Doug McLaren wrote:

In article ,
Michael Coslo wrote:

| At a lower level, anything is digital when you look at it that way. A
| photograph, digital audio, whatever.

Digital audio is digital if you look at it that way? Cute.

Well, my XYL thinks I'm cute. 8^)

As for a photograph, a black and white photograph could be seen that
way -- after all, at the molecular level, a molecule of pigment is
either there or not there. It's quantized.

True enough.

But no, not everything is digital. A specific sound isn't digital --
sure, you could approximate it with a digital stream, but ultimately
it's just an approximation, no matter how fast your digital stream is.

| If Morse code was really digital, there would be no need to have a
| lower level

Are you even thinking about what you're saying here?

If there's only one level, then a morse code signal would be just a
constant tone. It's hard to put much information into a constant,
unchanging tone. If you want to transmit some information, you're
going to need to have at least two states to choose from.

| Morse code is either on or off. 1 or 0. You're either emitting a
| signal, or you're not -- there's no in between.
|
| Ahh, so the space between the dits and dahs means nothing? There is
| definitely an "in between" It is how we determine what the words a

The space between the dits and dahs is `off' -- either 1, 3 or 7
zeros. The dits and dahs are `on', either one or three 1s.

Look at my other post where I converted your CQ call to a binary
representation of it.

You converted. That is the core of the issue. I have no argument
with what you did or what others have done to take a input of Morse code
and convert it into a digital form.


| ..... is that the number 5, or is it HE or is it SI, or IS or EH?

If you feel that I claimed that the spaces are unimportant, then you
did not understand me very well. Spaces are represented by a number
of zeros, and dits and dahs by a number of ones. Binary.

I completely understand that the spaces are of equal importance to all
the other states.

| Longer periods of 1's = dahs
| Shorter periods of 1's = dits
| Short period of 0's = space between a dit or a dah.
| Longer period of 0's = space between characters.
| Even longer period of 0's = space between words.
|
| You have just described more than two states.

Sure -- I was trying to explain how it all boils down to two states.

Understood. But you have to write software to take that Morse code
signal and convert it or boil it down or whatever.

RTTY usually carries information encoded with BAUDOT. (You do believe
that RTTY is digital, right? Even with that 1.5 baud stop bit?) Each
BAUDOT character is chosen by 5 bits -- that's 32 states, and then
there's the state of the shift, which gives you about 62 states (64 -
2, since two states don't matter.)

So RTTY/BAUDOT uses somewhere between 32 and 64 states. But you do
believe that that RTTY and BAUDOT are binary modulations or codes,
right?

| It's not a particularly efficient binary code, but it *is*, at the
| lowest level, binary -- there's only two states. It's certainly not
| analog, or tinary, or ...
|
| Disagree. It isn't analog for sure, but with only a 1 and a zero, it
| cant be described.

... but I just did in my other post. It was a bit tedious, but hardly
impossible.

I wasn't precise there. You have to time the signal, and assign
multiple 1's and 0's to different parts of the sent signal.

| Trying to describe it with 1's and 0's means that you
| have to translate it. That longer dah, is not a 1.

That is correct -- dah is not 1. It's three 1s in a row, followed by
at least one 0.

So you convert a dah into 3 1's and a zero. This sounds more to me like
a conversion than anything else.


| It cannot be the same thing as the short dit. If both of them are
| 1's, the analogy fails

Sure. The short dit is just a single 1, followed by at least one 0.

A 1 and a 0. Like I said it's a conversion.

That it is not a difficult conversion is not the point.

| I'm saying that in order to have Morse code be binary, you have to
| digitize it, so to speak. You have to have a clocking action, and a dah
| has to either be something other than a "1" if the dit is considered a
| "1". If it was truly digital, you wouldn't have to do any of that.

Have you looked at your morse code key lately? It has two positions
-- on and off. That alone should be enough to let you realize that
it's binary.

Just a second ago. I have an Iambic key, so that kind of clouds the
issue. I have a key for dits, a key for dats, and nothing happens if I
don't touch either.

Things like PSK31 and RTTY/BAUDOT aren't any different, except that
the computer does the translation down to the binary level rather than
your brain and your finger.

