Morse Code

[PA39]

:sad: How many of you guys had to sit the Morse Code test and how or where did you do it. How did you learn the morse? Jesus i borrowed some tapes....yes tapes from, i think, Val Dal Hyson..."Learning The Morse Code" 3 or 4 volumes of sheer hell !! S**t it nearly cost me a marriage. I did my 'test" whilst doing a freight run from PMQ to TW at midnight. The guy on Flight Service gave me the test whilst i was fighting the aircraft in IMC, rough and a big handful. I kept on saying..."hang on a sec, hang on a sec" but he kept on increasing the frequency. I "passed" after he gave me sympathy. i can still recite the bl**y things to this day. :ok:

[Chimbu chuckles]

.- --. --. --. --.:{

.. /..-. ..- -.-. -.- .. -. --./ .... .- - . -../ -- --- .-.... . :E

I learned it with a morse table taped to my car steering wheel coding number plates.

edited for clarity.

[Skynews]

I started by grouping the letters, I.e. A,B.C,D then E F G H and so on. Then I practiced on car number plates.
It took a few hours to learn the basics then I practiced to gain the speed required on my drive to banks town which was another 5 hours and to my supprise I passed. I was anticipating just seeing what the test was like then coming back for a serious attempt.
I found it a bit like learning to read music.

[tail wheel]

.. / .--. .- ... ... . -.. / ... . -. -.. / .- -. -.. / .-. . -.-. . .. ...- . / .- .-.. .--. .... .- / -. ..- -- . .-. .. -.-. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. . / .- - / - . -. / .-- --- .-. -.. ... / .--. . .-. / -- .. -. ..- - . / .. -. / .---- ----. --... ..--- .-.-.-

:{

[Chimbu chuckles]

Sending AND receiving 10wpm hey taily - I was .---- .---- in .---- ----. --... ..--- :ok:

[Ex FSO GRIFFO]

G'Day '39',
I dunno how a FSO could give it to you whilst you were commiting aviation....
However, I mean you MAY have had an IFR chart to refer to..??:=

The decode used to be in the margin.....:uhoh:

I can say that I did mine at Cessnock when I was instructing there, to the delight of my students who were also likewise engaged - and to the chagrin of a colleague instructor who was doing his best to stop laughing... at the time....
But, it was in a very 'controlled' environment - not everyone passed first time up.:=

I learned it simply by singing the ole d' d' dah dit' dah dah dah and practising decoding car numberplates - ALL the time - and it drove my mates NUTS!!:ugh:

But I passed!!

I have seen a certain Comm Officer who used to be at SY FSC who could hold a Morse 'conversation' with his mates whilst reading the morning paper....

Amazing!!

[Spotlight]

Ten words a minute. A 'word'was 5 characters. 3 minute test listening to a tape, conducted at Fright Service Rocky. 80% pass mark. Not likely to forget it.

Did the same thing with car number plates, must have been the common practice.

[tail wheel]

Actually the word "Paris" .--. .- .-. .. ... is the standard for one "word" in Morse code.

I practiced receiving Morse by listening on HF around 14.1 Mhz. Some of those Amateurs could boot out CW at a hell of a pace!

My Morse test (at P&T Port Moresby for Marine and Amateur Licensing) also included the Q Codes.

The best I remember was the Coastal Radio operators in the 1950s. They could receive one message in CW/Morse whilst sending another, simultaneously monitoring the Emergency HF frequency and holding a conversation!

[conflict alert]

Learnt by just writing them down then pulling letters out of a hat and writing the . and - down. Weeks before the exam spent most of the time looking at things and then spelling them out in my head dit dah dah dit. Exam was in a room with about 15 others and some old duck turning on a tape recorder. All tones were played twice (fairly quickly) and you just had to write down the letter. It was all a bit odd considering that the IFR charts would have the Station name then below the morse code for the ident. Seemed a bit harsh to have to get the rating given the maps had the info anyway. Guess the law makers came to the same conclusion and eventually scrapped the morse exam from the IFR syllabus.

