草稿:美国摩斯电码

1911 年标准美国摩斯电码表

美国摩尔斯电码、（American Morse Code），也称为铁路摩尔斯电码、摩尔斯式电码、摩尔斯电码、铁路电码是1840年代中期萨缪尔·摩尔斯和阿尔弗莱德·维尔开发的电报机电码。加上“美国”限定词是因为，在世界其它大部分地区采用“国际摩斯电码”后，继续使用原始摩斯电码的公司主要位于美国。美国莫尔斯电码现在几乎绝迹——它在美国铁路博物馆和美国内战重演中最常见——而今天的“莫尔斯电码”实际上总是指取代美国莫尔斯电码的国际莫尔斯电码。

American Morse Code — also known as Railroad Morse—is the latter-day name for the original version of the 摩尔斯电码 developed in the mid-1840s, by 萨缪尔·摩尔斯 and 阿尔弗莱德·维尔 for their 电报. The "American" qualifier was added because, after most of the rest of the world adopted "International Morse Code," the companies that continued to use the original Morse Code were mainly located in the United States. American Morse is now nearly extinct—it is most frequently seen in American railroad museums and 美国内战重演s—and "Morse Code" today virtually always means the International Morse which supplanted American Morse.

History

美国莫尔斯电码首先在巴尔的摩-华盛顿电报线上使用，这是一条连接马里兰州巴尔的摩和华盛顿特区国会大厦旧最高法院法庭的电报线，第一个公开信息“上帝做了什么”被发送到1844年5 月24 日，莫尔斯从华盛顿到巴尔的摩和俄亥俄铁路(B&O)“外车站”（现为B&O 铁路博物馆）的阿尔弗雷德·韦尔。消息是来自《民数记》 23:23 的圣经经文，由康乃狄克州州长的女儿安妮·艾尔斯沃斯为莫尔斯电码选择。韦尔在巴尔的摩收到的原始纸带现陈列在华盛顿特区的 国会图书馆

American Morse Code was first used on the Baltimore-Washington telegraph line, a telegraph line constructed between 巴尔的摩, 马里兰州, and the old Supreme Court chamber in the Capitol building in 华盛顿哥伦比亚特区 The first public message "What hath God wrought" was sent on May 24, 1844, by Morse in Washington to Alfred Vail at the 巴尔的摩与俄亥俄铁路 (B&O) "outer depot" (now the B&O Railroad Museum) in Baltimore. The message is a 圣经 verse from 民数记 23:23, chosen for Morse by Annie Ellsworth, daughter of the Governor of Connecticut. The original paper tape received by Vail in Baltimore is on display in the 国会图书馆 (美国) in Washington, D.C.

In its original implementation, the Morse Code specification included the following:

1. short mark or dot (  ▄ )
2. longer mark or dash (  ▄▄ )
3. intra-character gap (standard gap between the dots and dashes in a character)
4. short gap (between letters)
5. medium gap (between words)
6. long gap (between sentences)
7. long intra-character gap (longer internal gap used in C, O, R, Y, Z and &)
8. "long dash" (  ▄▄▄▄ , the letter L)
9. even longer dash (  ▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄ , the numeral 0)

在其最初的实现中，摩斯电码规范包括以下内容：

短标记或点 ( ▄ ) 较长的标记或破折号 ( ▄▄ ) 字元内间隙（字元中点和破折号之间的标准间隙） 短间隙（字母之间） 中等间隙（单字之间） 长间隔（句子之间） 长字内间隙（较长的内部间隙用于 C、O、R、Y、Z 和 &） “长划线”（ ▄▄▄▄ ，字母 L） 较长的破折号（ ▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄ ，数字 0）

The first public telegram in America, "What hath God wrought" sent by Samuel Morse in 1844.

Various other companies and countries soon developed their own variations of the original Morse Code. Of special importance was one standard, originally created in Germany by Friedrich Clemens Gerke in 1848, which was simpler—it eliminated the long intra-character spaces and the two long dashes—but also included changes in the sequences for eleven of the letters and most of the numerals. The Gerke code had a distinct advantage for use on undersea telegraph cables. Cables suffer from a type of distortion called 色散关系 that gets progressively worse with the length of the cable. Dispersion severely limits the rate that Morse can be sent because of intersymbol interference. For instance, the first 跨大西洋电报电缆 of 1858 could only sustain a transmission rate of less than 1 单词每分钟. This interference is worse with American Morse because it has a greater proportion of closely spaced dots than the Gerke code.