It could be argued that the human brain doesn't easily deal with
binary codes. Which would make sense -- many of us had a hard time
learning morse code, even at the slowest possible speed. Yet it's
only about 40 characters, which shouldn't be hard to memorize at all.

I had a hard time due to deafness. My XYL would agree with you if you
said I don't listen very well! ;^)


- Mike KB3EIA -

Dave wrote:

"Michael Coslo" wrote in message
...

Doug McLaren wrote:

In article ,
Michael Coslo wrote:

| I hear lots of Hams declare that Morse code is a binary mode.
|
| It is most certainly not.

It most certainly is.
...
| Is the space between characters a "0"? and the Dih a "1"? Oh wait,

what

| is the Dah then? Oh, and what about the space between words?

Try looking at it at a lower level -- stop looking at the dits and dahs.

At a lower level, anything is digital when you look at it that way. A
photograph, digital audio, whatever.

If Morse code was really digital, there would be no need to have a lower
level


Morse code is either on or off. 1 or 0. You're either emitting a
signal, or you're not -- there's no in between.

Ahh, so the space between the dits and dahs means nothing? There is
definitely an "in between" It is how we determine what the words a

..... is that the number 5, or is it HE or is it SI, or IS or EH?


Looking up what binary means -- http://www.answers.com/binary --

bi na ry (b'n-r) pronunciation
adj.
1. Characterized by or consisting of two parts or components;

twofold.

At the lowest level, there's only two components -- on or off, tone or
no tone. It certainly fits the definition.

Considering that `tone' = 1 and `no tone' = 0 ...

Longer periods of 1's = dahs
Shorter periods of 1's = dits
Short period of 0's = space between a dit or a dah.
Longer period of 0's = space between characters.
Even longer period of 0's = space between words.

You have just described more than two states.


It's not a particularly efficient binary code, but it *is*, at the
lowest level, binary -- there's only two states. It's certainly not
analog, or tinary, or ...

Disagree. It isn't analog for sure, but with only a 1 and a zero, it
cant be described. Trying to describe it with 1's and 0's means that you
have to translate it. That longer dah, is not a 1. It cannot be the same
thing as the short dit. If both of them are 1's, the analogy fails


Now, to be fair, at a higher level, you could say it has four states
-- dit, dah, space between character, space between word. Which would
be quadrary (is that the right word? is it even a real word?) But
that doesn't mean it can't be binary at another level at the same
time.

| It isn't binary, and the way our noodles process it isn't binary.

I'm not sure that the way our brain processes it is relevant. RTTY is
binary (or do you disagree there too?) and yet our brain hardly
processes it's output in a binary manner.

| It's not binary.

If you say so. I doubt I've convinced you, but it's really all a
matter of how you look at it, and if you insist on looking at it in
only one way, nobody's going to convince you otherwise.

I'm saying that in order to have Morse code be binary, you have to
digitize it, so to speak. You have to have a clocking action, and a dah
has to either be something other than a "1" if the dit is considered a
"1". If it was truly digital, you wouldn't have to do any of that.


even the 'real' digital modes have a clocking action. how else do you know
when one character ends and another starts? the one big oddity of morse is
that the characters are unequal lengths so it is not easy to make a simple
clock mechanism to decode them like it is for baudot or ascii codes. then
of course another oddity is that it is often sent by hand (or at least it
used to be) so the timing varies even within a short message making it even
harder to decode mechanically. however hscw and very low speed or coherent
cw are normally machine encoded and decoded and rely on very exact timing.

I agree Dave. I'm a little familiar with the digital world. The
oddities of Morse that you mention are both the blessing and curse of
the mode. No argument on the ability to convert Morse to digital, and
while the machine sent stuff is not too hard to translate, it is amazing
what the human mind can do when recieving a signal from a person with a
bad fist.

- Mike KB3EIA -

bb wrote:

Doug McLaren wrote:

In article ,
Mike Coslo wrote:

| Let us put it to the test, Dave.
| Write out a short sentence, or even a CQ de (your callsign) in

binary

| format, and let me read it right off the screen. If Morse code is
| binary, it will be no problem.