[Chimbu chuckles]

Yeah - the very month AFTER I passed the bloody exam.

And just to prove the regulators are EVERY BIT as thick as we think they are they removed the morse boxes from the charts at the same time.

They put them back eventually.:rolleyes:

[Mike744]

A few suggestions to learn Morse Code - Try the free programme WinMorse2.0 which converts text to morse code.

Suggest grouping letters in blocks of five, starting with A to E in various group combinations then move on to the next five letters when you can read those letters okay.

Don't think dots and dashes, think dits and dahs. As you speed up try to recognise the 'sound' of the letter rather than the individual dits & dahs. Once you've got going try reading plain text and coverting it to morse characters in your mind.. don't do it out loud :} you'll get strange looks...

I was in a past life a MN Radio Officer (35 years) I routinely copied morse at speeds up to 40wpm+, it all becomes automatic after a time. Don't blame me though if it drives you bonkers :sad:

[tail wheel]

Seemed a bit harsh to have to get the rating given the maps had the info anyway.

All the IFR pilots that tuned in the Kerema NDB for over six months whilst it erroneously had the Kavieng ident probably thought the same thing - obviously not one of them interpreted the Morse ident and realised it was wrong! :}

[By George]

I have an original "Q-Code" booklet back home in Aus, dating back to 1927. Before voice comms all communication was completed by sending a morse "Q" message. 'QRT' by memory was "stop sending" etc.(or was it QTT?). Today, all is left is 'QNH' and I suppose 'QFE', 'QDM' and 'R'. We still get asked to do a 'QDM' in the Sim by the older instructors. Why were all the messages prefixed by 'Q'? I was told it was because of the distinct sound of 'Q'....."here comes the bride", dah, dah, dit dah. This gave adequate warning of the message to come. Amazing how much useless information is stored in ones brain. I learnt morse by tapping out the menu with my dinner fork, drove the wife up the wall.

[ForkTailedDrKiller]

I learned it with a morse table taped to my car steering wheel coding number plates.


Ditto!

If I can recall correctly I did 3 letter groups in NZ and 4 letter groups in Oz.

Dr :8

[Mike744]

Your memory serves, QRT is 'stop sending'.
QUQ is one to note - 'Shall I train my searchlight nearly vertical on a cloud, occulting if possible and, if your aircraft is seen or heard, deflect the beam up wind and on the water to facilitate your landing'

[Spotlight]

Risk of showing dedication here. The first thing I bought from the new Tandy in our area when I was about 11 was a Morse key. You needed to know Morse if you were to become a pilot.

Could never get the sending (hopeless). Tried with the Radio Club at school.

[Cessna Master Beta]

There is several different software out there to teach yourself morse . I downloaded a trail version and installed on my fathers computer . After 40 years of being out of the army he still knew it . As I remember it tapped aout a few words every five minutes . My father would look up from his book and blurt out the words.... kept him sharp :-D

[zlin77]

Learnt it in the mid 70's in Rocky from a record , which was put out by a Aussie Lady called Nancy...(Surname forgotten)...did the test in The Rocky F.S.U./Briefing facility under the tower...

[Checkboard]

I did the receive @ 10wpm exam in some amateur radio buff's backyard shed in about 1990 (apparently the last approved examiner in Victoria), a year or two after the requirement for the IFR exam was removed, just to have "done it" and get it on the licence.

Always glad I made the effort to listen to those tapes driving to work and back for a month or so.

[Ex FSO GRIFFO]

G'Day 'Tailie',

This NEARLY brought a TAA 727 to grief one night approaching PH.

Pingelly NDB USED to be ident 'PGL'.....
and Parkerville, much much much closer to PH was 'PRL'.....

The said 727 actually 'disappeared' & got below VHF range of PH for a bit, and, I believe, actually 'disappeared from the RADAR - until someone realised they were about to become 'history'.