其他许多公司和国家很快就开发了自己的原始莫尔斯电码变体。特别重要的是一个标准，最初由Friedrich Clemens Gerke于1848 年在德国创建，该标准更简单——它消除了长的字符内空格和两个长破折号——但也包括了十一个字母和大多数字母的序列变化。格克码在海底电报电缆上的使用有明显的优势。电缆会遭受一种称为色散的失真，随着电缆长度的增加，这种失真会逐渐恶化。由于码间干扰，色散严重限制了莫尔斯电码的发送速率。例如，1858年第一条跨大西洋电报电缆只能维持每分钟不到1个字的传输速率。[1]这种干扰对于美国莫尔斯电码来说更严重，因为它比格克电码具有更大比例的紧密间隔的点。[2]

The Gerke code was adopted as a standard for transmission over cables by the Austro-German Telegraph Union (which included many central European states) at a conference in 1851. It was necessary to have a common code as the Union had also agreed to direct connection of cables across borders (as opposed to recoding and retransmission by an operator). The code was adopted as the European standard in 1865, and was known at first as "Continental Morse," although as its use spread it also became known as "International Morse." At this point the original Morse Code started to be called American Morse, to differentiate between the two main standards.

Gerke 代码在 1851 年的一次会议上被奥德电报联盟（其中包括许多中欧国家）采纳为电缆传输标准。和重新传输相反）。[3] 该电码于 1865 年被采用为欧洲标准，最初被称为“大陆莫尔斯电码”，但随着其使用的扩展，它也被称为“国际莫尔斯电码”。此时，最初的莫尔斯电码开始被称为“美国莫尔斯电码”，以区分这两个主要标准。

There was some resistance to adopting International Morse in the US. This resulted in international Morse operators in the US needing to be proficient in both codes since messages on transatlantic cables were in the international code, and incoming messages needed to be recoded and sent on in American Morse. An attempt in 1854 to make International Morse the standard within the US was rejected by the telegraph companies. Overhead wires, used for most land routes in the US, have nowhere near as big a problem with dispersion as undersea or underground cables, and the companies had no wish to retrain their staff. The Chilean telegraph regulation of 1872 required operators to know both "German and American" code; some lines with the state system seem to have generally used one, some the other (and a few lines had Wheatstone equipment and so did not use Morse Code at all).

在美国采用国际摩斯电码遇到了一些阻力。这导致美国的国际莫尔斯电码操作员需要精通这两种代码，因为跨大西洋电缆上的消息采用国际代码，并且传入的消息需要重新编码并以美国莫尔斯电码发送。 1854 年，电报公司拒绝了让国际莫尔斯电码成为美国标准的尝试。美国大多数陆地线路都使用架空电缆，其分散性问题远不及海底或地下电缆那么大，这些公司也不想再培训员工。[2] 1872年智利电报法规要求接线员同时了解“德国与美国”电码；一些采用国家系统的线路似乎普遍使用其中一种，另一些则采用另一种（少数线路拥有惠斯通设备，因此根本不使用摩斯电码）。[4]

In the late 1890s, radio communication—initially known as "无线电报"—was invented, and used Morse Code transmissions. Most radio operators used the version of the Code that they were most familiar with—the American Morse Code in the United States, and Continental Morse in Europe. However, because of the long range of radio signals, a single international standard was needed, especially for seagoing vessels.

1890 年代末，发明了无线电通讯（最初称为“无线电报”），并使用摩斯电码传输。[5]大多数无线电操作员使用他们最熟悉的电码版本－美国使用美国莫尔斯电码，欧洲使用大陆莫尔斯电码。然而，由于无线电讯号的传输距离较远，因此需要单一的国际标准，特别是对于海船。

At the Radiotelegraphic Convention meeting in London in 1912, the section of the Convention covering "Transmission of Radiograms" included the statement that "The signals to be employed are those of Morse International Code." Even after this, the original Morse Code continued to be used throughout much of the United States. American Morse remained the standard for U.S. landline telegraph companies, including the dominant company, 西联汇款, in part because the original code, with fewer dashes, could be sent about 5% faster than International Morse. American Morse also was commonly used for domestic radio transmissions on the 五大湖, and along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. However, International Morse predominated for ocean-going vessels, and many U.S. shipboard operators became skilled in transmitting both versions of the Code as needed.