That's actually a reasonable test. And I shall give you an answer,
though I don't think you expected one. And I'm not Dave.

Here is a binary representation of `CQ DE K' (this gets rather

tedious,

so I'll only do the first few characters) :

10111010111000111011101011100000001110101000100011 1010111000

And to explain that further --

dit = 1
dah = 111
space between dit/dah = 0
space between letters = 000
space between words = 0000000

So, `CQ DE K' translates to :

C 10111010111
000
Q 1110111010111
0000000
D 1110101
000
E 1
000
K 111010111
000

(the letters and newlines are there *only* to help make it readable.)

To play this back is very simple --

-- Pick a time period -- for example, 1 = 1/10 th of a second.
-- go through the list, going through each chracter --
1 = play a tone for 1/10th of a second
0 = be completely silent for 1/10th of a second

It's really that simple.

If you want a program to do it --

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
# C Q D E K B 3 E I A P S E

K

my $string = ".-.- --.-\n-.. .\n-.- -... ...-- . .. .-\n.--. ... .

-.-" ;

foreach my $c (split (//, $string)) {
if ($c eq ".") { print "10" ; next } ;
if ($c eq "-") { print "1110" ; next } ;
if ($c eq " ") { print "00" ; next } ; # Only two 0s, because

the last

# character ended with

a 0.

if ($c eq "\n") { print "000000" ; next } ; # ditto, but 6.
}
print "\n" ;

And the output of your complete CQ in binary is :

10111010111000111011101011100000001110101000100000 00
11101011100011101010100010101011101110001000101000 101110000000
101110111010001010100010001110101110

new lines and spaces are added by me only to help it fit on the
screen.

| This is a screen readable approximation of me calling CQ
|
| .-.- --.- -.. . -.- -... ...-- . .. .- .--. ... . -.-

| it is not binary.

Binary.

--
Doug McLaren, , AD5RH
.. Time is the best teacher, unfortunately it kills all of its

students.

Doug, please perform the same exercise for all variations of the
Farnsworth code. Thanks.

Good point Brian. Farnsworth will have a different representation in
timing. While the human mind will interpret Farnsworth fairly easily,
the software may have some problems?

- Mike KB3EIA -

In article ,
Mike Coslo wrote:

| Key up is "0". Key down is "1". Also known as "space" and "mark",
| respectively.
|
| Unfortunately, there are two separate "1" states, and the zero state is
| not a constant thing.

Your key is either up or down. There is no in between. That alone is
enough to say `binary'.

As for `two seperate 1 states', it's just that one is one 1 state, and
the other is 3 1 states in a row.

| There is the matter of time. A zero might me the space between
| letters, or one half of a dit. It might also mean the space between
| words. All different things.

It's the number of zeros in a row that signifies that.

| That Morse code can be turned into binary is not at argument here. It
| obviously can, just as images, emails and everything else we do on the
| computer.

An image or file on your computer is already binary, pretty much by
definition. But the image you see out your window is not -- it's
analog, and while you can approximate this image with a binary stream,
you can never match it exactly.

| Not really. If you look at the string of 1's and 0's that Doug posted
| as the binary result of my hypothetical CQ, is that something that you
| would recognize as that CQ?

If you played it audibly, yes, you would notice it as a perfectly
timed morse code CQ (my mistake with the C not withstanding.)

Visually, it's not the format that people are used to seeing, so they
don't recognize it at first. Not surprising.

| Why does the - and . method of typing out the code convey the
| information? the dashes and the spaces convey time information to the
| person looking at them. I'm counting more than two states here.

Of course, Morse code is sent as a intermittent tone, RF carrier, or
light. It's *not* sent with strings of periods, dashes and spaces --
that's just a simple way of writing it on paper.

When you look at the tone, carrier or light, the item is either there,
or it's not. Two states. Binary. This is not something that can be
rationally denied.

However, groups of these two states are combined into five states --
dit, dah, intra-character spaces, intra-word spaces and intra-sentence
spaces. This can't really be denied either, and this is how people
generally think of Morse code -- dits and dahs.

