The Morse code is the same but some of the skills are different. Out of curiosity, has anyone tried decoding Morse code sent by torchlight (flashlight)? It’s very hard even for experienced CW ops. Without prior training (e.g. in the navy) you end looking consciously at the individual dots and dashes to match with the Morse alphabet – which severely limits your receiving speed.
Just like understanding speech involves both lower parts of the brain (for hearing) and higher parts (for listening and interpretation), decoding Morse is the same.
The rule about using amateur bands is sensible but badly expressed. The idea is to encourage operation on amateur bands. So 10m yes, 11m no. 430-450MHz yes, 446.0-446.2MHz no.
In the UK radio “stops” at 275GHz. However, we all know that there are uses and investigations happening higher. In the UK full licence holders can apply for a free NoV (licence extension) for 275GHz - 3THz. That’s a lot of spectrum but if you look there are plenty of frequencies in there which are off limits (radio astronomy for example). Similar licence extensions are available in some other countries. But 3THz is the top.
Above that you can experiment. You don’t need a licence to use a LED torch which emits at 470-650THz! Significant work is being done by amateurs at 30THz (Barry G8AGN et al.) So in my view, saying that optical comms is not allowed for SOTA removes a valid reason to experiment. My original licence says “self training in wireless telegraphy”. I’d have thought that a few hams using modulated lasers to communicate over 25km say from hill tops is pushing the boundaries a little. Likewise use of non-LOS optical paths (cloud bounce) is another moderately cool comms method. I know that modulated laser links have been used between satellites, the people doing this have a little more money to spend on technology than most hams.
In my view then restricting SOTA to named amateur bands and thus stopping optical and near optical comms is an unintended side effect and I shall be pushing to get the rules updated so those who want to play and experiment can do so.
And talking of rules updates, I think it’s well and truely time to close the loophole that allows people to use multiple calls on an activation to count as separate stations. i.e. I hear someone on 70cm and chase them using my 4 different calls. They work me 4 times whilst I use the same radio / antenna and it counts as the 4 chases they need to claim the points. It was a lifesaver 20 years ago, but with the number of SOTA chasers active 24/7, this “feature” has run it’s course.
Andy, I don’t remember anyone I worked with having that particular problem.
The hardest issue was making sure you only blinked during spaces between words!!! Long signals you preferably needed someone to write the msg down for you. Heaven help u if it was pouring down and blowing a gale
I’ve driven in a small vehicle convoy at night where navigating instructions were communicated using an ordinary torch. Using light of any kind you must make the characters (the dots/dashes a little more separated out than you would than radio. Dit Dit Dit Dash Dit Rather than Dit dit dit dash dit perhaps.
Unlike radio each word was acknowledged by the receiving operator sending a single flash on his lamp. No flash and u simply sent the word agn.
The exception that proves the rule? I believe you are ex-RN. Did you receive training there on sending & receiving Morse by flash light?
EDIT UPDATE: David, you updated your entire post since I replied ….
You appear to be talking about people who were trained or learned to do it by flashlight. I never doubted that: how many war films have we seen where the Navy ships are sending messages to each other that way.
My point was that switching from hearing Morse to viewing it is not trivial. Of course any normally-sighted person who knows Morse well could do it with practice.
Going back 15 years or so, Gordon G0EWN was a keen SOTA participant and also an early experimentor / record setter with LED communication. I am not sure he combined the 2, but pretty sure he would have, as he was active with microwave SOTA.
I currently have his 6cm system, but would not want to carry that amp up any hill. It’s a struggle carrying it anywhere!
No! Publish plans to come by car. That way the weather gods will make the WX absolutely beautiful. You can then decide on the spur of the moment to come by bike. If you publish a bike activation plan you are inviting very wet weather
I’m so far as I recall 60 years ago I cannot remember being taught to read morse by light. Signalmen were of course. Sometimes if we were on the bridge in the absence of the on watch signalman we were expecting to answer light signals. Merchant ship radio officers who of course were not trained to read lights were often asked to answer warships when the watch keeping officer felt out of practice to answer light signals from warships.
There is a limit of around 14wpm to light signalling because the eye cannot distinguish fast flashes in the same way we cannot see the individual frames in a cinema film. This effect, which I think is called latency is why old film of ships using signalling lights are sometimes impossible to read if they were originally taken on film. This latency is also why the human eye cannot see the individual wing beats of fast birds or insects.
Morse can also be used to communicate by touch/pressure.
My experience is it doesn’t make any difference as to whether you were initially taught by light or sound. Morse is morse.
And the answer to being called whilst on watch on the bridge is, of course, AS (which means “wait, I’m calling the signalman”). The second letter combination every budding officer of the watch should learn in morse
It was often easy to tell whether it was the officer on watch or the ‘sparks’ who answered. If you were answered quickly it was the officer on watch. If there was a longer delay and the morse was good it was the Radio Officer, who some times could be seen hurrying from his cabin to get to the signalling lamps.
We were expected to report to Lloyds of London instances of bad operating from British ships but I can’t recall this ever happening.
It was not unusual to see no one on the bridge of cargo boats when you were well away from shipping lanes.
Well Im sure some of the ships’ deck officers were good, but by the 60,s I’d assume almost all merchant vessels were equipped with vhf/uhf equipment so they rarely needed to use morse. Unless an RN ship sailed by
We may even pass each other on Fountains Fell.
