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Morse code was developed in 1844 by Samuel F. B. Morse. More than 160 years have passed, and this type of messaging is still used, especially by beginner radio amateurs. Morse code can be quickly transmitted using the telegraph, and it is also very convenient for transmitting a distress signal (SOS signal) using a radio, mirror or lantern. This method can be used even by people with limited communication capabilities. But learning Morse code is not so easy - you have to try the same way as when learning any new language.

Steps

Listen carefully to slow Morse code recordings. You are essentially listening to long and short signals (lines and dots, respectively). Long signals sound 3 times longer than short ones. Each letter is separated from the others by a small pause, and the words from each other are longer (also 3 times).

• You can look for or buy records in Morse code, or use a shortwave transmitter and try to listen to them live. There are educational computer programs that are usually not expensive or even free. They are more effective for practice than notes, because they can be used to translate any text into Morse code, which will prevent memorization of one text and help you choose the learning method that is right for you. Never count long and short signals - learn how each letter sounds. If you're using the Farnsworth app, you can set the pause between letters to sound slower than the speed of the letter itself. Choose a letter playback speed slightly higher than what you are equal to, and never reduce it - only reduce the pause between letters. In this way, Morse code is studied - at a speed of 15-25 words per minute or more. The following methods are good when you learn Morse code without expecting to use more than five words per minute, they will force you to discard the wrong ways of learning code and start over.

1. Find a copy of the Morse code (such as shown at the bottom of the page). You can use a basic table like the one shown on the right (click to enlarge) or you can use a more complex one that includes punctuation, abbreviations, set expressions, and codes. Match what you heard with the letters of the alphabet. What word came out? Were you right? Some people find it easier to learn Morse code by writing down dots and lines and then comparing them to a table, as shown in the picture; others believe that this method only slows down the learning process. Do as you please. If you choose a method that does not involve transcribing the recorded dots and lines, then you can use a pronunciation table that contains the sounds of Morse code signals, the way you hear them.

   Speak. Practice translating simple words and sentences into Morse code. At first, you can write down the word, then voice it, but over time, you should try to pronounce the word right away. Take, for example, the English word "cat". Write it down: -.-. .- - then say the word (you can use the buttons on your mobile phone or say it with your voice - this is the method most likely to help you learn Morse code faster). To pronounce Morse code, you must remember that dit is pronounced with a short "i" and a voiceless "t". Dah is a short sound. In English, the word "cat" is pronounced "dah-dee-dah-dee dee-dah dah". Once you're comfortable, choose a children's book and try to translate it into Morse code without writing down the letters. Record yourself and play the recording afterwards to see how well you did.

   • Don't forget about pauses. Each letter should be separated by pauses equal in length to the voice acting of a dash (that is, three times longer than the sound of a dot). Each word should be surrounded by pauses, the length of the pauses should be about 7 times the length of the dot sound. The better you work out the placement of pauses, the easier it will be to understand your code.

2. Start by memorizing the simplest letters. If we talk about the English alphabet, then the letter T is denoted as “-”, and the letter E is written as “.”. The letter M is written as “- -”, and I - “. .”. Gradually move on to letters that require 3-4 dots or dashes in a row to write. Then start memorizing combinations of dots and lines, from simple to complex. Leave the most difficult combinations to learn last. Luckily, these include the most rarely used letters (in English, these are Q, Y, X, and V), so once you understand the principle of constructing letters in Morse code, then focus on the most commonly used letters at the beginning. Note that in English the letters E and T have the shortest form, while the letters K, Z, Q, and X have the long form.

   Create associations. For example, “p” - “pee-laa-poo-et, pi-laa-noo-et”. Considering that there is more than one alphabet in the world, and you are reading this article in Russian, then you are most likely interested in associations suitable for symbols of the Russian alphabet. For this reason, we do not provide options for the Latin alphabet in this paragraph. Instead, we advise you to study the article, paying special attention to the mnemonic form of each letter. There are mnemonic codes for memorizing Morse code that were invented many years ago; you can buy them or find them online.

