Talk:Morse code/Archive 4

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Archive 5

Another reason for the popularity of morse code among radio amateurs

Something that I think is missing on this page is one of the reasons why using morse stayed very popular for such a long time among radio amateurs. Apart from matters like it's robustness to interference, an important point is that you need much smaller RF power to be able to communicate over long distances compared to any voice transmitting technology. This means a simpler and cheaper transmitter could be used. A transmitter for morse is also simpler to build because you don't need a modulator. In essence, it's just turning on and of of a transmitter. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.103.254.11 (talk) 09:16, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Morse code wasn't popular among radio amateurs. It was popular with a small minority of radio amateurs who used Morse as a means of "gatekeeping" to keeo out those interested in becoming radio amateurs but not interested in learning a largely irrelevant and useless relic of the radio world of the early 1900s. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.127.185.105 (talk) 14:09, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

another negative comment from an unsigned poster..using morse code was never a conspiracy to keep people out of radio..in the 1st place when hams invented radio it was the only form of communication via radio waves..in addition read the reasons why it is used per the previous comment all of which are very valid..also morse code allows people who speak different languages besides English to communicate per Q codes and standard radio procedures..now that the morse code requirement has been dropped the bands have been become overcrowded and the overall level of competence has deteriorated..the CB mentality which has pervaded the amateur frequencies since the drop has had a very negative impact on ham radio in my opinion..I have nothing against CB radio..it`s what got me into ham radio..most of the amateurs on the air these days could learn a lot from both CB and studying morse code but 11 meter 2 way radio is pretty much a thing of the past in America as well except with truck drivers..the code forced operators to study and know what they were doing before they got on the radio..please sign your post if you have something to say...especially if it`s negative..no one likes a whiner Lonepilgrim007 (talk) 16:15, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

I think it's time to invoke WP:NOTAFORUM. Discussion that isn't about improving the article doesn't belong on WP talk pages. (to 146.103.254.11: Less transmitter power and less bandwidth too :) ) Jeh (talk) 16:26, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

A to Z in Morse file

This edit was immediately reverted, but in fact the IP is correct - File:A through Z in Morse code.ogg does not contain Z, it finishes on Y. I have e-mailed the uploader but they do not seem to be active on Wikipedia any more so may not reply. Should we change the caption in the meantime? Change the filename? SpinningSpark 06:38, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for this, I couldn't figure out what they were talking about (the page is on my watchlist but I don't actually don't take an active interest in it). My opinion is that we probably shouldn't even use the file if it's broken like that. It would be like if the map in the article for the US didn't have Florida on it. It would just look unprofessional. Better to do without until we can find a better audio file. SQGibbon (talk) 13:09, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

I've heard from the uploader and he is looking at it. Let's wait to see if he fixes it. SpinningSpark 14:32, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

When I play it, there is a Z at the end. The file entry says 2009. Glrx (talk) 03:03, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

What browser are you using? It seems to be browser related. I can hear the "Z" as well when played through IE10, but not in Firefox. SpinningSpark 08:02, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm using Chrome. If I play it on FireFox, there is no Z. I'm running XP, so I have a backward IE that downloads the file and fires up the default application for .ogg -- which has the Z. Glrx (talk) 02:44, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

The file has now been fixed. SpinningSpark 09:44, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

In the history section

It states "That same year a radio on the airship America had been instrumental in coordinating the rescue of its crew.[8] However, there was no aeronautical radio in use during World War I, " However both British and French reconnaissance aircraft carried radios from 1915 on, as is detailed in the relevant wikipedia article I am not sure if the writers here are aiming at some other usage?

Cricketjeff (talk) 15:08, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Link to continuous wave on first mention of CW transmissions

The first mention of CW transmissions doesn't link to the article for continuous wave transmissions or explain what they are. Please fix this. 99.182.91.43 (talk) 10:45, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Is there some reason you need others to do this for you? SpinningSpark 18:21, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Not everyone is comfortable editing articles. In this case, I thought the best thing to do was to remove the early mentions of CW, which were really being used as a synonym for "Morse Code". --agr (talk) 20:35, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

The article is protected. I even registered and still can't edit. I don't mind due to the vandalism, but just remember to check next time. 99.182.91.43 (talk) 02:06, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Yes, sorry, new accounts can't edit semi-protected articles util confirmed. Tell me the name of your account on my talk page and I will confirm it for you so you can edit straight away. SpinningSpark 18:22, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 15 January 2014

Please change "Morse code is a method of transmitting text information as a series of on-off tones..." to "Morse code is a method of transmitting text information as a series of short and long tones..." from Steven Fletcher Stevenfletcher (talk) 12:30, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

I have confirmed your account so you should now be able to edit yourself. SpinningSpark 14:06, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

ARRL Farnsworth increasing readability - source?

The article states ARRL Farnsworth is increasing readability for human decoders. However the Link explaining ARRL Farnsworth (Link doc 25) only states that it ieasier for beginners to use Farnsworth.

Suggest to remove the sentence with increased readability when using Fanrsworth. As a personal note: I think standard Morse (no Farmsworth) is easier to decode for me, even at very low signal levels.. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.79.128.106 (talk) 21:45, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 14 February 2014

the line below needs a space in front. It is being treated as header text.

"===.===...===.===.===...=.===.=...=.=.=...=.......===.=.===.=...===.===.===...===.=.=...="

===.===...===.===.===...=.===.=...=.=.=...=.......===.=.===.=...===.===.===...===.=.=...=

Jrob007 (talk) 17:30, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Here it is, reformatted. That doesn't mean it's good sending ;-)

===.===...===.===.===...=.===.=...=.=.=...=.......===.=.===.=...===.===.===...===.=.=...=

Lou Sander (talk) 17:40, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

 Done. I've fixed the version in the article. --Nigelj (talk) 18:58, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Dots and dashes

The · and − make better dots and dashes: ·−·−. Compare to hyphen, middot, endash, minus: -·–−. Glrx (talk) 22:42, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Revisions to "Letters, numbers, punctuation" Section

I've bundled several revisions together in the "Letters, numbers, punctuation" section (mostly the table presentation in that section):

1. While the previous table (reproduced below) was more compact, its presentation was difficult to read in the middle columns, and it was not a standard tabular representation in that there was no relationship between all items on the same row. I converted the display to a standard table.
2. I added a "Note" column for additional information about characters.
3. I created links to new audio files I created for the punctuation marks.
4. I made the Morse Code samples into links to their respective audio files, and made the characters links to their respective Wikipedia entries (thus making the letters and numbers consistent with how the punctuation marks were already linked).

