CRACKING THE CODE

Cracking the Code It is worth noting that Vail himself In the end the nations of northern Europe would Next came the even bigger challenge

Morse Code as an everyday communication device may have did not claim ownership of the code, which increasingly became known as come together to defeat the Barbary Pirate menace, and when an Anglo-Dutch fleet shelled Algiers of linking the USA with Europe, and by 1858 a cable was laid and messages sent been superseded some time ago, but it leaves a lasting legacy for today’s boaters. ‘Morse’s Code’. There was, though, far more to Samuel Morse’s involvement, as he knew that the physical properties thousands of slaves would finally be released. Image: Everett Collection/Shutterstock back and forth, only for the cable to break and the American Civil War to delay the laying of a new cable. of a telegraph line quickly degraded Unfortunately for Morse, although he the transmitted signal, meaning that held a number of patents on both his messages could only be sent over short code and the in-line repeaters, many of distances of just a few miles. As a these were simply ignored, forcing Morse consequence, an even greater innovation into repeated court actions in order to from Morse would be his creation of the maintain his ownership of the system he in-line repeater signal, which he worked had worked so hard to introduce. to perfect. Changing times In reality Already, though, the development of However, having the idea was one ‘wireless’ communication (i.e. radio) thing, putting it into practice would was already sweeping away what just be more difficult until, with US a few years earlier had been leading Government backing, in 1844 Morse edge technology. By the end of the as able to construct an experimental 19th century, although the wireless network that ran alongside the transmission of voice was still a railroad tracks between Washington technical challenge, Morse code was and Baltimore, a distance of some working well, not just for ground based 38 miles. stations but at sea on ships. The first demonstration transmission By 1905 the outcome of the Sinowas a biblical quotation (“What Japanese war was in part determined hath God wrought”), and with the by ship borne radio, with the use of a combination of the Morse Code and the scouting screen of warships able to line repeater, the telegraph network was report back on the location, speed and launched the following year. In less than direction of the enemy fleet. five years, some 12,000 miles of wire Such was that pace of change that were erected. just five years later, messages were being successfully transmitted in Morse from an airship. Wireless telegraphy would become so engrained into the military that it is hard to envisage how a modern, mobile mechanised war such as the 1939-45 conflict could have been fought without the use of Morse’s code. The key thing was that it did not matter which language the original message was in, as for Morse code they are all one and the same, as the dots and dashes just represent the letters of the alphabet.

Sending Morse Code using a telegraph. Image: Everett Collection / Shutterstock

Apart from the stunning Barrington Pheloung theme music to the TV Detective series ‘Morse’, which features the letters of the lead character’s name being tapped out repeatedly to underscore the main musical notes, the chirpy dots and dashes of the Morse Code are virtually unknown today.

Even the famous ‘SOS’ signal comprising three dots, followed by three dashes, then three more dots, has been replaced by the DSC Distress call, as today the idea of Morse Code fades like fax machines into the category of ‘how we used to do things’.

Such is the pace of technological change that the commercial use of Morse Code would last for just over 150 years. However, that period would encompass the whole history of long-distance communications, from the earliest days of electromagnetic telegraphy to the almost infinite capacity of today’s connectivity, either via fibre optics or increasingly courtesy of a satellite link.

There would be some amazing innovations surrounding the very first telegraphs, with clever combinations of electrical pointers that together indicated a letter in the alphabet. What was needed, though, was a faster and more robust method of sending the characters more quickly, along fewer wires. Art of inventing The big surprise is that the innovative mind that would solve this issue would not be one from a classic engineering background, but instead would come from the fine arts.

For the first 40 years of his life, Samuel Finley Breese Morse had developed from his early life at home at Charlestown, Massachusetts into a painter of extraordinary talents. At the age of 20 he came to study in the UK, where he would be admitted into the Royal Academy.

As his talents and reputation as a painter grew, Morse would travel, firstly home to the US, then back to the UK and Europe. It was on a return voyage home in 1832 that he encountered a fellow traveller, Bostonian Charles Jackson, who was conducting a number of experiments in the field of using electro-magnetism to transmit messages.

Morse became involved in the topic and over the next few years he worked to develop a code that could be used for transmitting numbers, but not letters. Each three or four digit number would refer to a word, which would have to be looked up in a dictionary so that the received message could be decoded.

Morse also completed further work in conjunction with another American innovator, Alfred Vail, who some believe is the true author of the dot and dash code, although in 1838 Vail wrote to his father that “Morse has invented a new plan of an alphabet and has thrown aside his directories”.

“The dash was often referred to as an ‘umpty’ from which today we have the word ‘umpteen’.”

Image: Everett Collection / Shutterstock

Going digital Yet the demands of wartime would also drive the rapid development of more practical radio sets that come peacetime would be small and robust enough for use at sea in the leisure yachting market. All that was left was for the world to go digital and the end would be in sight for Morse’s wonderful code, though amateur radio ‘hams’ would still reach out across the airwaves with their dots and dashes.

On 12 July 1999, the final US commercial message transmitted by Morse code was sent, which was then followed by the same “What hath God Wrought” that had introduced the service some 155 years earlier.

The ‘dit – di – dah - dit’ sounds may be no more, but we are left with one addition to our everyday vocabulary: back in the days of Morse, the dash was often referred to as an ‘umpty’ from which today we have the word ‘umpteen’. This may be a small reminder, but it is one of a big development that was the start of us All images: Andrew Wisemanbeing connected, wherever we are.