morse code
 

doing an aviation course at university and for 1 module, i have to learn the morse code.

i have managed to learn it visually but i am having real trouble trying to interpret the code by audio, i.e. listening to the morse code is much harder!!

wonder how you guys got around the problem??

do all airline pilots need to know it for ground school, i am sure you would not need to know it in cockpit much...

How you going to identify beacons then ? :confused:

You'd be surprised how useful it is in the cockpit.

On the classic 737's we had to identify all the nav beacons/aids we were going to use. After all if you want to take an aircraft down to 50ft above the ground in fog you had better make sure you are using the right navigation aid. The only way to do this was by identifying through good old morse.

Now the 737NG and the Airbus can identify the aids but they don't always get it right so it's good to have the knowledge to back it up.

i can iden the bacons by writing down the morse codes of the beacons i intend to use and the various beacons situated en route.

however i am sure there would come a day when i would come across one for which i have not written down the morse code for.

my question was, how did you learn the morse code?

Have a look at this

http://www.afeonline.com/shop/produc...roducts_id=733

I've used this to a reasonable degree of success, it builds you up through the alphabet from E to Y (if you see what I mean :ok: )

Hope it helps

Hi!

Forget all the written simbols! Start again and try to memorize the sound of the letters, not the dots and dashes.

There are many free PC programs in the web to practice on your own. You will hear some dots and dashes and you'll have to identify the letter. The initial speed is very low and it increases as you progress.

Don't practice one day for 5 hours and then leave it for one week. It's better to practice 20 minutes everyday. In a few weeks you will have got the knack of it.

Take it easy!

I agree with DC-8 to some extent.
Learn the sound of letters rather than the number of dots and dashes.
Once you memorise the sound of letters it will be a piece of cake. Then you could try numbers just for the heck of it :p
I used to "Morse out" all licence plates I was coming across on the motorway :bored: I don't do it much these days lol but it certainly keeps your Morse current..
HTH

It would also alleviate the mind numbing boredom. Personally, I find audio morse relatively easy by listening to three sound of it. People who can read/send with visuals are always a source of wonder for me. Now where did I put my Aldis lamp?

Look at the Jepp chart you are using for the approach. The morse ident is on them. At least they are on mine! :ok: :O

Have a look at this, a free morse code trainer:
http://www.mrx.com.au/d_morse.htm
Morse code @ 5 w.p.m. is still required for a full US amateur radio license.
Good luck!:)

"How did you learn the Morse Code?" ...

Ask a local flying school if they've got the contact details of someone who runs Morse Code "classes". Don't be surprised, someone may still run classes. If not, google it.

I went for one such class just to get me going and then finished it off myself with the "audio cassette" the instructor sold me. Had to pass the test at 7 words/minute.

Listened to that tape in my car everywhere I went (needed to have a pass in that fairly quickly back then), and even cut out the Morse Code from a Jepessen Chart and stuck it to my steering wheel.

Even ended up doing what Cesco did while driving... alphabets AND numbers, tho the test had just alphabets and groups of 5 letter words at random (that actually meant/spelt-out nothing.... eg.: GILPT, ARXUN etc.)

You'll get there. Good luck! :ok:

I agree with the comments above - if you can avoid looking at the dots and dashes right from the start it will make it easier for you - else you will have an extra step to do ie. sound to dots/dash then to letters. The "sound only" method has been used by amateur radio operators for many years. Your local amateur club/electronic stores would have these courses in the forms of audio tapes. :)

Here's another useful Morse practice webpage. It'll generate AU soundfiles to order, made up at whatever speeds, letter-ranges, etc that you choose. It'll even do you a mock exam, and has a bunch of info on how to approach the subject from a learning perspective.

http://www.aa9pw.com/radio/morse.html

Good luck! Patience and Persistence will win the day! ;)

You're trying to learn an aural language, not a written one, for aviation use. It's the rythm & intonation of the sound that needs to be learnt since that's what you'll hear eg d'dah .......... dah'd'd'dit .......... dah'd'dah'dit NOT dot dash .......... dash dot dot dot ........ dash dot dash dot.

I used an audio cassette while driving to & from work. It started with the teacher's voice pronouncing the letters with the rythm then lated used tones.

I also only learned the written morse code, can't really do the aural one (not fluend enough) - but:

you don't really need that for identifying any beacons. All the morse codes for the beacons are on the maps, approach charts, ... just next to the frequency or identifyer. So I just look at the . and - and compare them while listening.

Another way I usually did years ago was write down the . and - and then work out what it means :p - just like:
...././.-../.-../--- //

Have fun!
Eli

It is achievable to learn morse in two days. That's what I did. And passed the exam. All you need is a good tutorial program. Focus on the audio, never mind how it looks on paper. To know morse is to be able to make sense of alot of doots and dits, so start with "A" - dit-doot, then "B" - doo-dit-dit-dit and so on...