--JoeDeRose (talk)

Character	Code	Character	Code	Character	Code	Character	Code	Character	Code	Character	Code
	· –		· – – –		· · ·		· – – – –	Period [.]	· – · – · –	Colon [:]	– – – · · ·
	– · · ·		– · –		–		· · – – –	Comma [,]	– – · · – –	Semicolon [;]	– · – · – ·
	– · – ·		· – · ·		· · –		· · · – –	Question mark [?]	· · – – · ·	Double dash [=]	– · · · –
	– · ·		– –		· · · –		· · · · –	Apostrophe [']	· – – – – ·	Plus [+]	· – · – ·
	·		– ·		· – –		· · · · ·	Exclamation mark [!]	– · – · – –	Hyphen, Minus [-]	– · · · · –
	· · – ·		– – –		– · · –		– · · · ·	Slash [/], Fraction bar	– · · – ·	Underscore [_]	· · – – · –
	– – ·		· – – ·		– · – –		– – · · ·	Parenthesis open [(]	– · – – ·	Quotation mark ["]	· – · · – ·
	· · · ·		– – · –		– – · ·		– – – · ·	Parenthesis close [)]	– · – – · –	Dollar sign [$]	· · · – · · –
	· ·		· – ·		– – – – –		– – – – ·	Ampersand [&], Wait	· – · · ·	At sign [@]	· – – · – · (=A+C, see below)

There appear to be errers in the last two items in the table. Lou Sander (talk) 23:49, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank you! I thought I had double- and triple-checked that -- but I must have missed it. It's fixed now. Thanks, again. --JoeDeRose (talk) 23:58, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Joe, thanks for your work on this. I like the change to linking the Morse files to the code rather than the symbols. However, not so happy with the large amount of whitespace that has been created by making the tables linear. The compact form of the previous version was better. The objection that lines of a table should be semantically associated with one item can be overcome by embedding tables within tables and the borders can be used as a visual indication of the boundary between columns. SpinningSpark 08:53, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the compliment as well as the critique. I have mixed feelings about white space: While it can create emptiness on the page, it also can be the byproduct of a focus on data organization. Personally, I tend to prioritize data organization (but, of course, that doesn't mean my opinion must carry the day). I'm also not sure I trust a nested table solution, as its readability might be perfect on one screen size, but it might look very wrong on a different screen (especially a tablet or phone). Nested tables also don't support sorting, and I'm wondering if this table would be improved by making it sortable (an issue I raise in the new section below).

But by raising the issue you gave me another idea that I hope will satisfy both concerns: I've deployed a revision with the table floating to the right so that text can wrap around it. I've also added <br /> tags between different items in the Note column to reduce the width of that column. How do you feel about the amount of white space with these changes in place? --JoeDeRose (talk) 13:46, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Make Morse Code Table Sortable?

Would the list of characters and codes be improved by making it sortable? I'm imagining a scenario in which someone might hear (for example) "· – · · ·" and wonder what character it represents. There's no good way to find that text using the browser's "Find" function -- but making the table sortable might make it easier.

If this change is made, however, I think it might be best to add the prosigns and non-English characters into the table.

What do others think about these possible changes?

--JoeDeRose (talk) 13:46, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Who was it named for?

Who Was It Named For???? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.130.232.103 (talk) 01:18, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Samuel Morse, as it says in the article. SpinningSpark 09:58, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

"Thus, the following Morse code sequence..."

Is comically broken. Multiple dah's are being combined into em and en dashes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.69.74.140 (talk) 04:09, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

I've had a go at trying to fix this, by using minus signs '−' instead of dashes '–'. It does leave tiny gaps between them on my screen, but I don't know to what extent that is just a function of my particular browser and fonts. Hopefully it looks better for other people too. --Nigelj (talk) 18:03, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Letters, Numbers, Punctuation heading

• The wait sign di-DAH-di-di-dit:
  I am unclear if this is in the ITU-R recommendation according to the notes in the table.  If it is, but the same-sounding ampersand isn't, then perhaps list Wait separately and add a new line to the table with another di-DAH-di-di-dit, calling it the ampersand and carrying the note about its not being in the recommendation.
• Keyboard @:
  States that the @ sign was adopted May 24, 2004 but link 31 points to an ARRL page that is in the Go Back Machine archive that speaks of the upcoming adoption in May.  There is no documentation referring to May 24, but I have maintained a page from the beginning that references an ARRL Letter for April 30, 2004 which sets May 3 as the date of adoption.  My documentation is here: Morse code @ Symbol
• Improving the readability of "di-dah" notation:
  Looking just above the Link Budget Issues line for some examples, I might suggest the use of all-capitals on the "DAH" syllables.  It might also be an idea to add white space between each letter each letter sound and that in turn will widen the white space between each:
  "White:"  "di-DAH-DAH  di-di-dit  di-dit  DAH  dit"

Lytzf (talk) 22:14, 27 April 2014 (UTC) Edit: fixed my links Lytzf (talk) 12:12, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

I think you've made a good case for the changes you propose. No one else has replied, so I believe you can proceed without fear of controversy.

--JoeDeRose (talk) 03:22, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Modifications to Letters, numbers, punctuation Section

I've made several changes to the tables in in this section, which can be explained here better than in the Edit summary.

Non-English extensions

1. Added links to sound files for Morse code.
2. Made table sortable.
3. Gave each character its own line with notes about shared codes to facilitate review (previously they were not in alphabetical order and there was no structure as to which character was the "basic" example, and which ones were afterthoughts).
4. Put letters in order.
5. Added upper-case characters: The basic alphabet table shows characters in upper-case, while this table showed lower-case. I considered upper-case important for character distinction -- but retained lower-case to disambiguate between Eth (Ð, ð) and D with stroke (Đ, đ) -- for which the upper-case characters appear identical. (I plan to add lower-case to the main table for consistency.)

Prosigns

1. Added links to sound files.
2. Put in alphabetic order.
3. Made table sortable.

Main Table

1. Added lower-case characters for consistency with Non-English extensions.

--JoeDeRose (talk) 02:52, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

The layout on Morse code# Letters, numbers & punctuation

On the village pump, Spinningspark made a comment about the layout, the comment being that with the current layout, especially with the audio template, when you click it, it transports you to another page, then you have to click the back button to get back to the page you started from. So how about a change where when you click on the morse code "A", you hear the sound of the aymbol without actually leaving this page. I was thinking more along the lines of this:

Character	Code	Sound File
A, a	· –
B, b	– · · ·

KoshVorlon   Angeli i demoni kruzhili nado mnoj 18:19, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

I have no objection to this change. Note that it might widen the table enough that the "float:right" style is no longer necessary. My only recommendation is that the prosigns and non-English character tables be treated equivalently. (They might even be added to the main table -- which I actually considered doing on my recent round of edits.)

--JoeDeRose (talk) 04:13, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

I'll wait a bit to see if we have any more comments before touching anything, since it would constitute a major layout change.

KoshVorlon   Angeli i demoni kruzhili nado mnoj 16:59, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Character	Code
A, a
B, b

I'm ok with that too, and thank you for taking an interest. The only comment I would make is that something more useful could be written in the player title. In fact, why not make the title the code: like this? Also, changing the dash to − (minus sign) vertical aligns better with the dot. Which means the code can be made bigger without the alignment error becoming prominent. SpinningSpark 19:30, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

I know I said I only had one comment and then made two, but I just made another change to the example table. I changed the non-breaking spaces ( ) to hair spaces ( ). The larger size font makes it obvious that the spacing is incorrect with nbsp. Symbol spaces should be equal to a dot. SpinningSpark 20:07, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

No problem, I like your change, especially the more prominent morse code, it makes it easier for those that might be sight-impared to read it ! It's ALSO cleaner, and takes less room (to make up for the extra room the listen template takes up). Looks better than mine! Great job Spinningspark KoshVorlon   Angeli i demoni kruzhili nado mnoj 20:19, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

I too like these changes very much! Thanks to both of y'all! (And special thanks to SpinningSpark for mentioning hair spaces. I'd never heard of these before, but I'll find them useful in the future.)

