Even if the receiver knows every sequence code for letters and symbols by head, how does he know where one letter starts and ends and how does he prevent overlap of 2 letter codes getting mixed up ?
In: Technology
Practice.
I once knew this old ham radio operator who installed a morse key in his van, and would have conversations over the radio while driving.
It was bizarre to watch, he’d even laugh during the conversation if the person he was ‘talking’ to keyed something funny
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Practice, hours of practice listening to messages.
It even gets to the point that the receiver can tell “the hand” from the timing of how each part of the message is transmitted.
Years of practice. There was once a time I could transcribe Morse code at ~50 wpm with a very low error rate. It only took a few months to get to ~25 wpm, but it took ages to progress beyond that.
Practice. Very soon the code is internalised as words. Friend of mine can listen to three simultaneous code streams
A dash is three times the length of a dot. The pause between the dots or dashes within a character is the same duration as a dot. The pause between the end of one character and the start of the next is the same duration as a dash, so the longer pause allows the receiver to determine when one character ends and the next begins.
I recently read that during WWII, the Allies were able to track Nazi Morse code operators because they code decipher their “accents “. In the same way people develop specific speech patterns, the same thing happens in Morse code. So much so that people listening in to the transmissions learn over time that the operator was a specific person.
From there they could track them geographically which could then lead to actionable intelligence about the enemy.
there is a slightly longer gap between each letter. People also have accents and behavioral patterns when tapping out morse code so skilled operators could recognize each other by their tapping.
Eventually two operators that were used to each other could speed up and keep track of each letter so didnt need as much of a pause between letters. There is also grammatical context if you were tracking the message from the beginning. If they say pat the you will be more aware of a letter D starting for dog.
The options are dot dash and blank
So if instead of a dot or a dash, there is a blank, then its likely to be a new letter beginning.
Think of it like a language with very short syllables. The better you know it, the faster you can “speak” it. And if it’s your job to speak it, you can learn to speak it pretty fast.
This old Army training video really puts the concept of Morse code into perspective. https://youtu.be/Li8Hiwbc664
Around the 5:30 mark they get into the rhythm/spacing issue you’re asking about here.
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