MAARC September Club Meeting
Our program was about the technology revolution of Electromagnetic Telegraphy, and was presented by Jim Wades, WB8SIW. Jim is a railroad and telegraphy buff and brought along many pieces of old time telegraphy equipment. Just a few of the notable dates that Jim presented:
1844 – The first public demonstration of Electromagnetic Telegraphy.
1846 – Telegraphers learned to copy “by ear.”
1856 – 13 individual telegraph companies merged to form Western Union.
1876 – The telephone was invented by Alexander Graham Bell.
1883 – the Railroads, Naval Observatory, and Western Union institute nationwide “time service” and standardized time zones.
1904 – Horace Martin developed the Vibroplex key which allowed greatly increased sending speed.
1950’s – Railroads begin to replace manual Morse with teletype (TTY).
International vs. Morse Code
Morse code includes spaced characters and 3 “dash” durations.
Sounder – listening to the time between “key down” and “key up” clicks, rather than tones.
International code was developed at the time of the Transatlantic Cable. The distance made spaced characters difficult to read.
Several of our ham codes have come from Western Union, things like: 73 – best regards; 88 – love. These codes were used to speed the messages by reducing the number of characters sent.
Phillip’s Code – Developed by Walter Phillips of the Associated Press.
F = of the
GG = going
TT = that
POTUS = President of the United States
Allowed an effective speed of 50-60 words per minute.
Many of our prosigns were adopted from the Morse and Press codes.
For more information on Telegraphy:
Morse Telegrapher’s Club – established 1946.
Their oldest member started with the railroad in 1919, and is still active at age 104.
http://members.tripod.com/morse_telegraph_club/
Jim is planning to have a display at the Holland Super Swap on October 22.
Thank you to Jim for such an interesting and informative display.
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