This is where the argument lies -- the `I see two states -- binary!'
people look at the first part -- the carrier itself. The `It's not
binary! It's dits and dahs and spaces' people are looking at what the
combinations of the binary states give them, and that's how humans
generally view it.. Both views are correct, so a claim that one view
is wrong is incorrect.

Morse code gives you a way of turning a series of binary states (on or
off) into text. ASCII, EBCDIC, BAUDOT, UTF-8 and oodles of others do
the same thing. Morse code is just as `binary' as they are, but it
just happens to be more suited to human use.

Ultimately, it's a pointless argument, because whatever Morse code is
and is not, people use it, and they agree on what sequences indicate
what letters (of course, this wasn't always the case, but that's
another story), and that's pretty much all that's needed for it to
work, and so on that note I'll attempt to remove myself from the
discussion.

--
Doug McLaren,
Math illiteracy affects 8 out of every 5 people.

Michael Coslo wrote:

I felt kinda bad about being mean to Len, so I'll try to meet him
halfway with a Morse code topic. So maybe we can ressurect this old one...

I hear lots of Hams declare that Morse code is a binary mode.

It is most certainly not.

Let us look at the situation.

Is the Dit a "0"?
Is the Dah a "1"?

Is the space between characters a "0"? and the Dih a "1"? Oh wait, what
is the Dah then? Oh, and what about the space between words?


It's a form of pulse width modulation. Space between
characters would be a "low" or "0". Characters are
"high" or "1". A dit would be a single "1", dah would
be "1,1,1". Spaces between dits and dahs in the same letter
would be a single "0". Spaces between letters would be
"0,0,0". The typical letter is about 9 zeros or ones
long, and add 3 more zeros for the space on one side.
So the "1" or "0" bit rate is about 12 times the WPM
rate. 5 WPM would be 60 bits a minute, or 1 bit/sec.
20 WPM would be 4 bits/sec. Rather slow compared to
other machine readable/sendable digital modes, but
Morse can be read by ear and requires only simple
equipment. Big selling point back in the vacuum tube
radio era, but not so much today with high tech radio
equipment.

In article , Mike Coslo
writes:

wrote:

Michael Coslo wrote:

I felt kinda bad about being mean to Len,


When were you mean to Len, Mike?

Unless you count disagreeing with him and proving him wrong as "being
mean", you've been nothing but nice to him.

Well, he probably thinks so!

Mike Deignan had him pegged. Len's really ticked that somewhere, out there,
somebody is having fun with ham radio.

so I'll try to meet him
halfway with a Morse code topic.

His definition of meeting halfway is that you agree with him 100%.

That is certainly possible...

It's self-evident...

So maybe we can ressurect this old one...

I hear lots of Hams declare that Morse code is a binary mode.

It is most certainly not.

Depends how you define "binary".

One state equals "0" or "off".
The other state equals "1" or "on".

You have to define "state". If "key up" and "key down" are the states, it's
binary. Time isn't the factor you make it - look at how Baudot works.

Let us look at the situation.

Is the Dit a "0"?

No.

Is the Dah a "1"?

No.

Is the space between characters a "0"? and the Dih a "1"? Oh wait,
what is the Dah then? Oh, and what about the space between words?

Key up is "0". Key down is "1". Also known as "space" and "mark",
respectively.

Unfortunately, there are two separate "1" states, and the zero state is
not a constant thing.

Doesn't have to be. It's a time code.

There is the matter of time. A zero might me the space between letters,
or one half of a dit. It might also mean the space between words. All
different things.

No. The characters are built from the basic elements, which are key up and key
down, just like, say, Baudot RTTY.

That Morse code can be turned into binary is not at argument here. It
obviously can, just as images, emails and everything else we do on the
computer. Are they binary because someone has written a program to turn
them into strings of 1's and 0's?

Their basic transmission form is binary, same as Morse.

A non-binary code is one that has more than two *transmission* states, like
QPSK. Which is typically implemented as 0, 90, 180 and 270 degrees shift. Four
transmission states rather than two.

It isn't binary,

Depends on how you define "binary".

and the way our noodles process it isn't binary.