Many years ago whe I was still in the Navy, I used to car share with a guy on regular trips from Merseyside to Portsmouth and back most weekends.
He was learning morse code at the time for a particular course he was on. Using a tape in his walkman he would listen to morse and told me that after a bit of practice it was like listening to music, you recognised the flow of the sound rather than the notes it is made from. And he was learning military tactical Russian!! :ok:

.... --- .--. . - .... .. ... .... . .-.. .--. ... .. .----. -- ... ..- .-. .--. .-. .. ... . -.. .. - - --- --- -.- - .. .-.. .-.. .--. --- ... - -. ..- -- -... . .-. . .. --. .... - . . -. ..-. --- .-. ... --- -- . --- -. . - --- -.. --- .. - .-.-.- ... --- .-. .-. -.-- .. ..-. -.-- --- ..- -.. --- -. - ..-. .. -. -.. .. - ..-. ..- -. -. -.-- -... ..- - .. - -- .- -.-- .... . .-.. .--. -.-- --- ..- .-. - .-. .- .. -. .. -. --.

:\

Anyone remember " Elephants In Straw Hats Ten miles off" et al ?:)

Pilotho - what course are you on? I am surprised they ask you to learn morse code, since it is NOT part of the JAA ATPL syllabus... As has been mentioned, modern FMCs now auto-ident navaids, and the ident is also invariably printed on Jepp plates :D , but it's useful to know all the same - especially to ident en route navaids.

Cheers :cool:

try this link, its nice to learn audioable morse code
http://www.philtulga.com/morse.html
wish you good luck :ok:

I learned Morse by sound, not by dots and dashes on a sheet of paper. Began with my amateur radio licence, then did a Marine Operator's Certificate and finally managed to read 28 words per minute fluently. Mostly at sea we used speeds in the range of 16-18wpm.

Morse and music have much in common. A musical pitch, speed, rhythm, a beat, even certain passages of morse become as familiar as the opening bars of your favourite pieces of music. I haven't used Morse for over 12 years now, but even now I can remember the opening Morse for a Sydneyradio traffic list on 476Khz. You didn't read individual letters, it was just a long string of familiar characters that were always the same which preceeded the traffic list. Unforgettable.

So, to learn morse, learn it as an aural language, as if you lived in a country where Morse was a spoken language and you heard it all day, every day. Steep yourself in it and it will sink in and you won't be able to stop it. I used a HF communications receiver tuned to the 8Mhz marine band and listened whilst I was washing dishes, so my wet hands couldn't write down the characters, I had to learn to read them in my head. That works. For aviation you only need very slow Morse, so it shouldn't take too long.

There was a great little device back in the 1980s called the Datong Morse Tutor; a pale blue plastic box which generated random five-letter or mixed letter-number groups at any speed desired at the turn of a knob.The radio amateurs lapped them up. If you can find one they are a real help to learning the code. These days it's getting very hard to find Morse on the HF bands, although the mainland Chinese coast stations still come through on 8Mhz at night, here in Australia.

I learned Morse code simply by converting the letters on car number plates to Morse as I was walking or driving. It had the virtue of being random while being a productive use of time.

The Dutch had to do a morse test for their CPL until something like 1998.:ok:
5 or 6 words per minute, so not high speed, but enough to give you a headache to prepare for the exam.

Here's a link to a freeware program; we used the sam a couple years back!
http://www.stormy.ca/morse/

Try:
Eagles In Spaces High
Towering Mountains Occupy
A Weighty Joint Uncut Veal
Never Devoured By Greater Zeal
Rural Policeman Leaving Farm
Keenly eXpectant Yet Quite Calm
Convert the caps into morse. Hope this helps - it helped me in the ATPL exams when morse was a subject.

You might contact a local amateur radio club. Morse or CW is still required for advanced amateur licenses and perhaps there are classes. I passed my Canadian amateur exam at 10 wpm when I was 29 by listening to a morse practice LP and then listening to the amateur freqencies. 40 meters is excellent for this with lots of CW activity.

I'm with autothrottle, I take it you had the same tape made by the elderly sounding gentleman who came across as either a mad uncle or eccentric maths master at school.

Anyone else remember sitting in that bloody portakabin outside the CAA at LGW trying to make sense of that ancient tape recorder during the ATPL navs. the tape was so worn and stretched the dots were dashes !

I learnt using the Dauntless software http://www.dauntless-soft.com/PRODUC...orse/index.asp
It costs a few pounds, but got me upto speed in a couple of evenings. It cunningly spots your mistakes and adapts to fix them as you're going along.

Beacon idents are very slow, as was the CPL signals test.

No harm in learning, and not much to learn.