A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE TELEGRAPH
Samuel Finley Breese Morse (1791-1872) was born in Charleston, Massachusetts.
He was talented as an artist in his youth. He studied art, mathematics and science at Yale College.
He considered electrical and chemical studies "instructive and amusing."
He graduated from Yale College in 1810 and decided to devote himself to the study of art and he went to
London in 1811 to study art there. By 1815 he had become recognized as an artist of considerable talent in
England and returned to the United States.
By 1825 he was also quite well known as a successful artist in this country.
In 1825 he returned to Europe for further study and stayed three years. On his return trip to the United States in
1832, during dinner conversations with a fellow passenger on the SS Sully, he became interested in science again
upon learning what he considered to be a very astounding fact: that electrical impulses (on and off conditions)
apparently traveled instantaneously (as far as then could be determined) over any known length of wire.
From that time on Morse could think of nothing else but how to put that phenomenon to use as a means of
communication. He completely abandoned his career in art, except for teaching, (to gain his living) in favor of
developing the "telegraph" -- a means of "writing" at a distance
He arrived home from his 1832 voyage aboard the SS Sully without funds. His brothers, Sidney and Richard gave
him a room on the top floor of a building they owned. There he lived and developed his ideas about how to build
the telegraph. He took a job at the, then new, University of New York teaching art. It was a poor-paying job
and he spent all the money he could get his hands on to work on his invention. One of his fellow professors,
Leonard D. Gale, became interested and helped him.
In those days one could not buy insulated magnet wire as we have today. He and any help he could get had to
wrap the bare wire with cotton thread for insulation, by hand, of course! They had a crude working model by 1837,
but investors found it interesting, even amusing but wouldn't invest in it. This may have been due to the "code"
system that he proposed using -- more on that later. One person watching the demonstration of this first, crude
model was a young student, Alfred Vail. His father and brother were owners of an iron and brass works in Speedwell,
New Jersey. Vail offered to manufacture a sturdier, more practical set of "instruments" for the telegraph.
He thereby became a partner with Morse with a quarter interest in the invention. The story has been told that
not only did Vail contribute to the success of the hardware, but that he had a hand in developing the two versions
of the "Morse code" as well.
In 1838 Morse tried to get Congress interested in funding a trial run of the telegraph but Congress refused funding
for it. He then went to Europe in 1840 and got no help there from either France or England. Back in the U.S.
he made an attempt to demonstrate his invention publicly in 1842. He had a specially made waterproofed cable
laid under water from the Battery in lower Manhattan to Governor's Island, just off the southern tip of Manhattan.
The newspapers carried an announcement of the demonstration and there was a crowd of on-lookers present and
all was ready to go, when a ship dropped anchor right over the cable and broke it before the demonstration could
get underway. The crowd went away angry, saying it was all a hoax.
Finally at the end of its session in 1843, Congress passed a bill appropriating $30,000 to test the telegraph.
A wire was strung from the Capitol Building in Washington to the City of Baltimore, Maryland. On May 24, 1844,
Morse sent the now famous message:
"WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT" [.-- .... .- - .... .- - .... --. . . -.. .-- . .. . . ..- --. .... -] over that wire.
After that, Morse and his telegraph quickly became famous throughout North America and Europe.
Morse's original concept was not based upon the idea that anyone could learn to read the code by ear.
His machine was designed to make marks on a moving paper tape in response to opens and closures of the
circuit made on the sending end of the line. These marks he called "dots." According to his early plans
(the 1837 model, no doubt) these dots would represent the numerals 0 through 9. [Note that this is similar to the
system used in many municipal fire-alarm box setups used to this day] Messages, according to this concept,
would then be composed of 5- or 6-digit numerals to identify words taken from a dictionary where each word
in the language would be identified by a number. The receiving operator would read the numbers off the tape and
look up their meanings in a copy of that dictionary. Vail, it is said, was the one who dissuaded Morse from that idea
in favor of a code where each letter would be represented by a unique combination of "dots" and "dashes" --
the latter just a longer mark on the tape. It is quite possible also that it was Vail and not Morse who designed that
code which now bears Morse's name. The first version of the code was like that of our International Morse code as
used today, but without numerals or punctuation. It is not clear how that version was exported to Europe:
perhaps in Morse's unsuccessful "sales" trip to France and England in 1840. But it is certain that when the telegraph
began to be used in Europe, that was the version that they used from the very beginning and it became known as
the Continental Morse Code. The numerals and punctuation were apparently added there, also.
Before the 1844 successful demonstration a different version of the Morse Code was developed, possibly by Vail,
but that is not certain. In this newer version the letters were represented by combinations of dots, dashes and spaces.
This version was somewhat faster than the original version. It is the one that Morse used in his 1844 demonstration
message. That version was used on all telegraph lines in the United States and later in Central and South America
and it became known as the American Morse Code. At this point I would like to dispel a common notion among radio
folks: that there is some reason that the American Morse, the landline code, can only be used on a sounder and the
Continental Morse (now the International Morse Code) can only be used with on-and-off tones. This is not the case,
either code can be used for either mode.
