1911 Chart of the Standard American Morse Characters (now obsolete)

American Morse Code — also known as Railroad Morse — is is the latter-day name for the now-obsolete version of the Morse Code specification originally developed in the mid-1840s, by Samuel Morse and Alfred Vail for their electric telegraph. The "American" qualifier was added because, after most of the rest of the world adopted "International Morse Code", the companies that continued to use the original Morse Code were mainly located in the United States. American Morse is now nearly extinct — it is most frequently seen in American railroad museums and U.S. Civil War re-enactments — and "Morse Code" today virtually always means the International Morse which supplanted American Morse. Image File history File links Amercode. ... It has been suggested that Farnsworth method and Koch method be merged into this article or section. ... Portrait of Samuel F. B. Morse by Mathew Brady, between 1855 and 1865 Samuel Finley Breese Morse (April 27, 1791 – April 2, 1872) was an American inventor, and painter of portraits and historic scenes; he is most famous for inventing the electric telegraph and Morse code. ... Alfred Lewis Vail (September 25, 1807 - January 18, 1859) was a machinist and inventor. ... Telegraphy (from the Greek words tele = far away and grapho = write) is the long distance transmission of written messages without physical transport of letters, originally over wire. ...

History

American Morse Code was first used on a telegraph line constructed between Baltimore, Maryland, and the old Supreme Court chamber in the Capitol building in Washington, DC. The first message "What hath God wrought" was sent on May 24, 1844 by Morse in Washington to Alfred Vail at the B&O Railroad "outer depot" (now the B&O railroad museum) in Baltimore, Maryland. The message is a Bible verse from Numbers 23:23, chosen for Morse by Annie Ellsworth, daughter of the Governor on Connecticut. The original paper tape received by Vail in Baltimore is on display in the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. Flag Seal Nickname: Monument City, Charm City, Mob Town, B-more Motto: Get In On It (formerly The City That Reads and The Greatest City in America; BELIEVE is not the official motto but rather a specific campaign) Location Location of Baltimore in Maryland Coordinates , Government Country State County United... Aerial photo (looking NW) of the Washington Monument and the White House in Washington, DC. Washington, D.C., officially the District of Columbia (also known as D.C.; Washington; the Nations Capital; the District; and, historically, the Federal City) is the capital city and administrative district of the United... May 24 is the 144th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (145th in leap years). ... Jan. ... This Gutenberg Bible is displayed by the United States Library of Congress. ...

In its original implementation, the Morse Code specification included the following:

1. short mark or dot (·)
2. longer mark or dash (—)
3. intra-character gap (standard gap between the dots and dashes in a character)
4. short gap (between letters)
5. medium gap (between words)
6. long gap (between sentences)
7. long intra-character gap (longer internal gap used in C, O, R, Y, Z and &)
8. "long dash" (——, the letter L)
9. even longer dash (———, the numeral 0)

Various other companies and countries soon developed their own variations of the original Morse Code. Of special importance was one standard, originally created in Germany in 1848, which was simpler—it eliminated the long intra-character spaces and the two long dashes—but also included changes in the sequences for eleven of the letters and most of the numerals. The modified version was adopted as the European standard in 1865, and was known at first as "Continental Morse", although as its use spread it also became known as "International Morse". At this point the original Morse Code started to be called American Morse, to differentiate between the two main standards.

In the late 1890s, radio communication—initially known as "wireless telegraphy"—was invented, and used Morse Code transmissions. Most radio operators used the version of the Code that they were most familiar with—the American Morse Code in the United States, and Continental Morse in Europe. However, because of the long range of radio signals, a single international standard was needed, especially for seagoing vessels.

At the Radiotelegraphic Convention meeting in London in 1912, the section of the Convention covering "Transmission of Radiograms" included the statement that "The signals to be employed are those of Morse International Code." Even after this, the original Morse Code continued to be used throughout much of the United States. American Morse remained the standard for U.S. landline telegraph companies, including the dominant company, Western Union, in part because the original code, with fewer dashes, could be sent about 5% faster than International Morse. American Morse also was commonly used for domestic radio transmissions on the Great Lakes, and along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. However, International Morse predominated for ocean-going vessels, and many U.S. shipboard operators became skilled in transmitting both versions of the Code as needed.