3. Enjoy learning. Want to get your friends to study? Teach them to blink in Morse code. And if, say, a friend takes you on an unfortunate blind date, then you can blink him “SOS”! Use Morse code to encrypt your secret notes, or keep a diary or even tell dirty jokes so that no one but you and your friends will understand them! Send someone a postcard with Morse code. Confess your love in Morse code (it's very romantic). In general, have fun, do what you like using Morse code for this - and you will learn it much faster.

   • Download the Morse code app on your smartphone or download the tutorial - it can be very helpful!
   • Practice! When you have free time, ask a friend or family member to sit with you and listen to you translate the text into Morse code. Give them the table and ask them to decipher your messages. This will not only help you and your assistant understand the code better, but it will also help you identify errors or bad habits that prevent you from transmitting the code correctly, and correct them to prevent mislearning.
   • To indicate that you made a mistake when passing the last word, send 8 points. This will let the receiver of the signal know that the last word can be crossed out.
   • Do not give up! Learning Morse code will not be easy; it is as difficult as learning any new language. It has unfamiliar letters, abbreviations, grammatical styles and many other aspects that need to be explored. Don't be discouraged if you make mistakes, just keep practicing until you're perfect.
   • Listen very carefully. At the beginning of the training, listen to the Morse code messages at a slow speed until you get used to it.
   • Learning Morse Code Can Be Easy if you are using the right tools. Print and laminate the table below and put it in your wallet. You will remember the code faster, as the plate will be at your fingertips all the time. Read the table from top to bottom. White is a dot, color is a dash. Start with the Latin letters E and T, which are dots and dashes. Going down, read each line. So V is ". . . -”. Good luck.
   • You should not rely on the image, for you cannot train the ears with the help of sight. Don't learn slower methods, or you'll have to relearn when you need to learn to work faster. Your goal is to instantly recognize letters and then whole words, not count dots and dashes. Computer programs like Koch and Farnesworth will help you with this.

There are many options for decoding the SOS distress signal - “Save Our Souls”, “Save Our Ship”, “Swim Or Sink”, “Stop Other Signals”, “Save From Death”. But all of them are just mnemonics, invented for better memorization, while at the time of the adoption of this signal as a standard at the International Radiotelegraph Conference in 1906, no meaning was put into the abbreviation. Even the letters SOS themselves can be attributed to the Morse code sequence (. . . - - - . . .) very conditionally, because there are no inter-letter intervals in it. And they accepted this combination of dots and dashes due to the fact that it turned out to be more convenient than others for recognition and selection in the general stream of signals due to its sufficient length and symmetry.

Samuel Morse was an artist until the age of 34 and was not interested in technology. In 1825, a messenger delivered a letter to him from his father saying that his wife was dying. Morse immediately left Washington and went to New Haven, where his family lived, but by the time he arrived, his wife had already been buried. This incident forced Morse to leave painting and delve into the study of ways to quickly deliver messages over long distances, which led to the development of Morse code and the electric telegraph in 1838.

Morse code in its usual form was not invented by Morse, but by the German engineer Gercke. The original Morse code was inconvenient, although it was used on some American railroads well into the 1960s.

On February 6, 1900, a radio station located in the Finnish city of Kotka transmitted a wireless telegram to the Ermak icebreaker with an order to rescue 50 fishermen on the torn off ice floe. It was the first ever transmission of a radio distress signal at sea. The rescue operation was completed successfully.

Modern submarines are equipped with more efficient means of communication with the "terrestrial world". Communication is carried out on ultra-long waves, which are capable of penetrating to an ocean depth of up to 300 meters. This is a very expensive "mobile communication", which requires the maintenance of powerful ground-based antenna fields, consuming up to 30 MW of power, and communications aircraft constantly loitering in the sky.