Different subject.

Not really. If you look at the string of 1's and 0's that Doug posted
as the binary result of my hypothetical CQ, is that something that you
would recognize as that CQ? That string IS binary.

I would recognize it easily.

Why does the - and . method of typing out the code convey the
information? the dashes and the spaces convey time information to the
person looking at them. I'm counting more than two states here.

It's not the simplest way, though. It shows the time differently.

It's not binary.

Most Morse operators with any skill (that excludes Len) process a
complete character as one "sound". "didahdidit" is recognized as "L",
in the same way that when you hear the word "cat", you think of the
animal. The Morse operator does not think in terms of dits and dahs any
more than a person thinks in terms of the consonant and vowel sounds
(phonemes) making up "cat".

Of course *really* skilled Morse ops hear entire words as units of
sound. And at some level, they begin to think in Morse, just as fluent
speakers of a language think in that language.
Of course Len wouldn't know about that...

The big question is: what does it matter if Morse is binary or not?

73 de Jim, N2EY

N2EY wrote:
In article , Mike Coslo
writes:

wrote:

Michael Coslo wrote:

I felt kinda bad about being mean to Len,


When were you mean to Len, Mike?

Unless you count disagreeing with him and proving him wrong as
"being
mean", you've been nothing but nice to him.

Well, he probably thinks so!

Mike Deignan had him pegged. Len's really ticked that somewhere, out
there,
somebody is having fun with ham radio.

so I'll try to meet him
halfway with a Morse code topic.

His definition of meeting halfway is that you agree with him 100%.

That is certainly possible...

It's self-evident...

So maybe we can ressurect this old one...

I hear lots of Hams declare that Morse code is a binary mode.

It is most certainly not.

Depends how you define "binary".

One state equals "0" or "off".
The other state equals "1" or "on".

You have to define "state". If "key up" and "key down" are the
states, it's
binary. Time isn't the factor you make it - look at how Baudot works.


Let us look at the situation.

Is the Dit a "0"?

No.

Is the Dah a "1"?

No.

Is the space between characters a "0"? and the Dih a "1"? Oh wait,
what is the Dah then? Oh, and what about the space between words?

Key up is "0". Key down is "1". Also known as "space" and "mark",
respectively.

Unfortunately, there are two separate "1" states, and the zero state
is
not a constant thing.

Doesn't have to be. It's a time code.

There is the matter of time. A zero might me the space between
letters,
or one half of a dit. It might also mean the space between words.
All
different things.

No. The characters are built from the basic elements, which are key
up and key
down, just like, say, Baudot RTTY.

That Morse code can be turned into binary is not at argument here.
It
obviously can, just as images, emails and everything else we do on
the
computer. Are they binary because someone has written a program to
turn
them into strings of 1's and 0's?

Their basic transmission form is binary, same as Morse.

A non-binary code is one that has more than two *transmission*
states, like
QPSK. Which is typically implemented as 0, 90, 180 and 270 degrees
shift. Four
transmission states rather than two.

It isn't binary,

Depends on how you define "binary".

and the way our noodles process it isn't binary.

Different subject.

Not really. If you look at the string of 1's and 0's that Doug
posted
as the binary result of my hypothetical CQ, is that something that
you
would recognize as that CQ? That string IS binary.

I would recognize it easily.

Why does the - and . method of typing out the code convey the
information? the dashes and the spaces convey time information to
the
person looking at them. I'm counting more than two states here.

It's not the simplest way, though. It shows the time differently.

It's not binary.

Most Morse operators with any skill (that excludes Len) process a
complete character as one "sound". "didahdidit" is recognized as
"L",
in the same way that when you hear the word "cat", you think of
the
animal. The Morse operator does not think in terms of dits and
dahs any
more than a person thinks in terms of the consonant and vowel
sounds
(phonemes) making up "cat".

Of course *really* skilled Morse ops hear entire words as units of
sound. And at some level, they begin to think in Morse, just as
fluent
speakers of a language think in that language.
Of course Len wouldn't know about that...

The big question is: what does it matter if Morse is binary or not?