--JoeDeRose (talk) 20:27, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

If you enjoyed hair spaces, you might also enjoy http://www.w3schools.com/charsets/ref_utf_punctuation.asp which has lots more spaces to choose from. The smallest is the "zero-width space" which, despite its name, will usually still leave some whitespace, but I would not recommend it here. It is font dependent, the whitespace is the space actually within the font character so you have no control over how it will actually display. SpinningSpark 20:39, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Follow up --- new sandbox created

Talk:Morse code/sandbox (edit | article | history | links | watch | logs)

As a follow up, I've started a subpage to this talkpage where the table can be built in full before being added in, it's right over here feel free to jump in, gut it, whatever, but keep the discussion here, please KoshVorlon   Angeli i demoni kruzhili nado mnoj 15:32, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

• The wrong characters are being used for both dots and dashes. Compare the valign of the two samples I did (A and B) with the rest of the table.
• The code for "9" is wrong
• Presumably, the notes column is being retained in the final version. Or do you plan to handle that information in another way? SpinningSpark 16:26, 15 May 2014 (UTC)
• I don't know why, but the audio does not always sound right. For instance, the "9" seems to stutter at the start, making the first dash sound like two dots. It is not consistent, sometimes it does it, sometimes not, but the "old" full screen player does not seem to have this issue. Actually, playing with it a bit more as I type, it plays ok the first time, but is wrong on subsequent plays until the page is reloaded. All the players have this problem, not just the "9". We've had problems with audio files in the past that are only apparent in some browsers. CAn people try this in there own browsers please. I am using Firefox. I've also tried IE but Microsoft Media player can't deal with ogg files apparently, perhaps someone with the right player attached can try it. SpinningSpark 16:53, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Spinningspark 1.) Not sure what you mean by wrong code, I copied your version, so we're both using the same code as far as I know, but please, feel free to change it, that's why it's in the sandbox

Can you not see the dots and dashes are not aligned?. Yes, you copied my code, but you have not continued to use the characters I used in the rest of the table. SpinningSpark 01:18, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Actually, another editor has fixed them (thanks), or at least, most of them. SpinningSpark 01:23, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

2.) The code for 9 - I've corrected that -- my bad

3.)I tested the sounds on my end using Windows 7 Pro with Chrome as my browser ( my work set up) and I've tested in on OpenSuse 12.1 with Chromium (home setup ) and sounds played great on both systems.

4.)Not sure about the notes column, I wasn't thinking of keeping it, but where it was important, I would insert a note in parentheses in the the cell labeled "character" It's easily enough done on a seperate line. My reasoning being, this new table is wider, so rather than have 3 wide columns, leave it at 2 as the third column wasn't necessary (letter / number and code are essential here ), however, if consensus is that notes have to come back, no problem. You're welcomed to give it a go if you want, again, it's in the sandbox so anyone can have a go at it. KoshVorlon   Angeli i demoni kruzhili nado mnoj 23:39, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

I think the notes are useful and should be retained. If your goal is to minimize the number of columns or the width of the table, I think the goal of simplifying the display could be merged with the goal of detailed information by putting the notes below the character name or below the sound file. (If they don't keep their own column, I favor under the sound file.) I haven't made a change in the sandbox so as to give others a chance to voice their preferences.

--JoeDeRose (talk) 02:17, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

I think the notes that show an alternative character should simply be added to the comma separated list in the "character" column without further comment. Some of the other notes could be converted to footnotes. Digraphs could be placed in brackets after their character name to which they apply, it is not necessary to keep repeating the word digraph and linking it. Digraphs and there method of representation should be explained (once only) in the text before they are first used and then just used without comment. By the way, "See below regarding MN alternative" is a perfect example of why "see below/<other positional preposition>" should not be used in Wikipedia articles. It actually renders above that point on the screens of most readers. SpinningSpark 06:45, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Okay, I just added the notes in the "character" cell, below the character. Once again, have a look, feel free to gut it if you think it needs it ! :) KoshVorlon   13:23, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

• The last table is still using the wrong character codepoints in the codes
• Joe, is there some reason that some characters are treated differently and presented as "shared with" instead of just added with equal status? For instance, why is Ç (c-cedilla) not shown as Ć, ć, Ç, ç etc.? SpinningSpark 15:15, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Spinningspark Not sure what you mean when you say the last table is using the wrong character codepoints. All of the tables are using the same coding. You've mentioned this before, but haven't explained this so I'm not sure what you're referring to, and again, I used your template as a source, and am using the same coding you used, so please be a bit more specific. (I'm not being a dick, I don't really understand what your'e telling me ). Or better yet, jump in and correct what you'd like, it's in the sandbox for that reason. KoshVorlon   16:41, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Unless you are using a font that is wildly different from anything standard, you should see that the dots and dashes in · − − · − ·  line up nicely whereas – – · · – · does not. The second one was pasted from last table. SpinningSpark 17:39, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

SpinningSpark, I introduced the separation of the non-English characters for consistency in sorting. The most prominent examples are "CH, Ĥ, Š" and "È, Ł". These cannot be placed on the same line anywhere in the table such that someone would be able to find all of the characters intuitively. If there's a solution that I haven't thought of, I'm definitely open to it. But I don't think a return to the previous system ("È (and Ł)") is the right approach.

--JoeDeRose (talk) 18:05, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Spinningspark Now that you explained what you were talking about, I understand you. Thank you. This seems to be a cosmetic issue, but yes, since the other side (the right side matches up) the left side should as well. I can also see why looking at the code didn't help. In code both dots and dashes look the same. I'll see if I can fix that later on tonight (I lead a band later on tonight, so it would be after 10 PM EST ). Thanks ! KoshVorlon   18:35, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Spinningspark - the code on the left hand side of the page (Non-English morse code symbols) has been corrected. Thanks again ! KoshVorlon   19:10, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

In the sandbox, I've made the character names bold to distinguish them from their notes. (Feel free to revert if you don't find this to be an improvement.)
--JoeDeRose (talk) 01:40, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

JoeDeRose I like you change! Great idea. This looks good, but I'll wait and see what consensus says about it  :) Kosh Vorlon   16:02, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

The tables all look fine. The only comment I would make is that when they are pasted into the article they are pasted in "linear" rather than try to go side-by-side. The latter is not really working well on a narrow screen. SpinningSpark 18:17, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

Spinningspark, I'd like to keep the side-by-side format if at all possible.

I'm not using a particularly wide screen and I can see both sides just fine (I was able to see this on my cell phone as well). The vertical format would leave a lot of space on the right, however, if consensus is that they should be vertical only, with no horizontal layout, then that't what they'll be. Kosh Vorlon   13:16, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

See this scrap view. SpinningSpark 14:34, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

You can see the tables side-by-side on your cell phone? Not on my phone their not. You must be using some kind of tablet and you cannot be using the mobile version of Wikipedia; the mobile version of the page always shows the tables linear regardless of the screen size. SpinningSpark 14:47, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

I introduced the "float: right;" on the table to satisfy SpinningSpark's concern about there being too much which space. (See the history page of 2014-04-08 at 16:58.) At the time, I was concerned about the effect this would have on different screen sizes, but it is what the collaborative process led us to.

I've never been a fan of floating the table, and now that the user whom I was responding to in doing so is asking for it to be undone, I join in that recommendation.