The SOS signal is transmitted at a frequency of 600 meters only in case of emergency, when the crew and passengers are in real danger to life. In case of violation of this rule, penalties may be imposed on the perpetrators of unreasonable panic. Or moral, that in the maritime community is not an empty phrase. Or material - when the ships that came to the rescue suffer significant material losses. However, there is an exception to this immutable rule. The captain of the ship in some cases can transmit information on the “com frequency” in three fixed “minutes of silence” about the emergence of a serious threat to ships in the region. These may be reports of malfunctioning lighthouses, volcanic activity, pirate activity, sunken ships ...

To speed up radio communications, abbreviations, three-letter "Q-codes" and numerous slang expressions were introduced into wide use. From that the Q code is transmitted in the form of a question or statement, its meaning changes. In voice communication, the SOS signal is not used, the distress signal is Mayday. It is forbidden to give an SOS signal if there is no real threat to the life of people or a ship at sea.

List of Morse code characters

Morse code ("Morse code", "Morse code"), a list of signals consisting of a series of numbers, letters of the alphabet, punctuation marks, and other symbols that are a character encoding method. The code itself consists of dots and dashes, reproduced using radio signals or by interrupting direct electrical current. Morse code is named after Samuel Finley Breeze Morse.

History of creation

Inventive artist Samuel Morse

S.F.B.Morse.

Already in early childhood, Samuel showed the ability to draw. Morse was inquisitive and always interested in science, enrolling in Yale University, 16-year-old Samuel Morse attended the then popular lectures on electricity. Many years passed before the interest turned into the practical application of knowledge. Known as an inventor, however, he also left his mark on art.

In 1832, sailing from Le Havre to New York on a packet boat SALLY he drew attention as a doctor Charles Thomas Jackson entertained the audience by demonstrating his experience-focus. It was based on the use of electromagnetic induction, the compass needle began to rotate, it was worth bringing a piece of wire under electrical voltage. Morse had the idea that it would be possible to transmit certain signals over wires; during the month of sailing, he sketched out preliminary drawings of the prototype of the telegraph.

invention of the telegraph

ABC of the Chappe telegraph.

The telegraph has existed since the 17th century, the optical telegraph by Claude Chappe was invented in 1792 and was used for a long time both in the Old and New Worlds.

Arrow telegraphs and telegraphs with pointers were not particularly convenient. Played a big role human factor, telegraph operator receiving station had to quickly read incoming characters and could not always check the accuracy of the transmitted message

Thanks to the help of a colleague from the chemistry department, Leonard Gale, the apparatus showed the first signs of life. The electricity in Morse's apparatus was supplied by low-power galvanic batteries, the longer the wire between the transmitter and receiver, the more batteries were required. Morse, with the help of Gale, gradually brought the length of the wire to 300 meters.

The first Morse apparatus weighed 83.5 kilograms.

The device includes a lever on a spring, by pressing it an impulse is transmitted. Depending on the duration of pressing, the impulse was short or long. An electromagnet was used at the receiving end, and one arm of the lever was attracted to its armature in accordance with the incoming impulses. A pencil was attached to the other shoulder, as soon as the electric current was applied, the pencil fell and left a mark on the moving paper tape in the form of a line. When the current was interrupted, the pencil rose, thus creating a gap.

In September 1837, Morse demonstrates his invention at New York University. New Jersey industrialist Steve Weil was in the audience. Interested in innovation, he provided a room for experiments and donated 2 thousand dollars, with the condition that Morse should take his son Alfred as an assistant. Alfred Weil had an engineering mind, he made a significant contribution to the creation of Morse code and the improvement of the transmitter.

Realizing the need to unite thousands of kilometers of the Atlantic coast with a single communication system (ordinary semaphores were not suitable for this role), in 1843 the government of the North American Republic gives Morse a subsidy of 30 thousand dollars. A 65-kilometer line was laid between Washington and Baltimore. On May 24, 1844, the first telegram was transmitted through this line with the words “Wonderful are your deeds, Lord!”.

Morse demonstrates his invention to scientists.

In 1858, Charles Wheatstone creates an automatic telegraph machine using punched tape. The operator, using the Morse code, stuffed messages on a perforator, the transmission was carried out by feeding the tape into the telegraph. In this way, it was possible to transmit up to 500 letters per minute, which is five to six times more than when manually working with a key. At the receiving station, the recorder typed the message onto another paper tape.

