baltimore, nominated Henry Clay and Frelinghuysen as candidates for the Presidency and Vice Presidency, and had adjourned,) was at once transmitted to Morse at the Capitiol in Washington, and by him given immediately to the Washington newspapers.

[1]