As I stated before, Morse had no idea that operators could learn to read (and make copy) of these dot-and-dash
signals by ear. It was only after the tape machines had been in use for some time that it was found that the operators
were writing the messages by sound rather than reading the marks off the tape, reading the clicks of the receiving
apparatus by ear! Soon a device called a sounder became the receiving device of choice in place of the moving tape
machines that Morse and his associates had labored so long to perfect.
To the untrained ear the telegraph sounder makes only a series of oddly spaced clicks and clacks, however,
the skilled operator can easily distinguish between the "down-click" and the "up-clack" and thereby sense the
length of the bit to determine whether it be a dot or a dash (or a long dash).
In the telegraph's heyday a skilled operator could make copy on a "mill" (typewriter) at 40 WPM or better,
right through the noise those old mechanical typewriters made themselves. In addition, by using Phillip's Code
(a set of abbreviations developed for that purpose) actual speeds up to well over 55 WPM were commonly achieved.
When using the Phillip's Code the receiving operator would "fill" the text, that is he would spell out the words in
full that came over the wire in abbreviated form. This mode was used by the various news-wire services in sending
"press." (news items) The public-correspondence telegraph companies, such as Western Union and Postal Telegraph,
however, spelled everything out in full in the texts of messages, including numerals and punctuation, a practice
continued to this day in amateur-radio message handling.
When "wireless" came along some 60 years after the invention of the landline version, American Morse was used in
the United States at first and the Continental Morse was used in Europe. Wireless signals (radio, of course) were
generated almost exclusively by some form of spark-gap generator and those spark signals greatly resembled natural
noise, especially atmospheric static (QRN).
It was found that the American version of the code with its spaces within some letters was more difficult to copy in
the presence of atmospherics. Actually, I believe there was a lot more to it than that, but none-the-less it was
decided that the Continental version of the code did a better job on wireless than the American (land-line) version
and so almost all wireless was carried on via the Continental Morse code. This happened well before the advent of
continuous-wave type signals generated by vacuum tubes, that later were used in the first successful amateur
trans-atlantic QSOs in the early 20's. It has been the only aurally copied code used for manual radio telegraphy
since that time, except for a few American-Morse buffs who use that code regularly on 80 meter CW.
Yes, it's legal for U.S. amateur use, provided the station ID (callsign) is sent in International Morse,
that being the name by which the Continental Code has been called since sometime in the early 30's.
Some of the things we do or say today in ham radio have their origins in landline telegraphy customs and jargon.
Laughter in American Morse was HO (.... . .) this has led to our rather silly HI (.... ..) in hamdom,
(omitting the internal space of the Morse letter O). Despite some sources' claim that our rather widely used OK
(or okay) came into use during the presidency of Martin VanBuren, (1782-1862) as an abbreviation of his nickname,
" Old Kindernook," I strongly dispute that, it was strictly a telegraphic signal and was not an abbreviation
for anything. No, "OK" was strictly a telegraph prosign, to use the modern designation. The signal UA (..- .-)
was used as a question, much as we use "OK?" today, and the affirmative answer was OK (. . -.-).
Because of the existence of such number signals as 73 and 88, one might imagine that there was a whole list of
such signals in general use, but I can find none. Oh, there were number signals used but in general they were
private codes used within certain systems and none of wide-spread use. The signal 73 (--.. ...-.) was originated by
a veteran telegrapher, James Douglas Reid, who called it the "symbol of fraternity," not "best regards," as it
is now generally accepted to mean. The signal 88, has no such history in telegraphy, being strictly of later, ham-radio
origin. The signal 30 (...-. ___) was used on press circuits to indicate "end of article."
This has been carried over into general radio practice, including ham radio, as the signal SK (...-.-), "end of work".
The character (. ...) is American Morse for the ampersand (&) and it is still used today in ham radio, but the space in
that one makes it come out "ES" in the International code. The American Morse for comma (,) is (.-.-) and we still
use that in CW message handling for the separation between lines in the address. Also landline Morse for zero is
the long dash (___) but our modern electronic keyers won't make the long dash, so we frequently hear zero being
sent as (-), which comes out T. So general was the practice in the earlier CW days, of sending the zero as a long dash,
that when the tenth, or zero, call area was initiated by the FCC after World War 2, they saw fit to
mention in the regulations that the zero in the callsign must be sent (-----) and not (___).
I hope everybody enjoys reading this as much as I have enjoyed putting it into print.
For those not familiar with the American Morse (landline) Code, here is a tabulation of that system.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
B -... O . . 2 ..-.. / ..--
C .. . P ..... 3 ...-. ! ---.
D -.. Q ..-. 4 ....- : -.- . .
E . R . .. 5 --- ; ... ..
J -.-. W .-- 0 very long dash
K -.- X .-.. period ..--..
L long dash Y .. .. comma .-.-
And for those not familiar with the original Continental Morse Code here is a tabulation of that system.
Now called International Morse.
_________________________________________________________________
A .- N -. 1 .---- & . ...
B -... O --- 2 ..--- / -..-.
C -.-. P .--. 3 ...-- : ---...
D -.. Q --.- 4 ....- ; -.-.-.
F ..-. S ... 6 -.... É ..--
H .... U ..- 8 ---.. Ñ --.--
I .. V ...- 9 ----. Ü ..--
J .--- V ...- 0 ----- apostrophe
K -.- W .-- period .-.-.- .----.
L .-.. X -..- comma --..--
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