U.S. Army Morse Code Practice Records

[HoneycombAgent]

Rare to find a 33 platter spinning at 78 rpm

[alpha754293]

I think the greatest part about the video is the fact that there's a keyboard sitting next to the record player. A little bit of the old, a little bit of the new. And as we advance, I think that some of these skills should be carried along with us; even if it is quite..."archaic".

[Tsunyme]

i was in 501st signal battalion at the 101ST AIRBORNE DIVISION (AIR ASSAULT). we are the eagle's voice. do you mind if i share this with fellow hams & commo folk? btw: proud to see this post.

[AF2Z]

@Tsunyme Thanks! You can share it all you want. The complete set of recordings are available for download as MP3 files at ARCHIVE DOT ORG Just plug my call sign, AF2Z, into the search box there.

[charlessmyth]

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing.

[tpsossff]

Yes, not the most exciting bit of video but it is an important historical record. In an age when I can take something smaller than a cigarette packet out of my top pocket and speak to anyone on the planet it is easy to forget that things were once very different.

Sobering too that if I could go back in time with my lappy and the right software I could probably decode into plain English all messages being sent by all sides simultaniously in real time.

[JacksMagicBean]

Was the very first group F? and the nezt one i?

[xSurfinB1rdx]

Here is a group...

[Adrian51524]

-- --- .-. ... . -.-. --- -.. . ..-. - .-- 

[hifatpeople]

the guy is like dora, tells u something then gives you a year to think before saying something else, anyways, if u have an ipod touch, get the morse driller app, i learned morse with it and the app is -. .. -.-. .

thats morse for nice, didnt have to look that up either. also u can learn braille with braille driller, i know that also.

[Bayareahousepainter]

I like to have you video gramps and ask him all you can.

[WaffleMaster4]

using these records i learned all the letters and some of the numbers in only 2 days. thanks for uploading them!

[JohnnyX50]

The last clip is very interesting, showing groups of 5 letters or numbers. The morse station DE 4XZ believed to be a spy station churns out strings of 5 letters/numbers in morse. Now starting to wonder if it is a practice station broadcast for training purposes for trainees to tune into and practice morse lol.

[ApolloWasReal]

@JohnnyX50 It was before my time, but I understand those 5-letter code groups were standard in military traffic handling since the traffic itself was encrypted. The roughest Morse tests were always those involving random code groups since you couldn't apply your knowledge of English to fill in any gaps. The FCC tests (I actually took them at the FCC office) were English text, so practicing on random code groups at the same speed gave me a little margin.

[JohnnyX50]

@ApolloWasReal Thank you for your kind response! That is very interesting to know as these 5 figutre groups have always had me mystified =] Even though my dad retired from the army a very long time ago, he said he never came in contact with the comms side of things as he was assigned to tank driving and then later the cookery corps lol I cant begin to thank you enough for replying to my question, I am really greatfull, thank you once again =]

[ApolloWasReal]

@JohnnyX50 You're welcome. I think even today you can still hear those 5 letter code groups of Morse being sent from mysterious HF "numbers stations". They are undoubtedly being used to send encrypted messages, but to whom? Spies? Special ops forces? Ships at sea? Technology has advanced so much it's hard to conceive of where they'd still prefer to use Morse.

[JohnnyX50]

@ApolloWasReal I completely agree! You can still hear spoken 5 figure groups by robotic machines that have human voice. They are very spooky and surely only poorly developed countries must be using them as, like you say, they would use hi-tech transmissions. But I guess, morse is still detectable by ear even thru interference which would otherwise render a computers ability to decode it useless and the brain is still the best machine at picking out one sound from noise like voice or tones =]

[marcrhsn]

@JohnnyX50

Those transmissions are made by the USA, Great Britain, Israel and some other countries. Search for "number stations" here on youtube. To receive them, you just need a shortwave radio, not very suspicious and easy to buy. High-tech equipment is much more suspicious. The messages are decoded using "one time pads". Just a piece of paper with numbers and letters on it that can be easily hidden or destroyed. Very low tech, but much harder to crack or discover than any high tech attempt.

[CEM3142]

word per minute = WPM

[565765746867665]

This is a series of long sounds.....pingpingpingppinggg

[HAMayoral]

Cool, it´s humming in G!

[8592291613]

morris code forever de ks4ww not no code extra

[timeanagain]

Do you know how long the training lasted back then?

[helipilot727]

I am downloading these from archive, thank you so much for making these available. I have been studying morse code for awhile now and have the entire alphabet but I am still very slow... I am looking forward to listening to these recordings!

[slavedekevin]

i know all this!!!!! It's easy!

[ereneotaton]

what wpm is this?

[AF2Z]

The record label for this recording says it is 16 wpm but it sounds a little faster than that.

[ereneotaton]

16 wpm..that was too fast..i guess 18 wpm..thanks bro!

[2fastg35]

Great video! Thanks for sharing... I was wondering how you got those records. ?

[AF2Z]

I got these recording from my uncle who was in the Signal Corps during WWII. I don't know how he came to own them.