Could we resolve this issue to everyone's satisfaction by including the prosigns and the non-English extensions as additional rows at the end of the (non-floated) main table, rather than as two separate tables? This would also make it easier for someone to sort by the "Code" column to figure out, for example, what character(s) the code "· – · · ·" belongs to.

--JoeDeRose (talk) 17:29, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Sorry for changing my mind on this, but now that the tables are wider the overlap is much more of an issue and the white space less so. SpinningSpark 19:12, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Spinnngspark Interesting, your computer displays it quite a bit different than both of mine.

Here's a screencap from my work box (Win 7, Dual monitor, Chrome Browser . It looks fine on my side. However, I will not move it to the article without consensus Kosh Vorlon   19:46, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

It looks like you are viewing in full screen on a wide monitor. Not everybody does that, and not everybody has a widescreen monitor (although they are rapidly becoming standard). I tend to work in two windows, a main one taking over half to 2/3 of the screen and a minor one. This is because I frequently need another article or a source document open while I work on an article in the main window. While we can't possibly make the display perfect for everyone, by the same token, we should not be optimising it just for one person's personal preference. SpinningSpark 20:33, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Spinningspark I totally agree - however, you're the only person (so far) that's complained about the width. By the way, I have two monitors, and one is wide screen (but that's not the monitor I use for Wikipedia ) the one I use for Wikipedia is a standard square monitor (not widescreened - but I have a fairly high resolution on it of 1280 X 1024 (my widescreen monitor is 1680 x 1050 ). I'll wait for conesnsus before I move it however. Kosh Vorlon   16:41, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Um, to clarify, I agree with JoeDeRose, so possibly that makes three of us. Just stick it in the article already. You've talked about it enough. SpinningSpark 16:59, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Ok - added in to the page. Once again, feel free to adjust it Kosh Vorlon   20:31, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

One Code Table Instead of Three

(I mentioned this above, but I think it got lost in the discussion about table width and placement.) Does anyone object if I unite the existing 3 code tables into a single table?

--JoeDeRose (talk) 16:43, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

JoeDeRose Why not use the sandbox and show us what it would look like ? Kosh Vorlon   10:50, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

Okay, I've prepared 2 options (a simple union of the tables and a version with categories). I personally prefer the second version (with the categories).

--JoeDeRose (talk) 12:41, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

The one with categories is more informative to the reader. SpinningSpark 13:27, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

I like #2 as well. Kosh Vorlon   18:23, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

The player changes make the page load very slowly.... Glrx (talk) 21:18, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

(2014) correct international morse-code according to ITU 2009

here it is:

www.itu.int/dms_pubrec/itu-r/rec/m/R-REC-M.1677-1-200910-I!!PDF-E.pdf

1.1.1 Letters

   a  . −    i  . .    r  . − . 
   b  − . . .    j  . − − −   s  . . . 
   c  − . − .    k  − . −    t  − 
   d  − . .    l  . − . .    u  . . − 
   e  .      m  − −    v  . . . − 
 accented   e  . . − . .    n  − .    w  . − − 
   f  . . − .    o  − − −    x  − . . − 
   g  − − .    p  . − − .    y  − . − − 
   h  . . . .    q  − − . −   z  − − . . 

and so on... --217.251.73.92 (talk) 14:28, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Spelling

By this edit, Spinningspark reverted an edit of mine with the comment that I had made a "gratuitous change of spelling system". This is incorrect for two reasons.

First, I did not change the spelling system. Most of the article uses AE spelling, beginning with the word "standardized" in the second sentence. By changing a few BE spellings to AE, I was conforming those passages to the existing spelling system.

Second, even if the entire article had been written in BE, a change to AE would not be "gratuitous" but would be in keeping with Wikipedia policy. Morse code, developed in the US by three Americans, has a clear tie to one English-speaking country, so that country's spelling should be used, under Wikipedia policy.

Accordingly, I'm reinstating the minor spelling corrections ("vocalise" to "vocalize", etc.). JamesMLane t c 05:40, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

The discussion is meant to come after the revert and before reinstating the original edit, but whatever. Your edit summary was "sp" which gave the impression you were correcting spelling mistakes. This is frequently done by American editors who simply do not realise that British spelling is different, not mistaken. I revert such edits automatically without investigating (and I would do the same if an article is changed to British spelling without a rationale). I don't really object to this article being declared American spelling provided that is what is agreed here, but I would make a couple of points. First of all, the "ize" spelling is not conclusive evidence for American spelling in the way that color or canceled would be. There is a British spelling system called the Oxford spelling system which uses "ize" rather than "ise". Secondly, an American inventor does not necessarily force an American spelling system and each case should be considered on its merits. The Samuel Morse article should unarguably be in American spelling because he is an American and thus the article has an American subject. The Morse code article is not so clear cut. Morse code, whatever its origins, is an international topic, it was ubiquitous in its day. One could even argue that the international Morse code is German since it orginated with Gerke adapting it from Morse's original. SpinningSpark 07:07, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

I understand BRD as to substance, but, yes, this did seem to me to be a simple mistake -- not because "vocalise" is the wrong way to spell the word (I've edited the article on Comparison of American and British English and I understand that BE spelling is simply different, not inherently wrong), but because "vocalise" is the wrong way to spell the word in the context of this article. I gave two reasons. The first is that the article is already in AE spelling and Wikipedia policy is to make each article internally consistent. You suggest that perhaps the article is, instead, already in Oxford spelling, which uses -ize endings. I don't need to delve into Oxford spelling to determine which is used here, because every change I made was changing an -ise/-ised ending to -ize/-ized. From my quick glance at the Oxford spelling article, I gather that this change would be correct even if the article were in Oxford spelling (though I saw nothing in the article that is not in AE spelling except the few instances I changed).

Second, I pointed out the subject's strong ties to the United States. You respond by noting later work done in Germany. Under Wikipedia policy, that's irrelevant. "An article on a topic that has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation should use the English of that nation." (from Wikipedia:Manual of Style#National varieties of English) Ties to Germany don't matter. (I think some people have suggested that a strong tie to an EU country would call for BE spelling and a strong tie to a Latin American country would call for AE spelling, on the basis that the form of English most common in that non-English-speaking country should be used, but I don't think this is policy.) In any event, Gerke was merely modifying a system that originated in the US and that still bears the name of its principal American inventor. I don't see a plausible case for "strong national ties" to Germany.

