As a young U.S. Air Force airborne radio operator in the late 50s and early 60s, I became very good at using Morse code—you know, the art of sending dots and dashes in the form of short and longer bursts of radio energy through the atmosphere, and beyond.
I became very good partially out of necessity. You see, as a recent immigrant to the United States, I still had a heavy accent when I spoke English. Thus, when trying to get through to a ground station “by voice,” especially when using the old HF (High Frequency) radio with all its accompanying crackling, whistling and fading, the transmissions from the other side consisted mostly of “say agains.” No wonder I became very skilled at tapping out streams of “dits” and “dahs” at speeds up to 30 words per minute.
With improvements in communications technology, a system that had been a lingua franca of maritime and military communications “since before the Titanic”( paraphrasing the New York Times), slowly began to sink in the 70’s, but is still popular among amateur radio operators and is still used to identify air traffic navigational aids, etc.
A method of communications that became vital to wartime armies and navies for the secure (encrypted) transmission of critical messages and orders and one that has undoubtedly saved hundreds if not thousands of lives at sea through the transmission of SOS messages ( “• • • — — — • • •”) when all else failed, Morse code still has a dedicated following.
This became evident to me when I read an article in today’s New York Times describing how a group of Morse code “die-hards” bent on preserving Morse code, hold an annual “radio reboot” known as the Night of Nights on the anniversary of the last Morse code broadcast from a coastal California station in 1999.
It is a night when many former radio operators, Morse code enthusiasts and sentimentalists once again fill the ether with “the music of Morse, one key tap at a time.”
For this former airborne radio operator who relied heavily on the “music of Morse” and who still finds himself tapping away with his fingers words in a code that was—through training, practice and necessity—ingrained in him, the article was quite interesting—and nostalgic.
You may enjoy it, too.
Over and out.
Image, courtesy flickr.com
The author is a retired U.S. Air Force officer and a writer.