Sandy wrote: >Even prisoners used it in prison camps by tapping on walls or pipes.
I don't think International Morse serves very effectively when the characters must be simple taps. How does the receiving operator tell if a tap is supposed to be a dash? In my experience, I'd say it can't be done. The tap code that was used by our POWs in N. Vietnam was not remotely related to any kind of Morse. It began with 25 of the 26 letters (c was used in place of k) arranged in a five by five array. It took a pair of up to five taps each to pick the intended letter from the array. For example, 2 taps (down array) followed by 5 taps (across array) found a H at that location in the array. This system has the distinct advantage of almost instant usability by untrained people, plus there's no need to know how long a tap is held. See history and detail at: http://www.airsoftgent.be/dbase/tapcode.htm . Don wrote: >The 'prosigns' listed in 1994 are: QRL?, CQ, AR, K, KN, BK, R, AS, SK, >and CL ... The source is wrong in considering any Q-signal as a prosign. I greatly prefer the simple, logical usage of military Morse over the idiosyncratic flourishes of which so many hams seem proud. That is what I have always used on the ham bands. The only prosigns used to end a transmission of military Morse are: K Over (used when a response is expected from the other station) AR Out (used when no response is expected from the other stations) These two are NEVER used together...it's always one OR the other. What more does one need? If it worked for military Morse, I doubt that ham hobbyist Morse requirements would demand something more elaborate. There is NO value in the ham hobbyist tendency to sprinkle other and often multiple pointless prosigns on the end of a transmission. The use of CL, KN, BK, or the use of both AR and K at the end of the same transmission is nonsense. Jim wrote: >"....ES PSE QSL KK5F DE N2EY K" >meaning "go ahead any station" In my experience, there is almost no value in indicating that you want only the called station to respond, by using the KN prosign. In 38 years operating ham and MARS Morse (before MARS banned Morse ten years ago), I've always used K and I've never had chaos result there from. Besides, KN sent properly is actually a left parenthesis. >But "BK" is used in rapid-fire exchanges >*without* the formal callsign exchange: >".....FB MOJO OM BT IS UR RIG A K2 or K1? BK Once again...a simple K serves even better. There is no usage rule that states that K must only be used following a call sign. 73 all! Mike / KK5F _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