By the way, as a side note that's irrelevant to how to spell words in this article: You give color and canceled as clear examples of AE spelling. I consider canceled to be correct in AE, because we follow the general rule of not doubling the consonant if the last syllable is unaccented, while BE departs from that rule for some words ending in -l. Nevertheless, for some reason, cancelled has some currency in the United States, even though travelled and the like are virtually never seen. As I said, this has nothing to do with the Morse code article, but, given that you mentioned the example, I thought you might be interested. JamesMLane t c 12:13, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

You are kind of misrepresenting me here. I did not claim the article is in Oxford spelling, or that it should be, I merely reverted an unexplained edit doing something that is often controversial. True, I argued that International Morse Code as we currently know it is an international subject, not tied to the USA in particular. However, that was not an argument against using American spelling. As I already said, I don't actually object to using American spelling. SpinningSpark 23:15, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

• Comment. The only issue for this talk page is which language dialect should be used for this article. I'm open to either A or B at this point, but I'm leaning toward A due to James' argument that Morse was American. I welcome further argument either way. Glrx (talk) 23:36, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Bandwidth

@Lklundin: Part of my edit summary was cut off because it was too long. The missing part said "The limit on speed is set by the abilities of the operator, not by the bandwidth of the channel". In comparison to the transmission speeds in use at the time, the bandwidth was essentially unlimited. In fact, it was not even accepted that faster speed required more bandwidth until around the 1920s. Before that it was believed that radio telegraphy occupied a single frequency only. SpinningSpark 11:55, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

@Spinningspark: Thank you for opening this discussion. I think we have a different understanding of bandwidth. What I mean by that is the common meaning from information theory (which is explained at Bandwidth (computing), namely the speed at which a certain amount of information is transferred. So this is _not_ about the speed at which the Morse operator can produce dots and dashes. Instead, given a certain, fixed speed of the Morse operator, the speed of communication is the rate of which the actual text is transferred. In the design of Morse this speed was increased by encoding the alphabet such that as much text (information) as possible is communicated by a given amount of dots and dashes. Although the whole concept of information theory had not been formalized at the time then the Morse alphabet was designed, there was still an understanding at that time, that an encoding of the more frequent characters with shorters codes would increase the speed of the communication. Apart from the hint at this with the link to the Huffman coding, the article is quite weak regarding this aspect, and it would be good to extend it with typical data rates (i.e. actual amount of information transferred, not number of dots and dashes) for typical operator speeds. Btw, a similar and related case is that of cryptography, where also in the 19th century cryptography techniques were used without a formal understanding of how well they were working, like the one-time pad. Lklundin (talk) 12:35, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

I perfectly understand what is meant by bandwidth here, please don't talk down to me, I have more than forty years experience in this field. Data bandwidth is not the same as frequency bandwidth but the two are most certainly related. The fact remains that nobody talks about Morse code in those terms, especially the early history of it, so it is wrong to put that in the article. You can transmit the data as fast as you like, but it doesn't make any difference if you are limited by the speed of a single operator. The difference can be seen at the point at which multiplexing came in. Multiplexing unarguably increases the transmitted data bandwidth. However, it was still not recognised that there was a limit to the channel bandwidth, they naively thought that they could carry on adding more Morse channels ad infinitum. It was only the advent of telephony that changed that outlook.

Going back to a single operator, the transmission is limited by the symbol rate the operator can produce. The symbols in this case are dots and dashes, but we could equally call them 0s and 1s. Changing the coding does not change the symbol rate produced by that operator. It follows that the transmitted data bandwidth has not changed either. Optimizing the code to efficiently encode the English language is not the same as increasing bandwidth. In my opinion "efficient" was exactly the right word here. SpinningSpark 14:29, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Letters, numbers, punctuation, prosigns and non-English variants

The digraph AR is currently only represented as the plus sign [+]. Its more common usage as an "end of message" prosign is absent. Likewise, the digraph KN is currently only represented as an open parenthesis [(]. Its common usage as an "invitation to transmit, called station only" prosign is absent. Notes to these effects could be added to the pre-existing entries in the sub-category Punctuation. 50.174.97.118 (talk) 02:14, 25 February 2015 (UTC)B. Salvisberg, WA6A

• L. Peter Carron Jr., W3DKV "Morse Code The Essential Language" Second Edition ©1991 American Radio Relay League ISBN 0-87259-035-6.

Challenge for the quinary view

I want a citation for that; it's not WP:CALC because sources (e.g. Shannon in the celebrated A_Mathematical_Theory_of_Communication!) say that it's at most quaternary (four symbols) because of how symbols may occur; in particular a single unit-space cannot occur arbitrarily so it may subsumed to the dit or dah to its left. 86.127.138.234 (talk) 22:12, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

And if Shannon is wp:primary source for you but your uneducated and uncited WP:OR is somehow acceptable instead, refer to Richard Blahut's "Information Theory and Coding" in in Wendy M. Middleton Reference Data for Engineers: Radio, Electronics, Computer, and Communications (9th ed.) as secondary source expanding on Shannon's analysis at a textbook level. 86.127.138.234 (talk) 22:18, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

So the "short gap" and "medium gap" elements would each lose a "0" because that is provided by the "0" that ends the preceding dit or dah. I like it. I've always disliked the "quinary" view and never could figure out why (besides that it looked like OR, but the entire article needs more refs, so it didn't stand out so much). I think you have perfectly good references there and should go ahead and make the change. It will be very difficult for anyone to make a case complaining about something referenced to Shannon, preferring something that is unreferenced! If you are unfamiliar with the reference templates, just put in the "raw" references (<ref> ... exactly what you put above ... </ref>) and some OCD person like me will fix them up. Jeh (talk) 22:29, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Obtw, I would use both references. Jeh (talk) 22:30, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Morse code is in essence binary: there are only two information carrying symbol elements, the DOT and DASH. The rest are spacing and delimiting elements. These latter are unavoidable artefacts of asynchronous serial data transmission. The equivalent in a modern code is the start and stop "bits" of ASCII. These are different in timing (in many transmission systems) from both the MARK sand SPACE symbols and different from each other. In particular, the stop bit was typically 2.5x the length of a MARK or SPACE bit to allow time for mechanical teleprinters to recover from printing the previous character ready for the next character. Yet I have never heard of ASCII or Baudot codes being considered quaternary because of the start and stop bits. They are always considered binary, the transmission housekeeping overheads are not considered part of the information code. SpinningSpark 13:38, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

By the way, the Shannon paper does not explicitly call Morse code quaternary, although it does say there are four elements. Nor does the Middleton book, even though the term quaternary appears in the book in several other coding contexts. SpinningSpark 14:09, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

I think you are confusing character codes with framing. First, ASCII is not strictly a binary code. It is defined by a table of characters vs. integer values, which can be written in any notation desired. It is the representation of those integer values in computers and on transmission lines that is binary. As for asynchronous serial transmission, start and stop bits in transmission of ASCII, etc., use the same mark and space durations that are used during intra-character-time. (Granted that a stop bit can really be of indefinite length, it is still value with only one unit time.) It is rather a different thing for Morse to use different lengths of spaces for inter-mark gaps, inter-character gaps, and inter-word gaps: A space of inter-character duration or greater never occurs inside a character. That cannot be said of the marks or spaces in async serial.

In any case, Shannon characterizes Morse as having the four elements mentioned, and who are we to argue with Shannon? There is no more reliable source in information theory (the man was largely responsible for founding it, and he didn't stop with that). I don't think it's OR to then call this "quaternary": if two elements are binary, then what else would you call four elements? Jeh (talk) 20:11, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm not disputing Shannon, but he never said "quaternary", possibly for a good reason. My case here is that there is no codepoint in the Morse code that includes an inter-character space, and Shannon explicitly includes the intra-character spaces as part of the DOT and DASH elements. Likewise, there is no codepoint in ASCII that includes a stop bit. It is beside the point that stop bits are not part of the ASCII standard, the point is that their use is not tantamount to introducing a third element. You are wrong in stating that the start and stop bits are the same length as character bits. In the mechanical teleprinter era it was pretty standard to make the stop bit 2.5 units, and the start bit was sometimes longer than one unit also. Making the stop bit one unit was a later practice in the computer era when hardware had improved sufficiently to make long stop bits unnecessary and the code could then conveniently fit in a byte. Eventually the stop bit was completely unneeded and could then be used to extend the code to an 8-bit code or serve as a parity bit. You are also wrong in stating that ASCII was not defined as binary. The original ASA standard explicitly declares the code to be a 7-bit code and defines all the codepoints as binary numbers. SpinningSpark 17:40, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Shannon's inclusion of inter-character and inter-word spaces is a correct analysis. You cannot unambiguously decode letters and words without them. ASCII does include an inter-word space, i.e. the space character. The inter-character space is implicit in ASCII because it is not a variable-length code. It is required in Morse because Morse is a variable-length code. It is implicitly present at the end of every character in the Morse code chart. If it wasn't there, then it would not be possible to tell whether dit dah meant "E T" or "A". It is therefore very definitely an "information-carrying element". Similarly with the inter-word space.

