In article , Michael Coslo
writes:

N2EY wrote:

In article , Mike Coslo
writes:

wrote:

Michael Coslo wrote:

I felt kinda bad about being mean to Len,

When were you mean to Len, Mike?
Unless you count disagreeing with him and proving him wrong as "being
mean", you've been nothing but nice to him.

Well, he probably thinks so!

Whether he thinks at all is unknown. It's clear he has no shame, however,
considering how he behaves here and all the Godwin violations. He and "F%$@
$%#k" Dick Cheney must be buddies.

Mike Deignan had him pegged. Len's really ticked that somewhere, out there,
somebody is having fun with ham radio.

*Every Day*! If I'm not operating, I'm reading or surfing the web to
learn about it. And I venture in here for a little mud wrestling from
time to time too! 8^)

What *really* ticks him, I suppose, is people having fun with ham radio and
Morse Code...

so I'll try to meet him
halfway with a Morse code topic.

His definition of meeting halfway is that you agree with him 100%.

That is certainly possible...

It's self-evident...

So maybe we can ressurect this old one...

I hear lots of Hams declare that Morse code is a binary mode.
It is most certainly not.

Depends how you define "binary".

One state equals "0" or "off".
The other state equals "1" or "on".

You have to define "state". If "key up" and "key down" are the states, it's
binary. Time isn't the factor you make it - look at how Baudot works.

Certainly. But Morse code, which was invented as a human translated
code, does not qualify to me as a 1 or 0 state.

Here is my rationale:

If the key is up, the radio is certainly not sending 0's.

Doesn't have to.

This brings up an interesting paradox...
If the lack of a signal is a 0 state, then when no signal is being
transmitted, you are receiving zeros until someone sends something.

That's right. And a string of zeroes is interpreted as lots of spaces.

I grant that a dit might be a 1.

If a dah is 3 1's, why do we not send 3 dits. I either hold the key down
longer or press the dah switch on my keyer. It sends out a longer pulse,
not 3 1's.

It sends three dits with no space between them.

Describing the signal as how many 1's a signal is, or how many 0's
indicate intercharacter or interword spacing is a method of translating
the varying length Morse code signals into digital format.

So?

The basic element is one dit length long. Three of them together in the one
state is a dah.

Let us look at the situation.

Is the Dit a "0"?

No.

Is the Dah a "1"?

No.

Is the space between characters a "0"? and the Dih a "1"? Oh wait,
what is the Dah then? Oh, and what about the space between words?

Key up is "0". Key down is "1". Also known as "space" and "mark",
respectively.

Unfortunately, there are two separate "1" states, and the zero state is
not a constant thing.

Doesn't have to be. It's a time code.

There is the matter of time. A zero might me the space between letters,
or one half of a dit. It might also mean the space between words. All
different things.

No. The characters are built from the basic elements, which are key up and
key down, just like, say, Baudot RTTY.

That Morse code can be turned into binary is not at argument here. It
obviously can, just as images, emails and everything else we do on the
computer. Are they binary because someone has written a program to turn
them into strings of 1's and 0's?


Their basic transmission form is binary, same as Morse.

A non-binary code is one that has more than two *transmission* states, like
QPSK. Which is typically implemented as 0, 90, 180 and 270 degrees shift.
Four transmission states rather than two.

It isn't binary,

Depends on how you define "binary".

and the way our noodles process it isn't binary.

Different subject.

Not really. If you look at the string of 1's and 0's that Doug posted
as the binary result of my hypothetical CQ, is that something that you
would recognize as that CQ? That string IS binary.

I would recognize it easily.

Why does the - and . method of typing out the code convey the
information? the dashes and the spaces convey time information to the
person looking at them. I'm counting more than two states here.

It's not the simplest way, though. It shows the time differently.

It's not binary.

Most Morse operators with any skill (that excludes Len) process a
complete character as one "sound". "didahdidit" is recognized as "L",
in the same way that when you hear the word "cat", you think of the
animal. The Morse operator does not think in terms of dits and dahs any
more than a person thinks in terms of the consonant and vowel sounds
(phonemes) making up "cat".

Of course *really* skilled Morse ops hear entire words as units of
sound. And at some level, they begin to think in Morse, just as fluent
speakers of a language think in that language.
Of course Len wouldn't know about that...


The big question is: what does it matter if Morse is binary or not?

Of course not! I thought it might be something better to talk about
than whether Len thinks we're "jackboot thugs" tho'! 8^)

Who cares what Len thinks? I sure don't. His behavior here has caused most of
us to lose whatever respect we might have once had for him. His latest reply to
K8MN simply reinforces that once again.

73 de Jim, N2EY