Morse: point, line and leader
declared dead at least three times in a century, the binary code of communication
world's most famous still survives and serves instead first of all thanks to ham radio. Who have used with good results in the last global problem: the earthquake in Haiti
of James Gambassi
Future
September 12, 2010 They had given up already in the first part of the twentieth century, when the warmth of the voice received from a mobile metal had replaced the ticking of the telegraph and its long strips of paper. Was considered a step from the end of the broadcast also in 1932, when the British Post Office had ruled: Morse code was officially abandoned (although, then, the United States and Australia have resisted till the sixties). It was sung again de Profundis in 2005, when the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) had cut down the last bastion that seemed to keep him in life was no longer necessary to know the language of the pioneers of communication for obtaining the license for amateur radio.
And instead, the era of email, smartphones and twitter, is still alive and kicking the alphabet consisting of dots and lines that bears the name of the inventor of the telegraph, the American painter Samuel Morse (pictured above ). A binary code created in the first half of that to a certain extent anticipated the bit, the soul in two digits (zero and the one) of computers and the internet, and that for decades combined cable or terrestrial villages and continents, he did get telegrams and news agency reports the newspaper editors, he led the ships on the seas and, unfortunately, has announced the tragedies, like those three points, three lines and three more points launched the SOS from the Titanic sinking in 1912, ran into an iceberg. (In fact, the operator of the Titanic passed CQD mGy which was followed by the callsign of the ship ed.).
In fact, a precursor of the "global village" Marshall McLuhan theorized, that today continues to be a slang media despite the retirement age. They are the custodians of over two million radio amateurs around the world, with antennas installed on the roof and transmitters implanted in the basement or living room are connected through those waves converted from Bologna Guglielmo Marconi in a conveyor belt of electrical signals.
"The Morse - says the president of 'amateurs International Union, the Canadian Timothy Ellam - remains a very popular among hobbyists. Although no longer a requirement under the regulations worldwide, is still to be investigated. " How to say it is not mere survival. Moreover, the telegraph code is, for example, the language of emergencies. "You know exactly who listened through headphones, last January, the communications on the earthquake in Haiti ', says Marcello Vella, 52, an official of Municipality of Palermo and, in his spare time, president of the 'European Radioamateurs Association (Era), which counts 450 members in Italy ready to intervene in the radio link of civil protection. And the reasons for this return to the past, when the water is in my throat, I'm not sentimental. "The Morse allows you to send or receive messages in conditions of limited bandwidth - Dennis recounts Franklin, 65, of Fremont, California -. Not only that. When background noise is high and it is difficult to understand a voice broadcast on the radio, Morse allows dialogue. In addition, there are no accents or dialects that are typical of human language. "
Franklin is one of the ten thousand members of ' International Morse Preservation Society , the association founded in 1987 to preserve the English alphabet Geo Longden of mass media sources. A network of friends spread around the world who consider the old code "almost an art form," and he calls the "heroes" Morse and Marconi. One of their fist icon is open, because this is the form taken by the hand when beating on the wooden button with which they transmit impulses.
course, to the sound of the alarm points and lines are not only assigned to the ether. Morse is still taught in first aid or universities (including Italian): just scroll down the curriculum a "master in advanced rescue in emergency non-hospital" for encountering the language of the telegraph as a learning system. However, if you are in danger, a message that follows the historical table can be sent with the flags, with a flashing light with a mirror reflecting the sun, with a whistle. And even with a hammer. As they had done in the summer of 2000 the sailors of the Russian atomic submarine "Kursk" sank in the Barents Sea: unable to use the radio, on Aug. 10 struck the door with a metal hull and transmitted through the bite out their demands help. A demonstration of how the language created by the painter-inventor is versatile and allows essential communications in extreme situations.
"In the emergency radio - added Vella - the old code is, by its characteristics, the safest way to send information over long distances, even if you do not know the language of the correspondent." Yes, because the Morse goes hand in hand with international abbreviations that represent a sort of "English" Universal before its time, capable of being understood in every corner of the planet. This is the case of the Code Q, which in three letters (the first is always the Q) condenses phrases. So when you want to ask 'what is your name? ", Just type QRA? Or, if you want to say that" I received " a text is written QSL. "There are, then, other names very much appreciated - says Dennis Franklin - The 73 stands for" Greetings "and CUL for" see you later. " This is how to contact an Italian friend even though he does not know your language. "
And that Morse is not just a piece of antiquity is proved by the update of its character map. Nearly two centuries after the birth, entered in the alphabet to tick the snail, key to e-mail. The revision was decided some years ago by the ITU to bridge the gap created by new technologies, using the sequence of letters A and C without spaces that describe the @. A choice that seems to invoke the operation of the Lexicon recentis Latinitatis, the dictionary published by Libreria Editrice Vaticana updating the language of Cicero. In fact, a little 'as the Church keeps alive the Latin, so Marconi today have adopted the code as a privileged language of their fathers. And the telegraph in the Lexicon is termed a 'scribe telegraphicus.
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The translator morse
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