Morse is Dead?
Dear Don,
Back to the days when Morse was used as a serious and primary means of communication and no commercial operator would use anything other than a straight key or a cootie. The natural rhythms of ‘real’ Morse a mirror of speech and thought. A joy to send and a joy to read. Long before the metronomic tedium of electronic paddles conquered the world.
But today in an amateur world obsessed with speed and operators naively thinking of paddles as ‘perfect’ Morse, the airwaves are swamped by anything but. And each new generation of transceiver makes the skill more redundant. Morse sent at the touch of a button, callsigns displayed on a waterfall screen, contest numbers sent automatically.
And so, sadly, Morse is dead. Just another digital mode under computer control in bands swamped by endless contests, which are little more than demonstrations of technology. Yet another human skill killed by computers. “Oh you Luddite − it’s progress!” I hear you cry. Technological progress − true. But it wounds my human soul to see how low our once great hobby has become. And to see people who never knew the joy of ‘real’ Morse rejoice in their paddles and bugs and keyboards and computers, unaware of the world they have killed.
It is too late. Each year that lucky band, the few who knew the joy of real Morse, gets smaller and smaller. And when they’ve gone no-one will remember. All that will remain is a diminished world of keyboards, PF keys, computer decoders, and soulless electronic paddles until finally, one by one, the paddle-jockeys go SK, and all that will remain is another digimode.
Like the Aztecs and Incas Morse will fade into legend until even that memory will finally die.
I leave you with a final thought − have you ever wondered why the very best, fastest, and most skilled morse over the last century was sent by operators using nothing more than a polished hack-saw blade set into a piece of wood?
Edward Martin M5UF
( Editor’s comment: I think one of the reasons for Morse dying out is that many of the post-war Morse operators learned their trade in the Forces or the Merchant Navy, as indeed I believe you did, neither of which trains Morse operators any more. So, yes, hand-sent Morse probably is on the decline. That said, I happen to think I send pretty good Morse with a paddle! And in the Portishead Radio book that I reviewed a couple of months back, it’s quite clear that many professional operators were more than happy to use an electronic key. I can understand that – my own ‘conversion’ to using a paddle came after using a straight key in a 48-hour contest. My wrist ached for the following week! So, I wouldn’t have wanted to be a professional operator using a straight key for several hours every day!)