Subsequently, the recorder was replaced by a signaling device that converted dots and dashes into long and short sounds. The operators listened to the messages and recorded their translation.

The Morse telegraph was used not only in the 19th, but also in the 20th century. In 1913, 90% of the Russian telegraph network consisted of Morse devices.

Morse code

Telegraph Morse.

The invented apparatus could not display letters, only lines of a certain length. Therefore, each alphabetic character and number was assigned its own combination, consisting of combinations of short and long signals, which were depicted on a paper tape.

The original "Morse code" table differs from the one used today. It used signs not of two, but of three different durations (dot, dash and em dash). Rarely occurring letters and numbers were combinations of three to five characters, some characters had pauses inside their codes. Due to the large number of signs, confusion was created, which significantly complicated the work of receiving telegrams.

Spreading around the world, the alphabet has gone through a lot of transformations. In Russian, Latin letters were replaced by Cyrillic letters that sounded like them. The Japanese, with their hieroglyphic writing, invented their own version of Morse code, in the so-called "Wabun code" each combination of dots and dashes meant not a single letter, but a whole syllable.

The code was gradually refined, the encodings of the modern and original tables coincide for about half of the letters and do not match for a single digit. In the current Morse code, each letter corresponds to a combination of long parcels (dashes) and short parcels (dots). A pause between characters in a letter is one dot, and between letters in a word there are 3 dots, a pause between words is 7 dots.

In practice, remembering a combination of dots and dashes for each letter is possible at a low transmission rate, but as the speed increases, there will certainly be errors. For a serious study of the code, you need to memorize not the number of dots and dashes in a letter, but the “chant”, which is obtained when the whole letter sounds. Thus, when you hear the chant "Gaa-gaa-rin", it means the letter "G" has been transmitted. Depending on the school of study, "Chants" may vary. If there are only numbers in the radiogram, then only one dash is transmitted instead of five dashes. For the most popular phrases and letters in everyday life, simplified combinations of letters or numbers were developed.

Although today it is common to use modern communication methods, due to its simplicity and reliability, professionals and amateurs use Morse code in radio communications today.

Using "morse code"

Passing long distances, the signal can be distorted, interference is superimposed on it, the signal transmitted by Morse code is easier to recognize and save. Encoding can be done manually, recording and playback of signals occurs using the simplest devices. Being a simple and reliable coding system, Morse code is used in almost all areas where CW communication is used.

Due to the presence of a short-wave radio transmitter with Morse code transmission, in difficult situations it is possible to transmit information to the rescue services and the information will come from the crash site.

Morse code has been widely used in military radio communications. in the fleet through signal spotlights, Morse code is used in visual communication between ships in line of sight in radio silence. Beacons and buoys with signal lights transmit certain letter combinations in Morse code and these combinations are given in

A bit of history

In 1838, Samuel Morse (1791-1872), a professor of painting at New York University in the USA (Fig. 1), while simultaneously dealing with the issues of information transmission, proposed a system for encoding letters and numbers for transmitting them over wired communication channels, subsequently named after him. All letters, numbers, and punctuation in Morse code were encoded as sequences of dots and dashes. To date, the encoding of individual characters has changed significantly, but the transmission system proposed by S. Morse has remained: dots, dashes and intervals between them had a fixed duration - the duration of a dash was equal to the duration of three dots or three intervals.

Picture 1. Samuel Morse

Figure 2. First telegraph key

The first telegraph key (Fig. 2) was made and used by a young, talented assistant S. Morse: Alfred Weil (1807-1859) (Fig. 3).

Figure 3 The designer of the first telegraph key Alfred Weil

With its help, in 1844, the first Morse code message was transmitted from the US capital (Washington) to Baltimore (Fig. 4).

Figure 4 First telegram

Today you will not find such telegraph keys anymore; they have become the property of private collectors and museums.