. . . finally . . of course not. But you already knew that . .

73 de Jim, N2EY

w3rv

On Thu, 03 Feb 2005 04:13:16 GMT, Doug McLaren wrote:

But to retort --

1) The FCC doesn't administer ham radio tests any more

Nothing in the Rules says that someone can't be called into an FCC
office and administered an individual test if the FCC deems it
necessary.

2) The tests are generally receiving, not sending, and

Generally but not always. It's up to the examiner.

3) You don't need 100% accuracy to pass

You've never taken a test that I administered... ggg

The ultimate is to record what the applicant sent and then have the
applicant copy it back....

--
73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane

bb wrote:

wrote:


Key up is "0". Key down is "1". Also known as "space" and "mark",
respectively.

73 de Jim, N2EY


Odd, the old definition of Morse Code didn't use the terms "0" and "1",
nor "mark" and "space." All the timing was in terms of the length of a
single "dit."

As far as I know, Morse code did not "become digital" until some people
wanted to make it look as if it was more advanced than it is. Until then
it was as you describe.

- Mike KB3EIA -

Doug McLaren wrote:

In article ,
Mike Coslo wrote:

| Key up is "0". Key down is "1". Also known as "space" and "mark",
| respectively.
|
| Unfortunately, there are two separate "1" states, and the zero state is
| not a constant thing.

Your key is either up or down. There is no in between. That alone is
enough to say `binary'.

no more than the switch on my furnace makes my furnace digital.

As for `two seperate 1 states', it's just that one is one 1 state, and
the other is 3 1 states in a row.

Right, it is translated.

| There is the matter of time. A zero might me the space between
| letters, or one half of a dit. It might also mean the space between
| words. All different things.

It's the number of zeros in a row that signifies that.

In the translation. I don't read morse code that way while I'm
listening. The computer "listens" that way.

| That Morse code can be turned into binary is not at argument here. It
| obviously can, just as images, emails and everything else we do on the
| computer.

An image or file on your computer is already binary, pretty much by
definition. But the image you see out your window is not -- it's
analog, and while you can approximate this image with a binary stream,
you can never match it exactly.

| Not really. If you look at the string of 1's and 0's that Doug posted
| as the binary result of my hypothetical CQ, is that something that you
| would recognize as that CQ?

If you played it audibly, yes, you would notice it as a perfectly
timed morse code CQ (my mistake with the C not withstanding.)

Visually, it's not the format that people are used to seeing, so they
don't recognize it at first. Not surprising.

| Why does the - and . method of typing out the code convey the
| information? the dashes and the spaces convey time information to the
| person looking at them. I'm counting more than two states here.

Of course, Morse code is sent as a intermittent tone, RF carrier, or
light. It's *not* sent with strings of periods, dashes and spaces --
that's just a simple way of writing it on paper.

When you look at the tone, carrier or light, the item is either there,
or it's not. Two states. Binary. This is not something that can be
rationally denied.

Two states of different length. The radio does not send 0's. It simply
sits there waiting for the key so it can send a carrier of differing
lengths of time.

However, groups of these two states are combined into five states --
dit, dah, intra-character spaces, intra-word spaces and intra-sentence
spaces. This can't really be denied either, and this is how people
generally think of Morse code -- dits and dahs.

This is where the argument lies -- the `I see two states -- binary!'
people look at the first part -- the carrier itself. The `It's not
binary! It's dits and dahs and spaces' people are looking at what the
combinations of the binary states give them, and that's how humans
generally view it.. Both views are correct, so a claim that one view
is wrong is incorrect.

Morse code gives you a way of turning a series of binary states (on or
off) into text. ASCII, EBCDIC, BAUDOT, UTF-8 and oodles of others do
the same thing. Morse code is just as `binary' as they are, but it
just happens to be more suited to human use.

Ultimately, it's a pointless argument, because whatever Morse code is
and is not, people use it, and they agree on what sequences indicate
what letters (of course, this wasn't always the case, but that's
another story), and that's pretty much all that's needed for it to
work, and so on that note I'll attempt to remove myself from the
discussion.

- Mike KB3EIA -