Pingelly ident changed to 'PIY' soon thereafter........OUCH!

The --. and the .-. were a bit close.........and 't'was too easy to miss the ident... ..-., ..-, -.-., -.-

--., .-., .., ..-., ..-., --- ..........:eek:

[Biggles78]

Morse-It is a free or a $1.19 app for the iPhone. Always had a :mad: of a time with morse and still need to get better at it. :ugh:

[littlebri]

for learning methods try Morse Keys from Mauritron (http://www.morsekeys.mauritron2.com)

[Ndicho Moja]

Lights as well as sounds at 10 wpm. Don't I remember!

[Jay Bo]

Ohh i remember those days....Ozzy navy comms school.
Tape after tape after tape. Eventually got up to 36wpm, throw in some indonesian language "dengen imasu shimashiita" to top that off what ever that means and whella morse code imbedded somewhere in my cortex

[Aye Ess]

zlin77....the lady was Nancy Ellis Leebold (dunno why she put out a morse code record)....anyhoo,being poor pilots,most transferred the record onto cassette tape borrowed from mates. Mine was leant to someone & I never got it back. Being young & impressionable,someone told me about subliminal learning. So,I made my own tape (said the letter,then made the sound verbally). The first bit of the tape was music before the morse. I'd put it on as I was drifting off to sleep. After a few weeks of forced morse I sat the test at DCA Tempe in Sydney & passed!!!! Can still remember the letters even though haven't heard morse in years..... Now,where did I put my keys????

[criticalmass]

Learned my Morse from a set of tapes made for amateur radio operators, got to about 10-12 wpm off them, then went to Lonnie in 1980-81 and got my speed up at the AMC using the "Datong Morse Tutor" machines (little grey boxes that sent random groups, letters only or mixed, at speeds up to about 35wpm), also copied Ships press from Sydneyradio on 8.841Mhz to get up to speed. Taped a lot of the press on 8Mhz as a training-aid for the AMC, they probably still have the cassettes somewhere. As it was addressed "CQ" I figured it was public domain so taping it wasn't an indictable offence.

Got to about 28wpm as my fastest receive speed, but at sea we usually worked 16-18 wpm on a good circuit, error-free so no need for repeats. Got us off the circuit quick so someone else could have a go. Good mode of comms at sea because it cut through bad static and was flexible since operators could slow down if the circuit was poor.

About the only thing that really killed it was bad fading (QSB). I got a bollicking off Sydneyradio (VIS26) one evening when I called up for a telegram about sunset and was turn number 6 on HF. By the time it was my turn the band had died and I had to get a QSP via Thursday Island (VII) on MF.

Copied the last transmission from Perthradio (VIP) when maritime Morse finally shut down. Some Morse still can be heard on the HF bands (apart from the ham-bands) around 8Mhz at night, usually from mainland Chinese stations.

Practicing by mentally sending the number-plates of cars etc is good practice. The amateurs at the bottom end of 20 metres (14 Mhz) are also very useful, although a lot of them I suspect are using keyboards and computers to read and send. Really well-formed Morse can be read in your head at quite high speeds...you start hearing entire sentences in your head, not just words-at-a-time. Trying to write it down slows you down - try to read it in your head. When writing it down, lag the code by a couple of letters so you are not tempted to "journalise".

Morse is also a lot like music. It has a rhythm, a beat and a cadence. Certain passages of Morse (such as the beginning of a Sydneyradio traffic list on MF) are as familiar to me as the opening bars of my favourite music. If you can carry a tune you can probably learn Morse.

[Aye Ess]

To By George,
I learnt to fly many decades ago & when we were told about the 'Q' codes ie QNH,QFE,QDM and so forth,no one asked how those letters referred to what they mean. My son who recently studied CPL subjects asked the lecturer why 'Q' codes. The answer is in the real old days aviators transmitted just 3 letters via morse to the ground station. QNH= Query Nil Height ie what's the sea level air pressure at your field. QFE= Query Field Elevation. QDM=Query Direction Magnetic (must have been to ask the ground station for a radio bearing).

