The Last Morse Code Stations (NPR)

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The Last Morse Code Stations
Adam Hochberg, All Things Considered, National Public Radio, July 14, 1999

In 1999 the last four stations that communicated with ships by Morse code signed off the air, the last four commercial Morse code operations in North America. The invention of wireless telegraphy enabled Morse's system of dots and dashes to play a key role in 20th- century ship-to-shore communication. National Public Radio's Adam Hochberg reports on final transmissions and the disappearance of Morse Code.

Transcript:
This is the sound of a dying language.

(Soundbite of Morse code transmission)

HOCHBERG: After more than 150 years, the dots and dashes of Morse code are quickly fading into the static of the past. For generations, these electric sounds were the only form of long-distance communication. On land, they heralded the arrival of a telegram or a news dispatch from far away. On the seas, they were a lifeline for lonely mariners. Today, overtaken by the telephone and the Internet, Morse code is considered obsolete, and the people who once used it are mourning its loss.

Mr. JACK RITTER: There's a sadness. An old friend is retiring. Something that you've done most all your life is going away.

HOCHBERG: Sixty-one-year-old Jack Ritter has been enthralled with Morse code since he was a boy. His grandfather worked the telegraph on the Rock Island Railroad, and Ritter himself was a Morse code operator in the Navy, manning the radio crew for John Glenn's first space flight in 1962. And like many of his contemporaries, Ritter has a deep affection for the dots and dashes.

Mr. RITTER: It's a universal language. There is no more reliable communications media in the world, satellite, anything else, than you get two operators who are proficient in Morse code. When the other signals can't get through because of interference, two operators can communicate.

HOCHBERG: That reliability is what Samuel Morse had in mind when he devised his electric language. It was designed to be foolproof, requiring only a small key to send signals, a small clicker to receive them and a wire to connect the two. The simple invention led to massive telegraph networks that sprawled across the United States and Europe in the late 1800s. And with the advent of radio, Morse code went wireless. Sailors used it to communicate with the mainland and early radio stations began broadcasting news to ships at sea.

In 1915, a hobbyist named Charles Apgar recorded one of those news programs from New York station WHB.

(Soundbite from 1915)

Mr. CHARLES APGAR (Hobbyist): What you will hear will only be the Morse code signals in this message. That's all we had at that time. No voice, no music, just a lot of dots and dashes.

(Soundbite of Morse code transmission)

(End of soundbite)

HOCHBERG: For its era, the technology was revolutionary. Never before could people communicate over such long distances so quickly. The military embraced it; so did businesses and the news media. Operators who could send Morse code quickly found themselves in demand for jobs. There were telegraph romances, even a few Morse code weddings. And telegraph historian Jeff Wittig says by the 1930s, the dots and dashes were part of American culture.

Mr. JEFF WITTIG (Telegraph Historian): At a sporting event, you would hear fans sending messages to players on the field in Morse code, and one of those messages endures today: Fans will pound out a rhythm on the bleachers with their feet, and it's boom, boom; boom, boom, boom; boom, boom, boom, boom; boom, boom. It's the rhythm for the Morse code figures seven and three, and 73 is a telegrapher's signal for best wishes.

HOCHBERG: Even after the telephone replaced the telegraph for land communication, Morse code remained dominant at sea. Ships were required to have radio officers on duty day and night, an international law passed after the sinking of the Titanic.

During World War II, thousands of American troops learned Morse code at Gallups Island, Massachusetts, before taking assignments in the radio rooms of military vessels. One of those sailors was Ralph Albers, who still recalls the sound of ships sending frantic Morse code distress signals as they were torpedoed by enemy submarines.

Mr. RALPH ALBERS (Former Sailor): During that time, there were about 400 ships sunk, and every night we'd hear--it would just be--when a sub was sighted, it'd say, `S, S, S, S; S, S, S, S,' and it'd say, `Torpedoed, sinking, abandoning ship.' And then the guy would lock his key down so it'd send out a continuous, `beeeeep.' And when the ship went underwater, the beep would stop so you knew the ship was gone.

HOCHBERG: It was through Morse code that Americans heard one of the most chilling accounts of the Second World War, a telegraph transmission from a 22-year-old Army corporal named Irving Strobing. He was broadcasting from Corrigidor, in May 1942, as Japanese troops overran the Philippine island.

(Soundbite of Morse code transmission from Army Corporal Irving Strobing)

Unidentified Man: `The white flag is up. Everyone is bawling like a baby. They're piling dead, wounded soldiers in our tunnels. I know now how a mouse feels caught in a trap.'

HOCHBERG: For years after the war, Morse code continued to be widely used on the high seas, but in the past two decades, new technology began to take its place.

(Soundbite of computer transmission)

HOCHBERG: Computers replaced radio operators, satellites started handling ship-to-shore communications. Captains now could talk on the phone to the mainland or send e-mail without having to resort to the cryptic system of dashes and dots. Jeff Wittig, the historian, says after 150 years, progress finally caught up with Samuel Morse's invention.

Mr. WITTIG: While Morse code has an enchantment, it has some serious drawbacks, speed being the primary one. And I think that's the reason that technology moved ahead and found better and faster ways of communicating.

HOCHBERG: In 1995, the Coast Guard closed its Morse code operation, and this week the last four commercial Morse code stations in North America shut down as well, two in California, one each in Massachusetts and Louisiana. To commemorate the occasion, there was a brief ceremony Monday outside San Francisco, an opportunity for veteran radio men to say goodbye to a language they loved. Mike Rems was one of the last Morse code operators at California station KFS.

Mr. MIKE REMS: I started in this business when I was 17 years old. I went to school and I learned this profession, and I said, `Someday, I want to go to a coastal radio station and talk to ships and get paid for it.' And I did it for 18 years, and I didn't think I would be, but I'm kind of choked up.

(Soundbite of Morse code transmission)

HOCHBERG: Before KFS went off the air, some of Rems' colleagues sent out this last transmission, a brief Morse code message to President Clinton. `Dear President,' they said, `Please accept this final radio telegraph message as a token of this historic event.' The president wasn't listening to the transmission, but he didn't have to be. The Morse code operators, in a concession to new technology, sent the White House a copy of the message by e-mail. Adam Hochberg, NPR News.

(Soundbite of Morse code transmission)