Our Ship to Shore Radio and the history of Morse code

This article is about my personal favourite exhibit of the museum – the interface and controls of a morse code communicator. It is essentially part of Ilfracombe radio station, that was used for ship-to-shore communication on the Mullacott hills to the south of Ilfracombe from 1959 – 1986. Ships in the Bristol channel and on the Atlantic or the Irish sea could use this station to communicate personal and business messages and make distress calls. The station’s identity code was ‘GIL’, and it would communicate with other stations and the authorities to resolve problems at sea.

The fascinating thing about this piece of equipment is that the last message sent in morse code at that station is recorded and played on the machine as a haunting memory of closing day. This is an interactive exhibit, and visitors can press all the buttons and dials and ‘send’ their own morse messages using the ‘key’. You can also listen to stories of previous employees at the station as they talk about the day to day duties and the blizzard of ’79.

To understand why morse code was used we must take ourselves back to the early 19^th century, to the world when electricity was still a mysterious thing to scientists and engineers.

The History of Morse Code

Samuel Morse invented the electric telegraph in 1844 which enabled the world to send messages through wires. He also invented a code -Morse code – which used ‘dots’ and ‘dashes’ to signify the letters of the alphabet. These dots and dashes were sent as electrical pulses from the transmitter, through the wire, and to the receiver and then translated back into English. He invented morse as a code for language simple enough to be used through this new technology.

Other codes such as Semaphore had been used previously, famously by Napolean. Semaphore uses flags in the place of dots and dashes to communicate letters of the alphabet. Semaphore stations would be in high places with good visibility, or on the coast. I think of it like the lighting of the beacons in The Lord of the Rings, where all around Gondor great fires signal the coming of war until all the surrounding area knows to ready for battle.

However, the electric telegraph was going to be much quicker, clearer and direct than semaphore, smoke signals or anything of that sort. This system did not need a clear line of sight between each semaphore station, so long as two wires connected two points, a message could be sent.

Here is a diagram of Morses’ original invention. P indicates the key, which you press to send a dot or dash (an electrical pulse). A indicates the paper tape at the receiving end which would be punctured according to the dots and dashes sent through the wire. Morse presented this technology to congress in Washington DC by sending one of the first electrical ‘text messages’ to his friend Alfred Vail in Maryland. It said: ‘what God hath wrought’. Which is

. – …. .- – / –. — -.. / …. .- – …. / .– .-. — ..- –. …. –

And was answered a moment later with ‘what hath God wrought?’.

.– …. .- – / …. .- – …. / –. — -.. / .– .-. — ..- –. …. – ..–..

What God hath wrought was many things, the influence of this technology being enormous. Just think how important the phone- and radio and television- is to each of us today. No-one ever thinks of sending messages to friends in other countries by foot or horse anymore. Though that would be very fun for a one-time novelty adventure.

Telegraph cable was strung up all over America, under the sea and around the entire globe to transport this new electrical messaging all over. Now messages could be sent almost instantaneously all over the globe, affecting the progress of business, the efficiency of military operations and influencing the future in an unimaginable number of ways. During wars that followed, electrical communication and morse code played a crucial role.

A few scientists by this point were experimenting with radio waves and how sound could be carried wirelessly.

Guglielmo Marconi invented the spark gap transmitter in 1894/5. The transmitter would generate a radio wave which electric currents (the dots and dashes) would travel across to an aerial receiver at the other end. Instead of a wire, the morse code would travel across radio waves. He sold his product to many nautical vessels.

By 1912 wireless telegraphy was in frequent use. In its infancy, wireless telegraphy was plagued with several problems. Messages couldn’t be sent to a particular frequency but a broad spectrum of frequencies. The range was limited, but you would also receive messages from anyone in range that may be irrelevant to your ship and disrupt important information.

It was fashionable, like any new technology often is, and passengers wanted to use wireless telegraphy to send personal messages ashore. Radio operators on the Titanic were employed by the Marconi Company to relay passenger messages to land. The air waves were noisy with personal messages and serious weather warnings. Radio operators on the Titanic reportedly told the Californian to ‘Shut up! Shut up!’ – in morse code of course, which is: … …. ..- – / ..- .–. -.-.– / … …. ..- – / ..- .–. -.-.– – when the Californian sent warnings of heavy pack ice.

In the wake of the Titanic disaster, the Radio Act of 1912 sought to make a more organised system of wireless communication. New technology was developed so that ship and shore radios could tune into specific frequencies of wave. The standard distress call was at a frequency of 500kHz.

Morse code continued being used throughout the 20^th century. Telephony (communication via speech- the telephone) was developing rapidly but the technology was less advanced, and the code had benefits to it that language lacked and was the established form of nautical communication. Eventually though, the code gave way to text and email, which was faster.

Our own radio station holds the last message it sent on 31^st December 1986 before the station closed. Generally these messages are quite sentimental as they signify the end of era for the particular radio operators who used that station but also the end of a unique moment in time and of morse code communication. The last American Ship to Shore radio to switch to the new Global Maritime Distress and Safety System ended its morse code messaging with . – …. .- – / –. — -.. / …. .- – …. / .– .-. — ..- –. …. – ‘what God hath wrought’ to bookend this era and Samuel Morse’s code. Some more last messages can be read here: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/coastguards-send-their-last-messages-in-morse-code-1291195.html

A meditation on the phrase ‘what god hath wrought’ here -https://www.mentalfloss.com/posts/what-hath-god-wrought-meaning

On our own ship-to-shore radio, where our story started, you can listen to the memories of previous employees to understand what it was like to be a radio operator.

Here is what I learnt:

Once a distress call was made operators had 10-12 minutes to relay that message to the authorities, the admiralty and other relevant stations, usually about 5 different places. They said there was ‘no copy and paste’ so messages were to be typed out 5 times within that short time frame. Ships in distress would sometimes communicate via telephony which could cause complications when sailors spoke another language or had heavy accents. Operators had to have a good grasp of French and German. Deciphering the messages of people in distress who didn’t report their location quickly made it difficult to send out the call to other stations in that short time frame.

Usually, problems would occur at night time when only 2 operators were on duty and while one would be sending out messages in response to a distress call the other had to monitor the lines for any new broadcast. Apparently, it was a ’nerve wracking business’. Imagine knowing people’s lives is in the tapping of your fingers!

You can find this artefact in the maritime room in our museum. Wilder Rd, Ilfracombe, Devon, UK EX34 8AF.