Anyhoo, I was amazed that I'd been using the 'Q' words for years & never knew the history behind them....never too old to learn.

[telephonenumber]

Learning morse was one of life's great drags. Just old fashioned, hard, repetitive, boring slog. I had a couple of long play records - or was it one - and just did it all over and over again until magically the old brain started just hearing letters as the code beeped out. Slowly but surely I got them all. The test was, I think, 10 groups (2 or 3 letters) per minute. And I think you got each group twice which was just as well. This was for an instrument rating in the mid 70s. I remember about half of them.

QNH - I thought this was Question Nautical Height.

[CaptainMidnight]

What's dah, twenty three dits, and a dah?

"This is s:mad:t" :)

For the geeks, Google "Morse code ringtone generator".

And no, I haven't got the above phrase on my phone. Actually - maybe I might load it :)

[Delta_Foxtrot]

By George,

Another that springs to mind is QNE which is ICAO standard atmospheric pressure 1013.25 hpa. Tap QFE into Wiki and it brings up a heap more.

DF

[PA39]

Ex FSO Griffo....... Here's one for you....do you remember/know Dave Flemington?? Is he still doing what he did best??

[Ex FSO GRIFFO]

Sorry Bloke.......don't know Dave F.

Could be that my memory is fading or he was not where I was at the same time....if ya know wot I mean....:ok::ok:

[sixtiesrelic]

Got a loan of a reel to reel mini tape recording machine and the old man dragged a morse key from his big box of good aeroplane stuff that lived under the house and banged away at ten WPM for me to learn.
He had used Morse in the war years and into the fifties in Dragons and Drovers out west and was reputed to be GOOD.
A job hinged on my getting the ten WPM in less than a week. Bloody dreamed Morse after a couple of days.
When I rolled up to DCA to do the test I kept getting stonkered by the tiny click of the spark jumping across the contacts as the key was released on the record's version. It sounded like a dot.
I'd go back out under a tree and listen to the tape and write some more and front up againafter half an hour. Did that two days or so for a couple of hours each.
Hec Cooma was the DCA man and he knew the pressure was on as the week approached and I kept failing. I was regularly down to one too many mistakes I think we were allowed ten.
Finally Hec counted ten mistakes while I counted eleven and he announced, "Congratulations ya passed at last" and snaffled the exam out of sight.
SO! I've been a fraud all me career and now it's too bad, CASA. I can't be bothered flying now so ya can't pull me license. Ha Ha!

[By George]

Thanks 'Aye Ess', very interesting and a better explanation than my 'Bride theory'. Possibly explains why I passed morse first go but have been down the isle twice.

[NRU74]

In the last war the Lancaster WOp/AGs used to set up the T1154/R1155 HF radios on the ground by sending 'Best Bent Wire'

dah di di dit, dit, di di dit, dah,
dah di di dit, dit, dah dit, dah,
di dah dah, di dit, di dah dit, dit.
[I've had to put commas in as this site won't let me double space]

I seem to recall Len Deighton mentions this in his book 'Bomber'

[Ex FSO GRIFFO]

"BEEF ESSENCE" has a nice cadence - apparently.

No use writing the dots here, but if you 'sing' it you'll get the idea.

A colleague used to 'drive us nuts' with it............He was Ex RAN from Harmon (?) spelling?.....

Cheers:ok:

[frigatebird]

Here are some keys to practice on..
From the display at the Z Force Reunion this morning.

http://i784.photobucket.com/albums/yy129/bird__photo/Z%20Force%20Reunion/Radios3.jpg

http://i784.photobucket.com/albums/yy129/bird__photo/Z%20Force%20Reunion/PortableMorsekey.jpg

[Exaviator]

I was taught the Morse Code as a young man as part of my schooling at a Navy College. The method used then was to group each of the letters according to its composition i.e.