Later Developments

Over time, with the disappearance of landline telegraphs, and the end of commercial radio use of Morse Code, American Morse has become nearly extinct. In the United States, the ranks of amateur radio operators used to include many active and retired commercial landline telegraph operators, who preferred to use American Morse for their amateur radio transmissions, so the CW (continuous wave) amateur bands used to have a mixture of American and International Morse. However, today even U.S. amateurs use International Morse almost exclusively. A continuous wave (CW) is an electromagnetic wave of constant amplitude and frequency. ...

Comparison of American (obsolete) and International Morse

Note: All links with the loudspeaker icon ( ) are sound files for the international version of each symbol. See media help for assistance. Image File history File links Loudspeaker. ...

Image File history File links A_morse_code. ... Image File history File links N_morse_code. ... Image File history File links 0_number_morse_code. ... Image File history File links B_morse_code. ... Image File history File links O_morse_code. ... Image File history File links 1_number_morse_code. ... Image File history File links C_morse_code. ... Image File history File links P_morse_code. ... Image File history File links 2_number_morse_code. ... Image File history File links D_morse_code. ... Image File history File links Q_morse_code. ... Image File history File links 3_number_morse_code. ... Image File history File links E_morse_code. ... Image File history File links R_morse_code. ... Image File history File links 4_number_morse_code. ... Image File history File links F_morse_code. ... Image File history File links S_morse_code. ... Image File history File links 5_number_morse_code. ... Image File history File links G_morse_code. ... Image File history File links T_morse_code. ... Image File history File links 6_number_morse_code. ... Image File history File links H_morse_code. ... Image File history File links U_morse_code. ... Image File history File links 7_number_morse_code. ... Image File history File links I_morse_code. ... Image File history File links V_morse_code. ... Image File history File links 8_number_morse_code. ... Image File history File links J_morse_code. ... Image File history File links W_morse_code. ... Image File history File links 9_number_morse_code. ... Image File history File links K_morse_code. ... Image File history File links X_morse_code. ... Image File history File links L_morse_code. ... Image File history File links Y_morse_code. ... Image File history File links M_morse_code. ... Image File history File links Z_morse_code. ...

Common punctuation

A full stop or period, also called a full point, is the punctuation mark commonly placed at the end of several different types of sentences in English and several other languages. ... The term comma has various uses; comma is the name used for one of the punctuation symbols: , The term comma is also used in music theory for various small intervals that arise as differences between approximately equal intervals. ... ? redirects here. ... An apostrophe ( ’ ) is a punctuation and sometimes diacritic mark in languages written in the Latin alphabet. ... an exclamation mark An exclamation mark, exclamation point or bang, !, is usually used after an interjection or exclamation to indicate strong feeling. ... The slash A slash or stroke, /, is a punctuation mark. ... For the round brackets used in punctuation, often called parentheses, see bracket. ... This article or section is not written in the formal tone expected of an encyclopedia article. ... The colon (:) is a punctuation mark, visually consisting of two equally sized dots centered on the same vertical line. ... A semicolon ( ; ) is a punctuation mark. ... See also the disambiguation page title equality. ... A cake divided into four equal quarters. ... A hyphen ( -, or ‐ ) is a punctuation mark. ... The underscore _ is the character with ASCII value 95. ... For the Wikipedia quotation template, see here. ... Not to be confused with commercial art. ...

Notes

1. ^ a "dash" longer than that of an L
2. ^ ^{a b c d e f} "_" signifies a "space" which is part of the character
3. ^ a long "dash"
4. ^ The "@" symbol was added in 2004, and combines A and C into one character.

External links

• Samuel Morse's first "What hath God Wrought?" telegraph message, sent May 24, 1844 (American Morse recorded on a paper tape)
• Circa 1915 recording of an American Morse radio transmission
• Morse Telegraph Club, Inc.