[PanekPL]

@AF2Z Add these to Discogs and send me the links

I want them

[rhblakeman]

Announcer on the record is as monotone as Ben Stine but it's pretty neat to hear the training recordings from 65+ yrs ago.

[kn9iou]

73 DE K9IOU

[ScenicDepot]

My dad very likely took this same aptitude test after being drafted in 1942, and was told, "You WILL be a radio operator." He scored the highest in the Signal Corps class in Georgia, and was sent to a location in a castle near London to intercept German Enigma transmissions. They didn't know what they were copying at the time, it was all in five-character groups, but it had to be done perfectly. He was required to sit at his radio for eight hours at a time with no breaks.

---KE7J

[hrbear]

At 6:42 things become difficult. One can not now write down the series of . s and - s because the signal transmits too quickly. I guess he now must decode the letters in his mind and write down the letters. A, B, and so on. The difficulty for me should be this, the space between the letters, if one is not experienced he can easily confuse this space. Then, he can loose a whole series or phrase.

[hrbear]

Did you become a radio operator as your father wished for you?

[8592291613]

enjoyed it de ks4ww

[KA7EII]

How cool! I like the Califone phonograph too.

[guitarman2360]

Great video, Thanks for sharing!

[edgar15vieira]

Awsome dude, you grandfather has been in the d-day?

[NHSActor]

My grandfather served in the Signal corps in WWII. He worked out of Gaza, Egypt, intercepting German, Italian, and Japanese Diplomatic parcels, and sending them to Washington to be decoded by the OSS. He would have listened to these records to learn the trade. He is today 87, and remembers the code perfectly, despite a bad case of Alzheimers.

[JBenjamin82]

Wow, that's pretty cool. :-)

[caltech96]

@NHSActor Thanks for the comment. I was a morse intercept operator in Vietnam and God how I would have loved to know somebody like your Grandpa. Those guys did a magnificent job. Tell him thank you. They never told us what the messages we intercepted were about.

[Katleenfarine]

thanks for sharing!!! :D

[mitchells00]

The man on the record is talking extremely slow. It would be insulting to me if someone was talking to me like that. Even most people I know that are extremely bad at English can understand people talking faster than that.

[usuariojotaerre]

Excellent and historic video! a collector's item for all amntes of the CW. Thank you very much for uploading this gem! Greetings from Málaga City, Spain. EA7/LU1DQ , Jorge.

[AF2Z]

Thanks, Jorge. The entire set of audio recordings is available at archive-dot-org (search for AF2Z there).

[zetakai13]

to the untrained ear it just sounds like its blended together, i would know because i have an untrained ear, heh. i cant establish spaces between letters :(

[AF2Z]

The highest word-speed in this recording is less than 20 per minute, which is quite intelligible (with practice!). It is not very uncommon for some Amateur Radio operators to achieve 60-70 wpm, and a few go much higher!. At these speeds the sound is just a blur to the untrained ear-- five characters per second or more. It is an amazing ability.

[gridlocksystem]

let's send a message to ECHELON now !!

[bd1isi]

dah  dididah

[fetters6776]

di di di dah dah dah di di di

[YellowSSS]

SOS Save our shit!

[prelan]

daadaadit, lol

[EivindTM]

4:24 di di di dah

haha

[le238man]

Great Video.

[bleorg2000]

Nice Califone!

[AF2Z]

Yes, it is model 1815K. I got it on ebay. The speed adjuster was broken but easy to fix. Also has a buiilt-in turntable stoboscope. I have a bunch of 78 rpm's and 33's I want to digitize.

[Jesselnz]

Thanks a lot! I downloaded the entire set, very useful learning tool.

[AF2Z]

That's great! I guess some folks may still find them useful. Something different, anyway.

[Inframus]

..- ... . ..-. ..- .-.. .-..

[dcf77]

.-. --- ..-. .-..

[k9rzz]

You didn't tell us we were going to be quizzed on this video! I like the high pitched note. Pretty speedy for record #1. A nice blast from the past though, thanks for sharing!

[AF2Z]

Put your pencils down and pass your papers to the right...

[stupidawesome123]

haha... can you speak morse...

.... ..- ....

[va3grv2]

Very Cool !

73, VA3GRV ee

[AF2Z]

I don't know if they are worth much-- especially now since I've put the mp3 recordings on the net. Most people probably don't have 78 rpm record players to play them. But I've never seen them on ebay. What is the highest code speed you have on your records?

[lynnydo]

Lol

[AF2Z]

I actually used these records to learn the Morse when I was a kid! Anyhow, I have posted mp3 files of the entire record set on the Internet Archive site (search for AF2Z).

[w8fg]

Very cool , I have one of the Ameco records and cannot find a record player to try it on.

[AF2Z]

I also have an Ameco 33rpm LP code practice set (two LP's). I think it goes up to 18 or 20 wpm... -- 73, Drew

[ki6esk]

Great Video Drew !

73,Curtis

[AF2Z]

Tnx, Curtis. I will also be making available online mp3 recordings of the entire set of records at some point. 73, Drew