The start/stop bit discussion is a digression, but:

details about start and stop bits, and whether ASCII is inherently binary, not really relevant to Morse

I never claimed that stop bits appeared in ASCII code points. They're necessary for character framing in async serial comm (regardless of character code), but they're not part of ASCII. My experience with teleprinters only goes back to the ASR33 area, where stop bits were exactly 2 (of course an idle line could extend this indefinitely). On later terminals that did not need the extra time, they went to 1 stop bit as you stated, and 1.5 on the 2741. I never heard of anything requiring or sending 2.5 stop bits. Our article on Teleprinter says that the older machines (Baudot) used 1.43 stop bits. You are incorrect about the possibilities of "start bit sometimes longer than one unit" and "stop bits eventually unneeded". Oh, a machine could be built, and maybe was back in the old days, that needed 1.5 start bits or some such. Maybe that's what you meant. But whatever the system defines the start bit length as - it's one bit time in modern serial comm - that time is invariable. This is because the next bit after the start bit can be either mark or space, and the receiver starts looking for the first data bit one start-bit-time after the start bit begins. If the start bit is longer than expected then the framing and hence interpretation of the data bits will be off: The receiver could be looking for a data bit while the start bit is still arriving. And you are grossly incorrect about "stop bits were eventually unneeded". if you get rid of the "guaranteed mark" of the stop bit, then you can't identify the beginning of a start bit! (What the stop bit does is to guarantee a "mark" at the end of a character frame, so that the timing of the start bit, which is always a "space", can be identified.) Nor did stop bits ever have to fit in a byte with the character code; that was never a concern. ASR33s sent and received 7 data bits plus a parity bit (I believe they could be optioned from the factory for space, mark, even, or odd parity; I've certainly worked with all of those except even, iirc). Async serial comm was extended to eight data bits by redefining the parity bit as an eighth data bit, or by preserving the parity bit but adding an eighth data bit (e.g. 8E1), not by removing the stop bit. Again: You can't get rid of the stop bit. ASR33's sent and received a start bit (space), seven data bits, a parity bit, and two stop bits (mark). Of course if the machine was then idle the line would continue in "mark" condition. Some later equipment (VDTs, daisy wheel printing terminals, etc.) could be optioned to run with eight data bits and a parity bit (and, still, of course, a stop bit). Regarding "not defined as binary", you are confusing how ASCII was originally spec'd with how it was subsequently analyzed and understood in information theory. The fact that ASCII code points were originally and commonly described in terms of bit configurations is purely incidental to the latter. (Every ASCII code chart I ever used had both binary and some other representation, usually hex nibbles; as a programmer I had very little use for the binary, but much use for the other.) If we had a decimal computer using Dekatrons for storage - each storage position having ten states - and we used three of those positions to store each ASCII character, with e.g. "A" being stored as 065, that would still be the ASCII code even though it isn't binary. Numbers are just points along the number line; they are not inherently binary, decimal, or octal, or Roman numerals or base e for that matter, regardless of how someone happened to first write them down.

Though Morse was and is widely described as consisting of just dits and dahs, hence "binary," Shannon's deeper analysis correctly recognized that the inter-character and inter-word gaps are necessary for unambiguous decoding, and so represent additional information-carrying elements. Just as you can't recognize dits and dahs without intra-character gaps, you similarly can't correctly recognize characters without inter-character gaps, and you can't correctly decode words without inter-word gaps. We don't have to say that Morse definitely consists of four elements and the old "binary" description is wrong, but we should definitely include a summary of Shannon's analysis that presents it as a "later understanding" or some such. Jeh (talk) 19:22, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Jeez, TLDR. Find a decent source that actually says Morse is quaternary then we can talk some more. SpinningSpark 16:05, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Better? I hatted the irrelevant parts. Also made a couple of minor tweaks, but nothing meaning-changing. I am not insisting on use of the word "quaternary". But Shannon is a completely sufficient source for saying that Shannon's analysis of Morse shows it to have four elements. No other source is needed. Jeh (talk) 19:00, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Citation needed for all those "Non-English Extensions" code groups

This page's Morse code table has quite an extensive listing of codes for letters with diacritical marks not used in English. But it has no indication of what the source is for those codes. Can anyone cite a source for them? --119.224.3.115 (talk) 09:49, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

It appears that semicolon is not in the ITU Morse code recommendation

The article currently states, "The &, $ and _ signs are not defined inside the ITU recommendation on Morse code." Which implies that the other punctuation marks, where not otherwise noted, are from the ITU Morse code recommendation. However, if you actually go to the ITU's website and download their Morse code reccomendation document, it doesn't include the semicolon. (See https://www.itu.int/rec/R-REC-M.1677-1-200910-I/en ). So perhaps the semicolon should also be listed as "not defined by the ITU" along with those other punctuation marks. --119.224.3.115 (talk) 09:56, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

I think the sentence was intended to introduce the following material. I've edited it to make that clear. Obviously there are many symbols that are not in ITU Morse.--agr (talk) 21:08, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

DYK congratulations for you today

Like   Bfpage |leave a message  15:15, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

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Gerke

@C.Fred: I seem to remember this is the second time someone has tried to claim this as a German invention, but I can't quickly find it in the history. Presumably the logic (judging by the edit summary) is that the International Morse Code is based on Gerke's version, not the original American version. But that's a bit like claiming Rudolf Diesel invented the motor car. SpinningSpark 15:36, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

AR Digraph / "End of message" prosign

In the section: "Letters, numbers, punctuation, Prosigns for Morse code and non-English variants", the character shown for ·—·—· shows only its usage as the [+] punctuation, and lacks its usage as the "End of message" prosign, commonly written as the AR digraph. As this article is now "semi-protected", I am unable to edit it directly. - B. Salvisberg, WA6A 50.174.97.118 (talk) 07:27, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

If you first register an account, I will confirm it to allow you to edit the article on request. SpinningSpark 07:53, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 14 January 2016

in sound files of morse code several errors appear present at beginning of the file giving extra dot dash Wakawakawaka11 (talk) 13:30, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Please be specific as to which sound files. I listened to several of them and heard no such errors. Jeh (talk) 13:44, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 4 February 2016

|- valign="top"

| Punctuation || Plus sign [+]

AR digraph
Prosign for "End of message"
||

Inclusion of missing "End of message" prosign usage in pre-existing [+] character entry, per Talk. Would be even better to include an entry under "Prosigns" section, as "End of message" prosign is primary usage of this character. 50.174.97.118 (talk) 12:29, 4 February 2016 (UTC)B. Salvisberg, WA6A

