Greetings.
Wednesday 25 September 2019 is the 212th birthday of Alfred Vail. While Samuel F. B. "Finley" Morse is correctly credited with conceiving and parenting the telegraph as a communication system - the global wired information network and business - the details of how information was to be passed across that network, using human operators, was largely the work of his partner, Alfred Vail. In other words, Morse invented the "electro-magnetic telegraph," but Vail was "The First Telegrapher." Among other things, Vail invented the straight key, the up/down printing register (which first revealed the signals as "dots and dashes"), discovered "copy-by-ear" (listening to the thunking of his printing register), and authored "American Morse" (to increase efficiency and throughput using his keys and printers). Vail may also have invented the original dot-dash alphabet, which was used for some early demonstrations, and was at worst its co-author. I'm writing a book about all that, hoping to pierce the fog of time and render our understanding more clearly. But one thing was abundantly clear: Morse's telegraph was the first "smart device" - made so by the inclusion of the telegrapher's mind as an integral component of the system - performing "copy by ear." This gave it a critical market advantage early on when line quality was terrible, and mechanical reliability poor. As a matter of the greatest irony, until its inevitability was forced upon him by those economic realities, and the weight of telegraphers almost universally practicing it, Morse was strongly opposed to copy-by-ear because it diminished the importance of "permanent printouts," which were a key distinguishing feature of his original invention and the original patents. You see, Morse never imagined copy-by-ear would happen, or that it was important. Vail lived it. So: I'm commemorating Vail's birthday by using a replica of Vail's straight key for all QSOs on the 25th, and I'll be calling "CQ VVV." There's a picture on my QRZ page. The key works well up into the low 20s, but I'm always happy to QRS. Feel free to join in and send some Vs yourself! Hope to work you on the air! Oh, and I'll be using a K3 and KPA500...:-) 73 Chris NW6V ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
