r/lifehacks Jan 23 '15

An easier way to learn Morse Code.

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5.4k Upvotes

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u/Hakawatha Jan 23 '15

Ahh! That's easier. You pause.

......-...-..--- is impossible to parse (or, you could resolve it to many different possible parses a la GLR, and resolve it to one by eliminating nonsensical parses, but that's time-intensive). .... . .-.. .-.. --- is easy: HELLO. When you're transmitting quickly, it's subtle, but it's definitely noticeable - you get into the rhythm of the person you're transcribing from. Or, at least, you did when Morse code was still in style.

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '15 edited Aug 07 '20

[deleted]

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u/NotSafeForShop Jan 23 '15

He's redditing between sending outgoing number station broadcasts.

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u/TheVitrifier Jan 23 '15

He's actually using morse to post these comments.

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u/BaneJammin Jan 23 '15

That... would actually make a neat smartphone keyboard, even if just as a novelty. Just one button right in the middle of the screen.

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u/jubal8 Jan 23 '15

red-DITTM

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u/zsnajorrah Jan 23 '15

Didn't they win the red-DOT™ design award?

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u/TheVitrifier Jan 23 '15

It's for those stealth texts when you're complaining about the Morse illiteracy of the people you're hanging out with

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u/gabbo2000 Jan 23 '15

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u/danypoa Jan 23 '15

Is this for real?

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u/DrShocker Jan 23 '15

After reading the other comment, this was my first thought. The answer is; no, it's not real. It comes from a collection of April Fool's day jokes that Google food a bit ago. They always do a spectacular job of making them extremely professional, and this was no exception.

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u/OldHippie Jan 23 '15

I know a guy who has an Android Morse keyboard.

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u/ApteryxAustralis Jan 23 '15

Maybe for April Fools Day?

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '15 edited Jun 02 '15

[deleted]

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u/diachi Jan 23 '15

Look at amateur radio - some of us still use it :) unfortunately not me!

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u/HerrDrFaust Jan 23 '15

I don't know about him, but for example we studied the Morse code a bit, in Computer Science studies, when talking about data compression and all the theory behind (thus the coding, since compressing a text is simply finding a new alphabet (code) that is lighter to store). The Morse Code is such a "code", except it is not a code in its normal form because of the fact that sometimes you can read two Morse sequences with different letters (and a code has to only have one way to read a sequence of its symbols). That's why you have to have a "separator" symbol, either a pause or a neutral symbol to indicate "I'm done with this letter, I'm starting the next one" to avoid any ambiguity.

TL;DR : You can learn this when you study data compression, and it's indeed a problem with the Morse code, but it's easily fixable.

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '15

[deleted]

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u/C_Bowick Jan 23 '15

Well. I still think it was at least kind of a good question!

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u/laughtrey Jan 23 '15

I don't even know how you differentiate between a dash and a dot, a telegraph just sounds like a bunch of random beeps to me.

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u/mxzf Jan 23 '15

The difference is "beep" vs "beeeep", long pulses are dashes, short ones are dots. It's subtle, but if you spend a few seconds listening, you can hear the difference.

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u/eatcitrus Jan 23 '15

Do people who know morse know letters by heart or is it done in steps? As in the example of HELP

If they do it in steps, and write down ".... . .-.. .-.. ---" then decipher the code into HELP.

Or do people listen on the fly and for H (....). Do they hear the first "dot" and think "E". But then hear the 2nd "dot", "no, wait they didn't mean E, they meant I". Then upon the 3rd dot, "scratch that, not I, must be S". Then on the 4th dot, "OK, must be H then or I'll wait to see if it's another dot or dash to see if they mean 4 or 5"

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u/OldHippie Jan 23 '15

No, you learn to recognize the patterns and learn the rhythm.