Re: RR Code

Quote

Unfortunately that got off to a bad start with a
poster showing "Morse Code" which is actually the radio code !!!
That will be fixed I assure you.

I noticed the sign on Saturday when I rode, and mentioned to my son that they had the wrong code. I was going to try to backchannel John Cole about it, so I'm pleased to hear you guys have already caught this. "Radio code", actually International Morse, is what I learned as a ham. The American Morse used by the RR's has some minor differences.

Interestingly, one other difference that's not so minor is reading code from a sounder. For those who don't know, Morse is not learned by memorizing which dots and dashes signify which letters, but by learning the distinct sound patterns. In radio work, those patterns are in the form of tones, but with a RR type sounder, it's clicks and clacks. When I hear Morse tones, I immediately hear letters and even whole words, but when I hear a sounder, it's gibberish to me. I expect its the same for a RR telegrapher listening to Morse on the radio.

Now I wish I could "read" a sounder.

Scott