The History of Morse Code
Ford Amateur Radio League
David Treharne, N8HKU
November 9, 2006
The Task
In the 1800’s, communication over wires had
been established.
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Europe, French, British, Germans all had patents
on various telegraphy designs, by such people as
Charles Wheatstone
They were, however, complicated and unreliable.
An American Republic prize existed for an efficient
communications system that covered the Atlantic
Coast. Prior communications were done by
optical signalling, which had distance and weather
conditions issues.
Samuel Morse
Born: April 24, 1791
In Charlestown, MA
Education: Degree in Art and
Sculpture from Yale
University
Occupation: Painter of Portraits and other art.
Created over 200 portraits during his
lifetime. Got involved in Electricity
later in life.
Communications Issues
Samuel Morse found existing
communications frustrating.
During one of several trips to
Europe aboard the Sully in
1832, he discussed electricity
and long distance
communication with Dr.
Charles Thomas Jackson, a
medical doctor who also
worked with electricity and
magnetism, and who dabbled
with the telegraph himself.
In Pursuit of a Design
In 1835, Morse’s career as
an artist was not feeding
his family. Knowing that
others were working on the
telegraph as well, he got to
work on his own design.
Charles Wheatstone was
one of the competitors.
Wheatstone used 5 circuits, two were energized to send a letter. J,
C, Q, U, X and Z had to be omitted, though, making words
difficult.
Morse’s Early Work
Morse was working
on a device that
could print out the
code on a piece of
paper, allowing
unattended reception
of the code. His
original code used
numbers to equal
words
He quickly determined that this method was not going to work well,
though. The conversion of numbers to words was too limiting.
The Alphabetic Code
Morse developed the code for both letters and
numbers around 1935. This allowed for
unlimited communication. Here is an early aid
for learning the code.
Timeline to Demonstrations
1838: Demonstrated messaging on 3 miles of
wire around New York University Exhibition
Hall
1843: Morse finally secured a $30,000 grant
to make a demonstration
Original Line made between Baltimore to
Washington DC. Insulation failures prevented
underground installation, B&O Railroad
Counsel John Latrobe convinced Morse to
string the wires on poles along the rail track.
Convincing Demonstration
May 24, 1844: Messages were sent back and
forth between Baltimore and the Supreme
Court chamber, including the infamous phrase:
“What Hath God Wrought”
Messages from the capital to Baltimore in the
ensuing days and weeks gave the Baltimore
Patriot the scoop over rivals, and the value of
the telegraph as a communication media was
firmly established. Newspapers touted the
transmission via “Telegraph” across their
mastheads.
Start of Commercial Business
Samuel Morse made his first patent
application in 1837.
Attempted to sell his invention to the
government for $100,000.
Started the Magnetic Telegraph Company in
1845.
Western Union bought up the various
telegraph companies in 1857.
Royalties made Morse quite wealthy by the
end of the Civil War.
Final Tidbits
Telegraph: Greek:
Tele=Distant, Graphos= Writing
Morse attempted to choose the shortest code
for the most often used letters. He toured
New York print shops and counted their letter
type to choose the final code.
When Marconi sent the first wireless
transmissions overseas, Morse Code was the
logical method, easy to use, and well known
to all telegraph operators (he sent “s”)
Credits
QST: April 1991: Samuel F. B. Morse, Radio’s
Mysterious Progenitor
http://www.morsehistoricsite.org/general/links.html
http://www.faradic.net/~gsraven/index.shtml#contents