[CQ-Contest] Dead horse

[David Robbins K1TTT]

Not so fast there... continental and then morse codes have been copied by
machine since the very beginning.  It was only later as they speeded up that
they diverged with 'high speed' baudot code that was not amenable to copy by
ear splitting with the slower Morse code that was designed to be more easily
copied by ear... but the original mechanism was to scribe marks in a strip
of paper showing the characters that were then transcribed to text... for a
good example look at:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f1/The_First_Telegraph.jpg
where you can see the transmitted dots and dashes up the middle of the strip
with the text transcription at the bottom.  More info at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegraphy#Electrical_telegraphs

So don't go separating Morse and Baudot as if they were completely different
things.  Morse, or the continental code, were just slow speed predecessors
of Baudot, ASCII, and other modern character digital coding schemes.  So it
only makes sense to copy Morse code by computer as a natural extension and
improvement on the early mechanical transcription methods.

Voice modes were of course meant to be copied by ear, though that was not
our doing... copying voice by machine is now possible, though still a
developing science.  I expect it won't be long before an ssb skimmer comes
out, though I suspect that a significantly more powerful computer will be
needed to run it.


David Robbins K1TTT
e-mail: mailto:k1ttt at arrl.net
web: http://www.k1ttt.net
AR-Cluster node: 145.69MHz or telnet://dxc.k1ttt.net
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: cq-contest-bounces at contesting.com [mailto:cq-contest-
> bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Zack Widup
> Sent: Friday, March 14, 2008 15:49
> To: cq-contest at contesting.com
> Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Dead horse
> 
> 
> The original purpose of Morse and all voice modes was to be copied by ear.
> The original purpose of Baudot RTTY and all digital modes after that was
> to be copied by machine.
> 
> If someone wants to try to copy CW with a machine, best of luck to them.
> It just wasn't intended that way in the first place and I for one won't do
> it.
> 
> I do use a keyer paddle to send CW but I don't even care for
> keyboard-generated CW. The keyer paddle was a natural extension of the bug
> (I still own one of those, too, and use it on rare occasions.) Maybe I'm
> just an Olde Fahrt.
> 
> 73, Zack W9SZ
> 
> 
> On Fri, 14 Mar 2008, W4ZW wrote:
> 
> >> The idea of a machine copying code for me is an affront to everthing
> I've
> tried to achieve
> > as a CW operator.
> > But now that Skimmer is loose on the World it's time to evolve, adapt,
> or
> perish.
> > 73 Steve K0SR
> 
> I agree.
> 
> This seems to be another tempest in a teapot to me.  CW, and those of us
> who
> cherish the mode, are rapidly heading for extinction.  More and more of my
> old CW buddies are becoming SK's and there aren't many replacements.  I
> say
> that if we have some source of technology that will give us a few more
> years
> of CW operating, I'm all for it.  Whether some OP copies me with his CW
> reader and sends CW from his keyboard doesn?t really matter, it's still CW
> from my end.  And after 53 years of enjoying CW,  I'd like just a few
> more.
> 
> My 2 cents.
> 
> 
> 
> Jon Hamlet, W4ZW
> 
> Casey Key Island, Florida
> "A little piece of paradise in the Gulf of Mexico"
> 
> 
> 
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> 
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