h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

My next dramatic/musical role is as Harold Bride, one of the radio operators on board Titanic. I'm trying to learn about Morse code for the part, and am a tad confused.

The distress signal prior to SOS was CQD (indeed a point is made of this in the show). But is CQD transmitted without pauses as SOS is? Or is it C then Q then D? Are there any Morse experts in the house?

As I spend much of one scene sending the distress signal over and over again, it would please me to be sending it correctly.

I've no idea, but there's an exhibition on Jack Philips, the Titanic radio operator at Godalming Museum. You could always give them a ring.

http://www.godalming.org.uk/Titanic.html

Even SOS isn't actually transmitted without spaces...

When someone's transmitting fast enough, the spaces may not be apparent to you if you're not used to listening to morse, but there is a slight pause between letters.

The timing between two letters should be 3 dits in length, with the spacing between individual dits and dahs being equal to one dit...

So,
... --- ...

is actually,

.|.|.|||-|-|-|||.|.|.

Where the vertical line represents the pause, same thing with CQD

-|.|-|.|||-|-|.|-|||-|.|.

From reading http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7444184.stm and the associated notes, they both should be transmitted as a single burst of morse without any pause between the individual characters.

There needs to be a short pause between the letters - or you would never be able to distinguish T M (da dada) from O (dadada).

Hmmm, agree to disagree with some of those guys.

Firstly, human nature is such that when told to transmit an SOS or a CQD callsign a human radio operator is going to transmit it in individual letters - it's how he's thinking it, what he's used to and it's not a combination of characters he's used to using (You DO NOT play at transmitting an SOS anywhere within half a mile of a live transmitter - it's a real no no... In fact, it's that strict that the BBC have gotten into trouble in the past for including simulated morse distress signals in a fictional TV programme broadcast.

As an off topic aside - before sending an SOS signal there's one other thing you should do (if you've got 45 seconds to spare) - transmit 12 x 4 second morse beeeeps with a one second pause between each one.

All warships and coastguard stations have automated equipment which will trigger an alarm when it detects that particular signal type, so by the time you actually get round to transmitting your SOS, callsign and position you're guaranteed to have someone listening in with a pen in their hand.

Incidentally, the correct format for a morse SOS signal wouldn't just be SOS and position, it would be along the lines of

SOS DE Gxxx . Position nnnnnnnnnn . Additional information.

Where
SOS = To all stations, emergency
DE = This is
Gxxx = Calling station's callsign

Postion = Lat and Long
Additional information - brief summary of situation

Transmit, listen for response and repeat.

It is most confusing - SOS is apparently supposed to be transmitted without gaps between the letters (as apparently, it's unlikely to be confused for anything else) and as such is written with a bar over the top of it - it only got named as SOS as a convenient way of remembering the pattern.

I have ascertained that RMS Titanic's identifying code was M.G.Y. I suppose I really should have asked - what were the conventions in 1912, when CQD was on the way out and SOS on the way in.

So... probably CQD DE MGY ? Or CQD DE GMGY? To be honest, I think anything longer is beyond my capabilities given that I will be thinking about dialogue at the same time. Lat/long clearly transmitted when the audience is watching other characters on other areas of the ship.

This is all fascinating, even the off topic things. I think the reason that I asked was because the comments thread of that BBC magazine article had people disagreeing about how CQD should have been transmitted.

I shall be very careful to make sure that any distress signals in practice and performance can not be transmitted in any way, I promise.

What I'd suggest is that rather than attempting to do the morse 'live' on stage, record it before hand, have a separate switch on your desk (or a foot switch) to turn on the tape recorder and just tap away anything you like on a 'dead' morse key while trying to act.

It takes a while to learn to send morse efficiently, and sending it badly is likely to be less realistic than cheating and having it recorded.

