I learnt my morse procedures with the Royal Navy. Every operator could send good morse at 22 wpm and followed the WRITTEN procedure rigidly, if he did not, and was overheard by authority, he was in trouble. During that period I worked with the U.S. Navy who were faster but didn't follow the same procedure. I also had a stint in a Commercial Shore station where again morse was very good and procedure almost the same as the R.N. but not so rigid in its interpretation. I then joined the British Army where morse proficientcy was slow and procedure erratic. During that time our Special Communication Regiment of old morse men, consisted of R.N operators, RAF flight operators, Parachute Regiment operators and selected Amateur operators - they had a very simple but strict morse, which was initially diregarded but eventually adopted equally as rigidly as the R.N. I think I can say from experience that I agree wholeheartedly that Morse is a language but a one that should be intelligently construed and adhered to. The ITU has issued lists of Prosigns and of course print them with a single bar over the letters to indicate that they are joined together - I do not know of a way to type examples but when I was in the Royal Navy school we had to put the bar on top when we copied are morse with pen and pencil. Later when we used typewriter this could not be done but some prosigns were given symbols e.g. AR (meaning end of exchange) could be written as a '+' The current discussion about prosigns could be wound up by simply locating a formal (official) document on the subject and recognising that only those characters which are joined by an overline (as apposed to an underline) should be sent without spaces. The word amateur means 'non-professional' not 'lacksadaisically' and we should use the procedures laid down for our use - they do exsist. Other points raised were :- 1. The use of BK or B K. I understand that K means 'go ahead' an offer to the other station to transmit - I do not see the logic in sending a B. 2. Whist being trained as a RN operator it was required that both called and calling callsigns were to be sent on every transmission. However in the 'amateur radio exam' I was told that EACH initial call (transmission) also required both callsigns to be used but from then on one could begin with 'DE' (not overlined) followed by one own callsign, but not necessarily included the station called (in an exchange). My understanding was that the GPO (the British Licencing Authority, now passed into history) needed to have the ability to locate the origin of every transmission. This isn't followed any longer but since I have been out of the hobby for 15 years, there may well be a new procedural publication issued that I know not of. Some how I doubt it. Its a language, as the man said - enjoy it. John G4BOU _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
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