 Done. The AR digraph is actually for the beginning of a new page – see Prosigns for Morse code#Table of Morse prosigns and useful Morse code abbreviations.  Assume good faith! Paine  04:05, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

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Link Budget Issues

Re section in this Morse code article on "Link Budgets". I am a professional communications Engineer and I do understand the technical issues involved in 'link budgets' for communications systems. That said, I am also an active high speed Morse code ham radio operator. In my opinion the Section on "Link Budget Issues" can be safely eliminated from the Morse Code article for the following reasons: (1) The term Link Budget is not defined or used anywhere else in the Morse Code article. (2) There are no pointers or references to that subject anywhere in the section or article, (3) The so-called issues for Morse as opposed to competing technologies are not explicitly listed nor discussed thoroughly, (3) Most, if not all current active Morse code practitioners have little or no interest in such issues with respect to their daily operation, and certainly there was little interest in such issues during the 150 year wired telegraph era itself. I recommend that this section entitled "Link Budget Issues" either be expanded and improved or completely eliminated on the basis of non-interest. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.104.91.244 (talk) 14:37, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

I just checked the actual Wikipedia article on "Link Budget" and although there is a fairly extensive discussion of Link Budgets for communications systems, as I suspected there is no mention there of Morse code or Link Budgets for Morse code. Likely, as I suggested in the preceding paragraph, because these issues are of little or no interest to Morse code operators. FWIW... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.104.91.244 (talk) 14:41, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

New Wikipedia article related to Morse code

A new Wikipedia article entitled, QSK Operation (Full Break-In) has recently been created and added to Wikipedia. This new Wiki article could profitably be added to the "See Also" section of the Morse code article. There are likely one or more other places in the Morse code article where links to QSK Operation (Full Break-In) and the article Prosigns for Morse code could be profitably added to the current Morse code article. Editors of the Morse code Wiki article might take note. 97.104.91.244 (talk) 19:29, 21 March 2016 (UTC) Pete k1po

Semi-protected edit request on 16 September 2016

Please can you change the Verbal Form for the letter J from "dit dit dit dah" to "dit dah dah dah" so it correctly matches the Written and TONE Forms ToeBee (talk) 16:49, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

Done @ToeBee: Thank you for pointing that out. 73 —C.Fred (talk) 19:20, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

____

		The Socratic Barnstar
		Thank YOU ToeBee for pointing out my error, and thank YOU C.Fred for correcting it! Two seven April one seven nine one is the birth day of Samuel Morse given credit to be the first one to aurally decode the continental code! Which up to that time was just printed on moving paper with a stylus making the dot dash pattern. gEORGEv73gt

Timing examples the same

Is it just me, or are the recorded examples in the Timing section the same for "fast" and "slow"? Lebeda Karel (talk) 07:14, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

I agree, I can't detect a difference, and the "fast" files are certainly not at the speed claimed. However, it is now moot as I have removed them as part of the revert explained in the previous section. SpinningSpark 17:49, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

More charts

Do we really need the additional morse code chart with audio files and the additional sample audio files recently added by user:GeorgeV73GT? There have been complaints in the past that the many audio files make the page slow to load. This will only make this problem worse. The new material looks to me to be largely duplicating existing existing stuff, or at least superfluous to it. SpinningSpark 13:44, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

--- a very good point "SpinningSpark !!!! Do we really need an article about Morse Code at all? Who uses it? Who cares ??? i know you do!!...but remember "Wikipedia is a compilation of a diverse set knowledge in many languages" ... Sorry about the slow loads, i need more bandwidth as well!!! Do we really need this at all?? — Preceding unsigned comment added by GeorgeV73GT (talk • contribs) 16:21, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

I was hoping you would provide an understandable rationale for adding this material, but you have not. I have removed it on the grounds that it is redundant to material already in the article. No information has been lost by doing this. SpinningSpark 17:47, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Dear SpinningSpark May i suggest that we fork the Morse Code article? One page that would load fast and contain no audio files, for those who only wanted a written intellectual article, and then one fork of the article would be a slower but would have the audio files. It is somewhat like an article on a famous Painter's works and people complaining that the new renditions of their work in color take longer to load than the older renditions that were in one bit black and white. Sounds like a personal bandwidth problem. If you will set up the fork, I will undertake to move all the audio files to the other fork. As it is, you just whacked about two to three hours of my work. Where do I go to complain? Jimbo? The design of Wikipedia is primarily for text and pictures (I haven't even addressed video), and it may be the slow speed of the page load is a design problem in the Wikipedia core. Certainly You and i will not fix that. Should i set up audio files on youtube and link them with references to the matrix (YOU WILL BE ASSIMILATED!)??? GeorgeV73GT (talk) 01:52, 29 September 2016 (UTC) PS. I appreciate (Thank You!) you willingness to reason, but who do I go to complain about other Unreasonable Editors? GeorgeV73GT (talk) 01:52, 29 September 2016 (UTC) PSS. I am going to revert the matrix without the audio files, which seems to deal with the immediate complaint.

IMO Spinningspark is correct - there is no need for the additional table, with or without audio files. It provides no information not already in the article; it is merely a visually different arrangement. I support the removal of any such addition (with or without the audio files - and will do the removal myself if Spinningspark doesn't happen to get to it quickly), until and unless GeorgeV can explain how it adds information or usability or tutorial value that is not already in the article. If you really think readers need help understanding that ". -" should be spoken as "dit dah", despite the already-existing descriptions of this, then the "dit dah", etc., should be added to the existing table. Jeh (talk) 06:03, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

The issue is not just the slow load speeds (this is not so much a personal issue by the way, I was just pointing out that others have made this point in the past). The point is that absolutely no information has been added. The audio files in the new table were just copies of the existing table morse files. A table giving the spoken form would need spoken audio files. The table as you constructed it is entirely redundant, and if it were not redundant, it would be completely over the top for the point you are trying to make. A single file speaking the morse alphabet would more than suffice. On creating a fork, please see WP:CFORK where you will see that these are against guidelines. But perhaps you meant that some of the exising article could be moved to a daughter page. I might support that, but not for the purpose of finding a home for your unwanted table. As for where to go to complain, see Wikipedia:Dispute resolution, but remember, Wikipedia works by finding consensus in a collegial atmosphere. There is NO "headmaster" you can go to to make a ruling on content disputes. SpinningSpark 10:47, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 6 December 2016

The table in § Letters, numbers, punctuation, prosigns for Morse code and non-English variants has Prosign labels in the first column which are linked to Prosigns for Morse Code. That's a redirect page; it would be better to link them all to Prosigns for Morse code (with a lower-case c) instead. But per MOS:NOPIPE it would be even better (and this is the edit I'm requesting) to link them to Prosign directly. 71.41.210.146 (talk) 00:51, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Done Stickee (talk) 03:36, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Edit or Citation Needed

In the "Other Uses" section, it states "Submarine periscopes include a signal lamp." My husband is an ETCS SS ANAV on board US submarines the past 18 years and just informed me this is false, at least regarding US Submarines; past and present and that "that was just some Hunt For Red October bullsh**." (He can't specify regarding foreign subs). Can someone either remove this statement or provide a valid citation (so my husband can stop laughing with the guys about this.) Thanks!Crayolakym (talk) 01:58, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Done. SpinningSpark 15:48, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Hagal Dune Field edits/reverts

Seems to me that since the Hagal Dune Field is called the "Martian Morse Code" by NASA, Time magazine, and the HiRISE Operations Center of the University of Arizona plus other sources that this information is relevant to this subject and it does belong in the "See also" section. After all, it shows the cultural significance of Morse code in today's society. And though MOS:SEEALSO says

Whether a link belongs in the "See also" section is ultimately a matter of editorial judgment and common sense. The links in the "See also" section should be relevant, should reflect the links that would be present in a comprehensive article on the topic, and should be limited to a reasonable number.

it also states:

The links in the "See also" section might be only indirectly related to the topic of the article because one purpose of "See also" links is to enable readers to explore tangentially related topics.