E One Dot
I Two Dot
S Three Dot
H Four Dot

T One Dash
M Two Dash
]O Three Dash

A One Dot Dash
U Two Dot Dash
V Three Dot Dash

N Dash One Dot
D Dash Two Dot
B Dash Three Dot

and so on through the alphabet. Once the groups are put together we chanted them over and over again. i.e.

E I S H One Dot,Two Dot, Three Dot
T M O One Dash, Two Dash, Three Dash
A U V Dash One Dot, Dash Two Dot, Dash Three Dot,and so on.

It must have been an effective method because at 70 years of age there are many things that I have forgotten but the Morse Code still ingrained in my memory. :ok:

[Spotlight]

Exaviator

I bet that was effective and I wish I would have known about it or been taught that way.

My father and his mate did their Morse with a lady in Sydney during the fifties, blond and quite attractive he mentioned once. By coincidence I named my first born the same name.

[Tmbstory]

I learnt from the record by Nancy Leopold and sat the exam at DCA Waverton North Shore Sydney.

It was one of the hardest exams I had done and thankfully, passed.

Tmb

[18-Wheeler]

I fortunately just missed out on having to learn it as the requirement was dropped before I did my IFR rating. Copped a bit of flack from the older guys back then for not knowing it, but my reply was simply that all the idents were written on the charts so no need to know Morse.

[halas]

Flight service Mount Gambier 10.000001 WPM.

If other modern avionics are similar to the 777 then they ident (ex-NDB) for you with the letters appearing on the nav display.

halas

[FRQ Charlie Bravo]

Ha ha,
Yeah I remember when --- ..- .-. .-.. . -.-. - ..- .-. . .-. -- .- -.. . ..- ... .-.. . .- .-. -. .. - .- - ..- -. .. --- -. .-.. -.-- - .-- --- .... --- ..- .-. ... .-- .. - .... ..-. .-.. .- ... .... -.-. .- .-. -.. ... .- -. -.. .. - .--- ..- ... - -.-. .-.. .. -.-. -.- . -.. - .... . - .-. .. -.-. -.- ..-. --- .-. -- . .-- .- ... - --- -.-. --- -. ...- . .-. - - .... . -.. --- - ... .- -. -.. -.. .- ... .... . ... .. -. - --- .--. .. -.-. - ..- .-. . ... ... ..- -.-. .... .- ... -... .-- .... .. -.-. .... .-.. --- --- -.- ... .-.. .. -.- . .- -... ..- --.. --.. .. -. --. -... . . .-- .. - .... .-.. . --. ... .- -. -.. .- ... - .. -. --. . .-.

Those were the days,

..-. .-. --.- -.-. -... (aka FRQ CB)

PS -.-. .-.. .. -.-. -.- .... . .-. . - --- - .-. .- -. ... .-.. .- - . (http://www.onlineconversion.com/morse_code.htm)

[Jabawocky]

OURLECTURERMADEUSLEARNITATUNIONLYTWOHOURSWITHFLASHCARDSANDIT JUSTCLICKEDTHETRICKFORMEWASTOCONVERTTHEDOTSANDDASHESINTOPICT URESSUCHASBWHICHLOOKSLIKEABUZZINGBEEWITHLEGSANDASTINGER]
FRQCBCLICKHERETOTRANSLATENo that did not work dude...........had to do it the hard way! :eek:

[Charlie Foxtrot India]

Back when I did my CPL in the UK we had to be fluent in receiving morse.

It was about as useful in my life as an instructor as the Decca and Omega navigation systems we had to learn.

I learned it from a tape, would have practised on car numberplates but lived in Jersey so I knew .--- really well.
I remember learning mnemonics like "elephants in straw hats ten miles off" . .. ... .... - -- --- , fetch a fireman ..-. god save the queen --.- beethovens 5th for v ...- etc etc but still get stuck on some of them!