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jimlongley wrote:I was a member of the Morse Telegraph Club for many years, a close friend was the international secretary, and was (emphasis on WAS) learning American Morse, but got lost at 'C'

They are a bit different. (For those who don't get it, Jim ran into the "space" within "C", which isn't part of International Morse.)





RR Morse is supposedly a lot faster, but RR ops also used a lot of shorthand and jargon that was very specific to them. Some of it would violate the 10 year old daughter rule, but that's true of railroaders in general.

When I was a kid, a friend of Dad's owned and operated a miniature railroad and Old West town. He had Dad record an endless loop of telegraph messages, which could be heard playing through the depot window. Being something of a joker, Dad included a few "railroadisms". His friend said it was easy to spot the true RR operators, because they'd cock their heads and listen for a minute, then fall out laughing.

We have a lot of old telegraph equipment that was salvaged from the KCS. Keys, bugs, sounders, switches, relays, etc.

Kevin

KBCraig wrote:

jimlongley wrote:I was a member of the Morse Telegraph Club for many years, a close friend was the international secretary, and was (emphasis on WAS) learning American Morse, but got lost at 'C'

They are a bit different. (For those who don't get it, Jim ran into the "space" within "C", which isn't part of International Morse.)





RR Morse is supposedly a lot faster, but RR ops also used a lot of shorthand and jargon that was very specific to them. Some of it would violate the 10 year old daughter rule, but that's true of railroaders in general.

When I was a kid, a friend of Dad's owned and operated a miniature railroad and Old West town. He had Dad record an endless loop of telegraph messages, which could be heard playing through the depot window. Being something of a joker, Dad included a few "railroadisms". His friend said it was easy to spot the true RR operators, because they'd cock their heads and listen for a minute, then fall out laughing.

We have a lot of old telegraph equipment that was salvaged from the KCS. Keys, bugs, sounders, switches, relays, etc.

Kevin

Ummm, WHAT?

-----

I was visiting the grandkids in Grand Prairie when I joined the forum and my carry piece-to-be was a G19. When asked to come up with a username, it was all I could think of!

Fun thread. Thanks for asking

My middle name is Jeremy (and what I introduce myself by)....
In Latin ae is the long e dipthong.

I started in IT by building a board to use an intel 8088 cpu chip to drive a 300 baud acoustic coupler modem to search the local telephone numbers and log hits then hack into local bank in ne Ohio. (no hacker laws back then, in fact when I showed bank vp how easy it was to access their system they hired me to write a new logon package).

IBM card punch Check
Fortran Check
PDP8 Check
8 in single dens Check
PDP11/70 RSTSe Check
Dec 10/20 Check
T-Rex hunting snicker

barres wrote:

longtooth wrote:Always thought yours was rather quaint & liked it. In your signature what is the quia?

Just a guess from the explanation of her username, but I would guess "Quia" to mean something like, "because."

Yep!

I'm enjoying this thread....

quidni wrote:

barres wrote:

longtooth wrote:Always thought yours was rather quaint & liked it. In your signature what is the quia?

Just a guess from the explanation of her username, but I would guess "Quia" to mean something like, "because."

Yep!

I'm enjoying this thread....

Thanks. I have to be told every thing. Can't figure nuthin out myself.

KBCraig wrote:

jimlongley wrote:I was a member of the Morse Telegraph Club for many years, a close friend was the international secretary, and was (emphasis on WAS) learning American Morse, but got lost at 'C'

They are a bit different. (For those who don't get it, Jim ran into the "space" within "C", which isn't part of International Morse.)

RR Morse is supposedly a lot faster, but RR ops also used a lot of shorthand and jargon that was very specific to them. Some of it would violate the 10 year old daughter rule, but that's true of railroaders in general.

When I was a kid, a friend of Dad's owned and operated a miniature railroad and Old West town. He had Dad record an endless loop of telegraph messages, which could be heard playing through the depot window. Being something of a joker, Dad included a few "railroadisms". His friend said it was easy to spot the true RR operators, because they'd cock their heads and listen for a minute, then fall out laughing.

We have a lot of old telegraph equipment that was salvaged from the KCS. Keys, bugs, sounders, switches, relays, etc.

Kevin

Well, "Lost at 'C'" was a ham joke when I was a kid. A ham copying American Morse would interpret 'C' as 'I E' and 'R' as 'E I' and 'P' became '5'

Of course hams adopted the Phillips Code and various of the other abbrviations and code.

I also used to be a Teletype" repairman, back in the "green keys" days and can recite the entire QWERTY keyboard from memory, even if I can't touch type.

Have we hijacked this thread enough yet?

No...

I believe only Radio Operator rates in the Navy when I was in were actually being taught Morse...Along with all the hardware and operations stuff they had to learn...

Since I was a Radar Operator, and only dealt with the tactical operations of the ship, and only operating the commo gear...We were never taught Morse...We just "kacked" up our signals and sent them out plain voice if it wasn't an incrypted net...

I learned enough of the morse code to be fairly adept in listening in and catching most of the messages...And it was mainly for fun...

I've lost some of the ear for it though...

This hijacking has goosed me to get back into it...

stevie_d_64 wrote:No...

I believe only Radio Operator rates in the Navy when I was in were actually being taught Morse...Along with all the hardware and operations stuff they had to learn.....

Sonar learned Morse way back when...

My screen name was used as a post signature quote by someone on PDO and I liked the sound of it so I snagged it as my own.

They never complained and a small amount of plagiarism is not a hangin' or shootin' offense in Texas.

Anygunanywhere

anygunanywhere wrote:Sonar learned Morse way back when...

Yeah but you guys had "Gertrude" too!!!

That was really a cool toy...

stevie_d_64 wrote:No...

I believe only Radio Operator rates in the Navy when I was in were actually being taught Morse...Along with all the hardware and operations stuff they had to learn...

Since I was a Radar Operator, and only dealt with the tactical operations of the ship, and only operating the commo gear...We were never taught Morse...We just "kacked" up our signals and sent them out plain voice if it wasn't an incrypted net...

I learned enough of the morse code to be fairly adept in listening in and catching most of the messages...And it was mainly for fun...

I've lost some of the ear for it though...

This hijacking has goosed me to get back into it...

I passed the Morse test, with flying colors, so they made me a Gunner's Mate.

I learned Semaphore and Signal Flags just for grins and giggles, and used to sneak in to CIC to stand Radar and Sonar stack watches when I could get away with it. I was learning American Sign Language when the Signalman that was teaching me decided to quit the Navy, I never took it back up.

BTW, my parents gave me my screen name before anyone even knew what a screen was (unless it was a door.)

jack of all trades!

You waved skivvies???? Say it isn't so!

stevie_d_64 wrote:jack of all trades!

You waved skivvies???? Say it isn't so!

Nah, I wasn't allowed any official status on the signal bridge, but copying semaphore was kind of fun when it was being used ship to ship, but even more fun was, when the ship was anchored out, getting the attention of the duty signalman and requesting a boat to pick us up just by waving my hands.

I als used to help the night baker make the bread for the next day, and got a hot fresh loaf or two for my efforts. Cut off one end of the loaf, hollowed it out (and ate the "hollowing") dumped in a stick of butter and a large gob of peanut butter, and left to go stand aft steering watch.

anygunanywhere wrote: My screen name was used as a post signature quote by someone on PDO and I liked the sound of it so I snagged it as my own.

I like it expressed like this:

Any one
Any gun
Anywhere
Any time
...anything less is gun control!