Morse decoding uses a beat frequency oscillator that beats with the pulsed IF frequency to produce an audible tone of varying lengths, depending on the interrupted carrier.
This is one of the reasons that morse could be used over distances that audible speech became unintelligible.
All you had to receive was the carrier frequency.
I'm QRX.
Max.

 

The pause does not carry information! It only separates the data blocks.

All the data is contained within two symbols.

By your logic, this series of binary numbers;
10 011 1010 10010 101
is also "trinary" because there are pauses separating the data blocks?

And this series of decimal numbers;
9 234 21 30 071
is actually in "undecimal" (base-11) because there are 10 digits and pauses?

Morse has data blocks consisting of only two data symbols, dot and dash. The fact that there are pauses between data blocks is irrelevant and is standard in binary comms. Morse is binary.

If 11 and 1 1 don't mean the same thing, then the information content is different. Since the only difference in the signal is the space, the space carries information.

I could cite reference after reference stating and explaining why Morse is not binary (not if you define the two symbols as the dit and that dah). I could even show an e-mail exchange with a leading Comms text author who, in the text, stated that Morse was binary but in response to an e-mail I sent him pointing out a number of typos and other things (including this) responded with a detailed explanation of why it is not binary but that he stated that it was only to seed the discussion and didn't want to get drawn off into a tangent. But there's no point because you are the world's expert so believe what you want.

 

If 11 and 1 1 don't mean the same thing, then the information content is different. Since the only difference in the signal is the space, the space carries information.

I could cite reference after reference stating and explaining why Morse is not binary (not if you define the two symbols as the dit and that dah). I could even show an e-mail exchange with a leading Comms text author who, in the text, stated that Morse was binary but in response to an e-mail I sent him pointing out a number of typos and other things (including this) responded with a detailed explanation of why it is not binary but that he stated that it was only to seed the discussion and didn't want to get drawn off into a tangent. But there's no point because you are the world's expert so believe what you want.

Interesting but I think the definition is one of semantics, and morse code can easily be interpreted by a CPU if timing is correct. If it is not correct, then a CPU could still do it but some type of fuzzy logic would have to be implemented. As I said above, semantics. It is basically ASCII with variable word size ("word" meaning variable number of bits).

The following is from Wikipedia - suggesting quinary but also showing how that code is easily converted to binary if timing is precise.

International Morse code is composed of five elements:

short mark, dot or "dit" (·) — "dot duration" is one time unit long
longer mark, dash or "dah" (–) — three time units long
inter-element gap between the dots and dashes within a character — one dot duration or one unit long
short gap (between letters) — three time units long
medium gap (between words) — seven time units long[1]
Morse code can be transmitted in a number of ways: originally as electrical pulses along a telegraph wire, but also as an audio tone, a radio signal with short and long tones, or as a mechanical, audible or visual signal (e.g. a flashing light) using devices like an Aldis lamp or a heliograph, a common flashlight, or even a car horn. Some mine rescues have used pulling on a rope - a short pull for a dot and a long pull for a dash.

Morse code is transmitted using just two states (on and off). Historians have called it the first digital code. Strictly speaking it is not binary, as there are five fundamental elements (see quinary). However, this does not mean Morse code cannot be represented as a binary code. In an abstract sense, this is the function that telegraph operators perform when transmitting messages. Working from the above definitions and further defining a "unit" as a bit, we can visualize any Morse code sequence as a combination of the following five elements:

short mark, dot or "dit" (·) — 1
longer mark, dash or "dah" (–) — 111
intra-character gap (between the dots and dashes within a character) — 0
short gap (between letters) — 000
medium gap (between words) — 0000000
Note that this method assumes that dits and dahs are always separated by dot duration gaps, and that gaps are always separated by dits and dahs.

Morse messages are generally transmitted by a hand-operated device such as a telegraph key, so there are variations introduced by the skill of the sender and receiver — more experienced operators can send and receive at faster speeds. In addition, individual operators differ slightly, for example using slightly longer or shorter dashes or gaps, perhaps only for particular characters. This is called their "fist", and experienced operators can recognize specific individuals by it alone. A good operator who sends clearly and is easy to copy is said to have a "good fist". A "poor fist" is a characteristic of sloppy or hard to copy Morse code.

The only thing different from serial communication and morse code is that morse code has the clock timing in the code. A timing could be developed by differentiating the dit from dah and using the dit timing as the clock period.

 

Morse is not traditionally transmitted as a formulated clocked code, it is simply a radio transmission carrier turned on and off, IOW, the morse key turns the carrier/transmitter on and off for a varying period depending on how long you hold the key down.
The carrier is NOT modulated like speech transmission is.
At the receiving end all you would hear is a series of clicks, so the carrier has to be beaten with local oscillator to come up with a ~ 1kHz etc audible signal for the TX/RX on time.
Max.

 

The following is from Wikipedia - suggesting quinary but also showing how that code is easily converted to binary if timing is precise.



The only thing different from serial communication and morse code is that morse code has the clock timing in the code. A timing could be developed by differentiating the dit from dah and using the dit timing as the clock period.

The possible conversion to binary for representation of symbols doesn't mean the code is binary. Our fingers are up(on) or down(off) when counting in base 10 but that's still not binary digital counting.

The baud rate for Morse (a digital PWM signal) is less than 1 (about .833 of the binary bit rate) so there is not a direct conversion to binary. Our brains/telegraph key or a computer programs converts the code formats.

 

Technically Marconi was the first, as in Morse ON/OFF, Zero/One, Digital.
That is if you define digital as either Zero or One.
This is the nature of his first transmissions.
Max.

 

The following is from Wikipedia - suggesting quinary but also showing how that code is easily converted to binary if timing is precise.

Note the key difference. It is NOT binary if you consider the symbols to be the dit and the dah. It IS binary if you consider the symbols to be ON and OFF (or mark/space or whatever names you want to use) and the dit and the dah are then defined as being different sequences of marks and spaces.

 

If 11 and 1 1 don't mean the same thing, then the information content is different. Since the only difference in the signal is the space, the space carries information.

I could cite reference after reference stating and explaining why Morse is not binary (not if you define the two symbols as the dit and that dah). I could even show an e-mail exchange with a leading Comms text author who, in the text, stated that Morse was binary but in response to an e-mail I sent him pointing out a number of typos and other things (including this) responded with a detailed explanation of why it is not binary but that he stated that it was only to seed the discussion and didn't want to get drawn off into a tangent. But there's no point because you are the world's expert so believe what you want.

There's no need to be a rude a-hole WBahn.

Back on topic, by your logic then, binary comms can ONLY exist when there is never a pause. Because you believe any pauses between data blocks stop it from being binary!

So by YOUR "world's expert" reckoning all the binary comms in the world that rely on a pause to separate data blocks or data packets are NOT binary now?

Next you are going to tell me there are 27 letters in the alphabet because we must include the pause (space) in the symbol count!

When there are TWO data symbols the data is binary. And YES, data sometimes has pauses.

 

Note the key difference. It is NOT binary if you consider the symbols to be the dit and the dah. It IS binary if you consider the symbols to be ON and OFF (or mark/space or whatever names you want to use) and the dit and the dah are then defined as being different sequences of marks and spaces.

Which brings us back to the original question, first Digital (on/off) telephone call (nobody has yet insisted on binary) and, yes, telephone and not telegraph.

 

So by YOUR "world's expert" reckoning all the binary comms in the world that rely on a pause to separate data blocks or data packets are NOT binary now?

Those are just complete symbol transmission timing or data rate requirements and are not intrinsic to the actual symbol. Because international Morse is a PWM signal, timing is intrinsic (essential nature of a thing) to code structure.

 

Timing is intrinsic to binary comms too.

Many IR remote binary comms use a long period for a 1 bit, and a short period for the zero bit, with an even longer pause delineating the individual bytes. The entire decoding system is based on timing.

But the data and comms are still officially binary. It doesn't become "trinary" because there are pauses between the binary data blocks.

Other standard binary data comms send a data block of 8 binary bits, separated by a pause, and data packets of X bytes separated by an even longer pause. If you include the 2 pause lengths in the base (as WBahn has done) then you would say it is now base 4 or "quaternary". But it's not, it is still binary data.

And I don't see a difference between separating bytes and packets with two different pauses, and separating letters and words with two different pauses. It does not increase the base of the data.

 

Oh, quaternary and such is definitely digital. The recent discussion centered on the claim that Morse code was binary.

What's the difference between "specific values of an analog stream" and "discrete states". ALL systems are inherently analog (well, I suppose if you get into really obscure physics that isn't necessarily true, but for now, for us, it is), it is how we choose to assign information to things that makes them "digital".

Missed this the first time around. I didn't mean to suggest a difference between "discrete states" and "specific values". I totally agree with your explanation.

 

And I don't see a difference between separating bytes and packets with two different pauses, and separating letters and words with two different pauses. It does not increase the base of the data.

The difference is the complete digital symbol in binary is the one or zero that can be used to encode or decode the representation of an arbitrary digital symbol of another type.

 

Which brings us back to the original question, first Digital (on/off) telephone call (nobody has yet insisted on binary) and, yes, telephone and not telegraph.

I think I found the first.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIGSALY

 

There's no need to be a rude a-hole WBahn.

Back on topic, by your logic then, binary comms can ONLY exist when there is never a pause. Because you believe any pauses between data blocks stop it from being binary!

So by YOUR "world's expert" reckoning all the binary comms in the world that rely on a pause to separate data blocks or data packets are NOT binary now?

Next you are going to tell me there are 27 letters in the alphabet because we must include the pause (space) in the symbol count!

When there are TWO data symbols the data is binary. And YES, data sometimes has pauses.

As I said, believe what you want. I'm not trying to convince you of anything anymore. But that apparently isn't good enough and I must accept your view. Well, I don't. Get over it.

 

The difference is the complete digital symbol in binary is the one or zero that can be used to encode or decode the representation of an arbitrary digital symbol of another type.

It's the same in morse. All the data blocks represent 26 characters (A-Z in binary), and 10 numerals (0-9 in binary).

Besides the data which is made only from two binary symbols, there are some framing elements.

This is similar to many modern binary comms, that have all the data represented by two symbols, and data is separated by framing elements. Framing elements can be things like start and stop bits, or pauses. Both are common in binary comms.

The addition of framing elements to a binary data stream does not make it "trinary" or "quatenary" etc.

Maybe some people are forgetting that binary comms consist of binary data and framing elements?

I'm not sure why people insist that morse is a different case to other binary comms standards. Maybe because it's old? Nostalgia?

Or because it is mainly used for text, so they come to the conclusion one of the framing elements is really a space character between letters?

As I said, believe what you want. I'm not trying to convince you of anything anymore. But that apparently isn't good enough and I must accept your view. Well, I don't. Get over it.

I've presented a very good argument stating that morse has binary data and pasues for framing elements. Many modern binary comms have binary data and pauses for framing elements.

If you think you have a counter to my argument then present it.

If you stick to your original argument that framing elements like pauses increase the base of the data then you need to present examples in modern binary comms where it is considered "trinary" or "quatenary" comms because there are pauses between the binary data blocks. Or concede.

 

I've presented a very good argument stating that morse has binary data and pasues for framing elements. Many modern binary comms have binary data and pauses for framing elements.

If you think you have a counter to my argument then present it.

If you stick to your original argument that framing elements like pauses increase the base of the data then you need to present examples in modern binary comms where it is considered "trinary" or "quatenary" comms because there are pauses between the binary data blocks. Or concede.

I (and others) have explained why it is not. As I said before, I could cite numerous professional sources supporting that position, but doing so would be pointless as you would simply blow them off and continue to insist that your view is the only correct one. So, for the third and final time, I am not trying to convince you of anything. But, as already pointed out, that clearly is not good enough for you since you are demanding that I must either chase your red herring or concede. It is obviously not acceptable to you for us to just agree to have different viewpoints. Why is that?

 

I think I found the first.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIGSALY

This is close to the 1947 date I had found, also for military comms. Unfortunately, I went looking for the link and apparently have lost it.

 

This is close to the 1947 date I had found, also for military comms. Unfortunately, I went looking for the link and apparently have lost it.

There is an earlier patent for wireless (so does not count as a valid answer) that uses an early version of spread spectrum. See Wikipedia article on Austrian/American actress Hedy Lamarr.

She developed a frequency hopping protocol to control torpedoes.

She had a very colorful life - from actress of banned movies (Ecstasy) , spouse to a munitions manufacturer and host to Hitler and Mussolini, inventor, ... A classmate had to write an essay about her when I was in college - History of Theater and Film. The professor had no idea about Lamarrs other 'skills' and he was skeptical if the student was making up stories or simply confusing Lamarr with someone with a similar name.

Incidentally, AAC member, Brownout, has a signature using a quote of Hedley Lamarr - a Mel Brooks character. Lamarr sued brooks for using her name and defaming her. "Hedley" was a jab at her role in Ecstasy.

Sorry for the long-winded story but I have a thing for smart women.

 

It's the same in morse. All the data blocks represent 26 characters (A-Z in binary), and 10 numerals (0-9 in binary).

My last word on this.
As I said before Morse is a non-binary digital code (designed to have rhythmic timing or beat that human brains can easily follow with training) that can be represented using binary OOK (on/off keying) modulation. The fact that it can be translated into binary OOK KEYING symbols does not change the fundamental requirements needed to send information in 'Morse' CODE.
http://projects-web.engr.colostate.edu/ece-sr-design/AY09/meteor/TimingDiagramMorseCode.pdf

IMO those of us that see Morse as a non-binary code know the difference between coding methods and keying methods. The binary keying method for Morse could be OOK, BFSK, BPSK, etc .... These keying methods can transmit (after conversion from the code to a compatible format for keying) an unlimited number of non-binary digital codes from Morse to the genetic DNA/mRNA sequence coding of life or they can be used with binary codes like ASCII to directly send the individual bits.

Simply saying Morse has binary components so it's binary is not sufficient to formally specify it's (Morse) current digital information state by simply looking at two distinct binary keying state values (on/off, 1/0) at an isolated point in time when used on a communications system. Binary is defined as having two parts, if it has fewer or more parts to it's state then it's something else.