Comment on the "end" of CW³ (Morse Code) in Amateur Radio

back to ham radio

Skill in manual telegraphy is no longer an amateur or professional licensing requirement in the United States or most other countries.  Being a long established tradition in the art of Radio, this has been an emotional, if necessary development.  These two quotes sum up my own view much more nicely than any words I've come up with myself:

"CW has great aesthetic appeal much like sailing, glider flying, balloon flying or shooting traditional archery.  These obsolete modes have an appeal because they depend strongly on the skill of the operator."¹

and

"In some respects [Morse is obsolete].  But, so is the horse as a means of everyday transportation.  That does not stop millions of people from riding horses for fun and millions more from having fun watching them compete.  Horses also still find useful employment in specialized roles, such as police crowd control in New York City and herding cattle..."²

To these I would add:  playing the piano.

¹Nickolaus E. Leggett, N3NL, quoted by Paul Shuch, N6TX, The AMSAT Journal July/August 2007, page 13.
²Ray Soifer, W2RS, ibid, page 30.
³Continuous Wave

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I have a friend who was considering using amateur radio to keep touch with a freind who is a cruiser (sail boat world traveler).  This friend and I discussed amateur radio stations and Morse Code at some length:  (The cruiser friend is "Max."  My friend is referred to as "you.")


Actually, thinking about you and Max learning Morse Code, it dawned on me that the difference between CW and SSB is usually taken as 10 dB, about the same difference as between barefoot and shoes.

Indeed, there is quite a subculture and quite a lore that thinks that CW will get through when nothing else can.  This isn't really true, there are modulation schemes (usually implemented through computer soundcards via DSP software operating at baseband) that are better than CW in some respects.

But, you can just barely hear somebody trying to talk to you then switch to CW and understand perfectly everything they are saying. At 20 WPM.  [note:  CW and SSB have been selections on an out-of-the-box amateur transceiver for decades.  Some "modulation scheme" beyond probably is not, even for modern equipment, although use of such would be legal for amateurs who somehow equipped themselves.  The difficulties in doing this cause many of the old timers to refer to such schemes as "esoteric" no matter how mundane they are.]

So, for that next 10 dB you'll think you need, you have three options:

Shoes.
Take along a computer and do PSK-31 or Olivia or MFSK-16 or something.
Learn Morse.  (Requires only skill.)

If you are starting from nothing (i.e., don't have any old boat suitable computers or amplifiers sitting around) and your time is worth about $100 an hour, these are all about equivalent.

Hmmm..

(A fourth option, tower and beam, is about $10dB higher.)

The reason I'm the way I am is because when I was a kid I had money in one or two digits and so really couldn't afford anything but spare parts, but I knew how to learn skill.  The guy who sold me my first SSB transmitter told me he wished he had my code speed so he could use it himself.  [He had bought the rig from the estate of a ham who did have the right license.]  He was Technician and seemed stuck there.  (This was when Technician had to pass 5 WPM and an upgrade to General was 13 WPM.)

I was incredulous that a person who could afford equipment could let something like an exam stand in the way of using it!  For years!

Glossary

barefoot   amateur transmitter running something like 100 Watts
CW      Morse Code
shoes      amateur transmitter driving an amplifier to something like 1000 - 1500 Watts.
SSB      Single Sideband ("phone" or "voice")

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My friend then, himself incredulous that learning Morse was easier than spending money, prodded me some more:


> Regarding Morse code: I think people with University degrees in classical piano may tend to minimize the challenge that that sort of skill poses for the rest of us.

Are you claiming that essentially no one can learn such a skill? Like one-in-a-million?

But, I will concede two points, as follows.

True, there are those who are predisposed to manual or rhythmic skills.  This is the essence of "talent" (potential).  Every person has some talent and is able to learn material in their area four to five times faster than the population in general.  But, on the other hand of that, I must point out that my own experience learning both music and Morse was utterly grueling.  It took huge amounts of time, effort, and frustration.  I wasn't really "good" at either one for something on the order of a year.  That was a long time ago, however. Having the skills now makes them seem more useful, and "easier."

Maybe I'm in the category with Mike Griffin.  "Some of us have no talent so we have to get training."

But there's another more relevant point.  Learning Morse to some basic level and being able to use it as an easy and obvious fallback in a marginal communications situation are two very different things.

Among my friends in the hobby, I'd say that some 30% are competent enough to chat in code.  The rest, by and large, hate it and will never again have anything to do with it again if they don't have to. Lux, for example, only learned the letters that were all dots or all dashes then used his encyclopaedic knowledge of all things to fill in the blanks, solving the puzzle well enough to pass the 5 WPM test. These friends are kind of self selected.  I'd say the proportion of chat-competent hams in the licensed population is around 10% and that's probably slightly larger than the percentage of people with that "talent" or potential in the general population.

Heck, back when you used to learn code in the military, the recruiters tested you before sending you to communications school, so you had to have some "talent" even there.  They don't have time to waste either.

Nonetheless, something like a million hams who were licensed in the U.S. before 1991 managed to do it, natural abilities notwithstanding. As you once said (about [a colleague], actually), anybody can learn anything, given enough time and effort.

All this being said, there is a well-known minimum-pain method for learning the skill.  Some with talent gain starting proficiency in 40 hours of effort using this method.  It is called the "Koch Method" (see my book review about Finley's book about this

MorseCode

and I used it with Katy [now KG6HUI].  It took her several months to accumulate the 40 hours (she's the one who also took piano and arguably has "talent") because she wouldn't do more than 15 minutes at a time or more than one session per day.  A grown woman, busy as we all are if not moreso (with two small children and a career) was able to do it in six weeks, as it says in my review.

I did not learn by the Koch method myself, but sorely wish I had.

But, all that being said, I wouldn't recommend Morse to you and Max (or anyone) unless you were going to enjoy it for its own sake. You might indeed, but it doesn't sound like you are predisposed to believe that right now.  Not while you're still in Law School anyway.

Before, I said that if your time was worth $100/hour, Morse skill could still be close to an even trade for that next 10 dB.  Having just looked at all of this closely, I'd revise that to $50/hour now.

When I was a kid I had all time and no money and the transmitter was CW only so there was really no choice, slam-dunk or not.



created 2007 October 9, cbd
Added discussion 2010 February 6, cbd