I would not know about this geologic formation on Mars named for Morse code if it weren't for the Wikilink previously in the 'See also' section. Let's discuss. Shearonink (talk) 19:19, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

Thank you Shearonink. I fully agree with you. That's why I added it in the first place. I thought it is remarkable that a topological formation would have similar characteristics, and be named after, Morse Code. But when I got reverted with a rude edit-summary, I chose not to enter the predictable conflict, and associated bickering. Dr. K. 19:59, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

References

History

This article fails to sketch the entire history of Morse code. In particular: when, how, and why did it go into decline? The article only mentions that wireless Morse code was abundant in World War II, and then that it was dropped as a standard for maritime distress in 1999. Of course the decline was more gradual than that. Even in the 1940s, telex was readily available. As radio communications improved, Morse code was needed less and less. And with the advent of computers and advanced electronics, messages could be spread - and encoded - in progressively more efficient ways. All these changes took place gradually, but how exactly? Steinbach (talk) 23:11, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

I would say that such a discussion belongs in the electric telegraph article rather than here. Morse went into decline because the telegraph itself went into decline. International Morse became the dominant code, but it was not the only code ever in use and is not synonymous with the telegraph. Having said that, you could probably raise the same issue about the electric telegraph article. SpinningSpark 15:56, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Morse was in use for radio long after the decline of the wired telegraph system. There's not a good link. Number774 (talk) 12:40, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Radiotelegraphy went into decline for the same reason that wired telegraphy went into decline: voice communication became widely available and made it obsolete. The fact that RT survived longer than wired does not invalidate my argument that the decline of Morse was a result of the decline of telegraph. SpinningSpark 19:35, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

"Stop"

Does anyone else think its odd the word "stop" (used in place of a period, since the early language didn't have a code for a period) doesn't appear anywhere in the article? --RThompson82 (talk) 02:02, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

Was the usage of "stop" to denote a full stop (period) part of Morse code itself, or was it a convention among operators? —C.Fred (talk) 03:40, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

"A telegraph" or "the telegraph"?

User:Glrx changed "Morse, a telegraph inventor" to "Morse, an inventor of the telegraph". I think this should be reverted, but as I am responsible for the original wording I'm posting here first. There have been a number of different telegraph systems in commercial use, and many, many more invented but never got past prototype or proof of concept. Morse was not the first in either category, so describing him as an inventor of the telegraph is misleading. SpinningSpark 13:39, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

I'm no expert on the subject. Spinningspark's edit removed several inventor names (Cooke, Wheatstone, Gale, Vail). My primary objection to "a telegraph inventor" was about numerosity; it implies a large set of inventors rather than a small set identified in the explicit list or an implication of gifted persons. I was less concerned with "the", but that article may still be appropriate. There are many inventors, but Morse was the single wire, relay amplified, on-off timed system that was the successful telegraph. See Samuel F. B. Morse#Litigation over telegraph patent. Glrx (talk) 16:48, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

I removed the other names partly because that is going well off the topic of Morse code, but primarily because the claim that Morse "shared" the invention is patently false. Morse did not invent the telegraph. He is not even close to being the first, or one even one of the first. He invented a particular design of telegraph, as you say, the relay-repeated telegraph. That telegraph eventually became the world dominant system, but not immediately. A one-wire version of the Cooke and Wheatstone telegraph was popular in Europe and some sets remained in use well into the twentieth century.

Writing that Cooke was an inventor of the telegraph is akin to writing that Boeing was an inventor of the aeroplane. We would not write that. Not even if it were true that Boeing came to compleely dominate the commercial aircraft market. We would write instead that he was an aeroplane inventor. That is also the right way to refer to Morse, he was a telegraph inventor. SpinningSpark 17:41, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 15 December 2017

Please fix this bug/typo, under the Section "Symbol representations", subsection "Exclamation mark": The KW digraph is correct, but the following code in parenthesis is wrong. It should be "(-.-.--)", not "(-.---)". 173.79.48.2 (talk) 15:14, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

Done There was a typo in the Morse code template, a "dot" was typed as "dat" resulting in a dot not being represented. Thank you for the catch. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 21:00, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request for ";", KW, and "É" vs "Đ"

Please cut and paste text "Not in ITU-R recommendation" into table in Morse code#Letters, numbers, punctuation, ... section, line for ";". (Amazing, but true. I checked ITU-R M.1677-1 from Oct 2009.)

Please cut and paste text "Not in ITU-R recommendation" into table in Morse code#Letters, numbers, punctuation, ... section, line for KW. ( I checked ITU-R M.1677-1 from Oct 2009.)

This is the first time that I've seen NY=KW=CM, which is a welcome discovery; could you please add a source for the code? You might want to include the "backwards J" exclamation point (---·) if anyone uses that; I've seen it in books as a U.S. & Caribbean local code but never heard it on-air.

This is tricky: É is the one-and-only accented character included in the ITU-R M.1677-1 from Oct 2009; all the rest are national variants. So on the line for Đ, for example, Đ is not in the ITU-R, but the É listed in the same line is. The following is my estimate of the least tedious way to get this across:

Please cut-and-paste Morse code#Letters, numbers, punctuation, ... in the lines for Đ, É, Ę the text "É is the only accented character included in ITU-R recommendation."

• Comment: I added this last message to all instances of the letter É, 3 x's in total. The other appurtenant messages were added as well. Spintendo ᔦᔭ 05:38, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

It would be even more Encyclopedic to stick in ref-links for each and every particular character from the local national standard that uses it. However I have not found any such yet: Just old code-training pamphlets (incl. ARRL) which do not cite any authorities. (Many do, however, list the characters into language sets, like the Esperanto Morse set, to give context for the overlapping codes used for marked letters.) AstroTomical (talk) 23:29, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

Partially implemented Everything except the following:

1. NY=KW=CM not implemented — I dont have the source code.
2. Nor do I have access to any loc nat standards.

Regards, Spintendo ᔦᔭ 13:03, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scFR4sYnVDc <- nokia SMS tone. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.45.245.137 (talk) 05:58, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Conflicting Source

I came across the following, which has some significant differences with the signs as given in this article. I'm not a Morse expert (actually, I was just working on designing a font) so I have no real knowledge of the sources for this page, but this seems to show a version of Continental Morse which differs in the letters O, P, X, Y, Z, and numerals from that given in the chart in this article. The linked version corresponds to the International Morse standard, which makes sense given that it is what International Morse was derived from. (did a writer in 1912 assume they were the same?)

https://earlyradiohistory.us/1912code.htm

Worldwalker (talk) 13:39, 19 August 2018 (UTC)