Introduction

Figure 5 and 6. Types of telegraph keys

Two types of keys are used to transmit radiograms: mechanical and electronic.

Recently, many radio operators and radio amateurs use a personal computer keyboard and a special "telegraph" program to send text messages. There are also computer programs that "decode" Morse codes into semantic phrases, but no program can replace a professional radio operator!

It is better to start studying Morse code on a conventional mechanical key: a “handwriting” is formed, symbols are easier to remember.

And readers can get acquainted with a simple electronic device for studying Morse code in this article. The Morse code generator will help you study Morse code on your own; due to its small size, self-contained power supply and sufficiently large power, it can be used for collective training, in tests and competitions. A simple electrical circuit and generator design will allow even a novice radio amateur to assemble a reliable device from the MASTER KIT NM5036 kit. The Morse generator will serve as a good textbook for learning the basics of radio electronics.

Morse generator NM5036

For those who take their first steps into the world of radio communications, the proposed generator will be very useful. It will come in handy in Morse code classes and help you gain practical skills in working with a telegraph key. The small size of the board and the possibility of battery operation allow you to assemble the entire device in a small case, so you can use it not only at home, but also take it with you to radio school classes.

Table 1. Technical characteristics of the Morse generator

The Morse generator is made on the basis of a universal circuit of an asymmetric multivibrator (VT1, VT2). The operating frequency of the multivibrator is determined by the values ​​of the resistors R1, R2, R3, R4 and the capacitor C1. The circuit diagram is shown in Fig. 7, and a photograph of the device is shown in Fig. 8.

Figure 7. Scheme of the simplest generator

In table. 2 is a list of elements required for self-assembly of the generator.

To power the device, a power supply is required that provides an output voltage of 3.0 ... 9.0 V. It should be borne in mind that a change in the supply voltage leads to a change in the volume and operating frequency of the generator. You can connect low-impedance headphones (for example, from an audio player) or a small dynamic head to the generator.

Figure 8 Photo of sound generator

Table 2. List of elements.

The appearance of the A503 printed circuit board is shown in Fig. 9 and Fig. 10.

Figure 9 and 10. Printed circuit board

Learn Morse code on your own

There are several methods for studying Morse code, but they are all based on the periodic repetition of each letter, until its “melody” is completely memorized. The best way to learn Morse code is in the radio club or radio school of the defense sports and technical society: qualified trainers will turn you into professional telegraphers over several months of regular training. If you do not have such an opportunity, you can learn Morse code on your own. The author knows a lot of radio amateurs who have successfully mastered the "morse code" on their own.

For self-study of Morse code, study table 3 is attached. You can listen to all the sounds by clicking on the link next to the letter

Tab. 3, Telegraphic Morse code (ti - dot, taa - dash)

We bring to your attention Morse code translator online.

What does it mean? Suppose you need to translate or listen to how your text translated into Morse code will sound. You enter your text in the left box, indicate the language of the text below and press the arrow to the right. In the right window you will get the Morse code of your text. By clicking on the "play" button below, you can listen to your text in Morse code. This way you will use our Morse code translator online.

Online text translator
to Morse code and back

In the textual interpretation of the code, the “partition sign” (-···-) is used to indicate a space. This is done solely for ease of copying.

Attention! The built-in player works well in Chrome, normally - in Opera (if it shuts up, you can re-encode the text into Morse code, it helps), very mediocre - in safari. Doesn't work at all in Firefox and Internet Explorer .

In the audio version of the message, all the rules are observed: the duration of one point is taken as a unit of time; the length of a dash is three dots; pause between elements of the same character - one dot, between characters in a word - 3 dots, between words - 7 dots.

The sound file for download is presented in the formatWAV (it needs to be downloaded, not opened in a browser). It is large: for example, the Morse code for sending"Greek rode across the river. sees a Greek, a cancer in the river. put the hand of the Greek into the river, cancer by the hand of the Greek tsap. it weighs 209 KB(although it contains only835 bit information).

Do you want to test your strength? There is nothing easier.

Morse code tunes: