Freedom Lawyers of America

> Morse code is entering the 21st century -- or at least the late 20th.
>
> The 160-year-old communication system now has a new character to denote
the
> "@" symbol used in e-mail addresses.
>
> In December, the International Telecommunications Union, which oversees
the
> entire frequency spectrum, from amateur radio to satellites, voted to add
> the new character.
>
> The new sign, which will be known as a "commat," consists of the signals
> for "A" (dot-dash) and "C" (dash-dot-dash-dot), with no space between
them.
>
> The new sign is the first in at least several decades, and possibly much
> longer. Among ITU officials and Morse code aficionados, no one could
> remember any other addition.
>
> "It's a pretty big deal," said Paul Rinaldo, chief technical officer for
> the American Radio Relay League, the national association for amateur
radio
> operators. "There certainly hasn't been any change since before World War
II."
>
> The change will allow ham radio operators to exchange e-mails more easily.
> That's because -- in an irony of the digital age -- they often use Morse
to
> initiate conversations over the Internet.
>
> "People trade their e-mail addresses a lot," said Nick Yocanovich, a Morse
> code enthusiast who lives in Arnold, Md.
>
> Morse code uses two audible electrical signals -- short "dots" and
slightly
> longer "dashes" -- to form letters, numbers and punctuation marks. Created
> in the 1830s by Samuel F.B. Morse, who invented the telegraph, the
> electronic signaling system spread across the world, and until the past
few
> decades, it was used widely by the public, industry and government.
>
> "It was the beginning of the Information Age," said Gary Fowlie, Chief of
> Media Relations and Public Information for the ITU, which has its
> headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.
>
> When Morse died in 1872, more than 650,000 miles of telegraph wire circled
> the globe. By the early 20th century, Morse messages were being sent
> wirelessly, via radio.
>
> Perhaps the most famous Morse communication is the international distress
> signal S-O-S. It consists of three dots, three dashes, and three more
dots.
>
> But with the proliferation of digital communications technologies such as
> cell phones, satellites and the Internet, Morse code has lost its
> pre-eminent place in global communications. "There's really no reason to
> use it anymore," said Robert Colburn, research coordinator for the History
> Center of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
>
> Today it's largely the province of ham radio operators, including 700,000
> in the United States. While not all of them communicate regularly in
Morse,
> almost all are familiar with it.
>
> Some ham operators wouldn't mind more changes to spice up the language.
> While Morse code has a period, a question mark, and even a semicolon, it
> offers no simple way to articulate excitement.
>
> "I was hoping they'd add a character for the exclamation point," said
> Yocanovich, who is active in the International Morse Preservation Society.
> "It expresses an emotion that's difficult to get across any other way."
>