It's the tapping that I'm interested in - there are a couple of points where the orchestra actually provides the sound of the telegraphy, so it'll be easy enough to tap synchronised with that. I know as an audience member I notice odd things like that - I will just be tapping on a dead morse key (I assume!), but I know that if I was a morse-knowing audience member, I would tune in to the fact that the person on stage was tapping randomly. It's like people pretending to play an instrument - it doesn't necessarily matter whether they are actually creating the noises you hear in some ways, but my goodness you can tell when they don't really know *how* to play the instrument and are only approximating the movements.

I've got several months. I know it's odd. Maybe I take the whole stage malarkey too seriously?

You could try to find out if there is an amateur radio society nearby, who could give you some practical advice. There are bound to be some morse experts among them.

Whisky:

"before sending an SOS signal there's one other thing you should do (if you've got 45 seconds to spare) - transmit 12 x 4 second morse beeeeps with a one second pause between each one."

I make that 59 seconds. Unless it was meant to be 4 x 12 second beeps with one second pauses between, which would be 51 seconds.



F

Fathom - Smart alec

David B

Two things that'll be really notable...

1) A decent morse operator will be sending at about 20 words per minute... One of the most common mistakes made in holywood movies is timing - The radio operator will listen to ten seconds morse, turn to his captain and repeat a 40 word message, or, alternatively, his captain tells him to send a 40 word message, and instead of taking approximately 2 to 3 minutes, it takes him 10 seconds.

Get the timing right at 20 wpm and you're half way there.


2) Posture and position... This is what you were talking about with people looking false when 'miming' on a musical instrument... It's generally not which keys they're using, its the way they're holding the instrument.

When sending morse, the only movement is the _very_ slight movement of one hand (the distance between a morse key being open and being closed is a matter of millimeters)

So, if you're right handed...
Put your left arm on the table in front of you, elbow on the table, forearm parallel to your body in front of you.
Right arm over the top of your left, resting your right wrist on top of your left wrist, fingers resting on the morse key. Your right hand is the one actually operating the morse key, and it's hardly moving.

Excellent! I hope anyone who is supposed to be at the helm/wheel/whatever it's called of the ship is also finding out how it works. It's interesting and it will really help.

I shall practice posture, timing and the actual morse (by tapping on my mouse, perhaps) in any spare moments I have.

Yo Whisky! Well done that lad!
I'm impressed and found your info and this thread very informative.

Allow me to share then a bit of humour from tonsil revenge who once suggested that if Marvin (the maniacally depressed robot from HHGttG) were to post online it would be in "morose code".


~jwf~

Just remembering what I was taught _many_ years ago in the Navy...

Brings back some _very_ bad memories of morse reception speed tests we had to do...

To make sure we weren't cheating and filling in letters we'd missed by reading the text they used to send us great swathes of text in various obscure foreign languages... And then just to confuse us completely they'd throw in the odd knitting pattern...

That does seem quite cruel, but it does mean you'll know K and P very well!

Not just K & P... Numbers, punctuation, special characters, the lot - and all in a totally incomprehensible format...

I think some mention of h2g2 Bubblish might be in order here.

Someone with some obvious ease and skill in Morse code (like Whisky) used to post in what appeared to be standard code using small letter os for dots and large number 0s for dashes. It was curiously beautiful in its own way with lots of and swimming about.

Not everyone got it and it freaked out the security types at the Beeb who (sadly) banned its use as a 'forrin langwitch'. A lot of researchers left after that one...

I wonder if anyone has a link to an old example.

peace
~jwf~

Hugo the Fish ... U153752

And an example... F54144?thread=108875

If I remember rightly, Bubblish actually had special dispensation at one stage, it was even mentioned in the house rules... And there's a mention, in the backlog of the house rules conversation threads, of every single Bubblish posting being automatically referred to Abi for verification (wearing her 'official bubblish coordinator' hat

Ahhhh - those were the days... Over half a dozen staff, permanently on-line and chatting.

I don't quite believe this... But the on-line bubblish translator's still running...

http://www.geocities.com/hugothefish/bubblefish.html