It's been nearly a week that I have gotten myself immersed into learning something new, exciting and completely out of my area of interests. I have always found the functioning of Morse Code very intriguing and brilliant. When I watched The imitation Game and learnt about the Enigma machine, I couldn’t help but wonder at the brilliance of a human mind.
It never occurred to me that maybe I actually can take active steps to understand how the morse code works haha!
So, What is a Morse Code?
It is a method of relaying encoded text electronically which is represented by dots and dashes or dits and dahs.
In 1825, Samuel Morse (a portrait painter) was commissioned to paint a portrait in Washington, DC while he was in New York. While Morse was painting, he received a letter telling that his wife had not been in good health. After receiving another letter about her death he reached home only to find her already buried. He was heart broken because of this which is what led to the invention of a method which could immediately allow people to communicate with each other instead of depending on such slow ones. By the mid 1830s he along with his partner Alfred Lewis Vail had developed and improved this technology.
So how does one identify what is a letter, word or space?
- Every dot and dashes that makes up a letter is separated by a length of time which equals a "dot".
- Letters are separated by a length of time which equals 3 dots.
- Words are separated by a length of time which equals 7 dots.
I have come across 3-4 mnemonics of memorising the alphabets and numbers and just that seemed pretty cool to me. 1 among them was a verbal mnemonic where you associate each alphabet with a word, break it down into pieces and match them with how they would sound according to the dots and dashes of that particular alphabet. It's a little difficult to explain this via text so if you guys wanna understand, you can check out the following video.
Another more effecient and easier way which has helped me was the audio-visual way. A video on Youtube suggested this fantastic website which has a phone version and a desktop version for it's users. It first teaches each alphabet, connects it to an imagery, then after a few seconds asks the user to tap in the code without any hint.
For example: The alphabet "A" is shown with an archer bow which consists the code for it: ._
The system keeps introducing new alphabets when the older alphabets have been practised plenty of time. This has been the most effective way for me because I can understand the spaces between letters and alphabets and now I remember how some of the alphabets would sound in Morse. Of course the best way is to actual send and receive such encoded text but for this level I am very happy with it. It's only increasing my knowledge so no harm there :)
Did You Know? The blinking light atop the tower spells out the word "Hollywood" in Morse code.
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Lots Of Love <3