1912 年在伦敦举行的无线电报大会上，公约中涉及“无线电报传输”的部分包括这样的声明：“所使用的讯号是莫尔斯国际电码的讯号”。即使在此之后，原始的莫尔斯电码仍在美国大部分地区继续使用。美国莫尔斯电报仍然是美国固定电报公司（包括主导的西联公司）的标准，部分原因是原始代码的破折号较少，发送速度比国际莫尔斯电报快 5% 左右。美国莫尔斯电码也常用于五大湖区以及大西洋和太平洋沿岸的国内无线电传输。然而，国际莫尔斯电码在远洋船舶上占主导地位，许多美国船上营运商已经熟练地根据需要传输两个版本的电码。

Advantages and disadvantages

As already mentioned, American Morse is less suitable for use on cables because of the high density of dots. However, this same feature, together with the shorter dash, leads to the advantage of a more compressed code and a faster sending rate. The same operator could send at least 20% faster with American Morse than with International Morse.

如同已经提到的，美国莫尔斯电码由于点密度高，不太适合在电缆上使用。然而，同样的功能加上更短的破折号，带来了更压缩的代码和更快的发送速率的优势。同一业者使用美国莫尔斯电码的发送速度比使用国际莫尔斯电码的发送速度至少快 20%。[6]

美国莫尔斯电码的复杂性意味着操作员更容易出错。美国莫尔斯电码有多种长度的破折号和空格，新手操作员无意中传输了错误的破折号和其他计时错误，这被称为“大莫尔斯电码”。

The greater complexity of American Morse meant that it was easier for operators to make errors. American Morse has multiple lengths of dashes and spaces and inadvertently transmitting the wrong ones and other timing errors by novice operators is known as hog-Morse.

Later developments

Over time, with the disappearance of landline telegraphy and the end of commercial radio use of Morse Code, American Morse has become nearly extinct. In the United States, the ranks of amateur radio operators used to include many active and retired commercial landline telegraph operators, who preferred to use American Morse for their amateur radio transmissions, so the 连续波 (continuous wave) amateur bands used to have a mixture of American and International Morse. However, today even U.S. amateurs use International Morse almost exclusively.

随着时间的推移，随着固定电话的消失和摩斯电码商业无线电使用的结束，美国摩斯电码几乎已经灭绝。在美国，业余无线电操作员的行列曾经包括许多活跃和退休的商业固定电报操作员，他们更喜欢使用美国莫尔斯电报进行业余无线电传输，因此 CW （连续波）业余频段过去混合了美国和国际莫尔斯电码。然而，如今，即使是美国业余爱好者也几乎只使用国际莫尔斯电码。

比较

American (Railroad) vs. International Morse (similar codes highlighted)

Letter	International Code	American Morse		Letter	International Code	American Morse		Digit	International Code	American Morse
A	▄ ▄▄▄	▄ ▄▄		N	▄▄▄ ▄	▄▄ ▄		0	▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄	▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄
B	▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄	▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄		O	▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄	▄  ▄		1	▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄	▄ ▄▄ ▄▄ ▄
C	▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄	▄ ▄  ▄		P	▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄	▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄		2	▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄	▄ ▄ ▄▄ ▄ ▄
D	▄▄▄ ▄ ▄	▄▄ ▄ ▄		Q	▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄	▄ ▄ ▄▄ ▄		3	▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄	▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄ ▄
E	▄	▄		R	▄ ▄▄▄ ▄	▄  ▄ ▄		4	▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄	▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄
F	▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄	▄ ▄▄ ▄		S	▄ ▄ ▄	▄ ▄ ▄		5	▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄	▄▄ ▄▄ ▄▄
G	▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄	▄▄ ▄▄ ▄		T	▄▄▄	▄▄		6	▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄	▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄
H	▄ ▄ ▄ ▄	▄ ▄ ▄ ▄		U	▄ ▄ ▄▄▄	▄ ▄ ▄▄		7	▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄	▄▄ ▄▄ ▄ ▄
I	▄ ▄	▄ ▄		V	▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄	▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄		8	▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄	▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄
J	▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄	▄▄ ▄ ▄▄ ▄		W	▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄	▄ ▄▄ ▄▄		9	▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄	▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄
K	▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄	▄▄ ▄ ▄▄		X	▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄	▄ ▄▄ ▄ ▄
L	▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄	▄▄▄▄		Y	▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄	▄ ▄  ▄ ▄
M	▄▄▄ ▄▄▄	▄▄ ▄▄		Z	▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄	▄ ▄ ▄  ▄

Common punctuation

Symbol	International Code	American Morse		Symbol	International Code	American Morse
句号 [.]	▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄	▄ ▄ ▄▄ ▄▄ ▄ ▄		撇号 [']	▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄	▄ ▄ ▄▄ ▄   ▄ ▄▄ ▄ ▄  (QX)
逗号 [,]	▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄	▄ ▄▄ ▄ ▄▄		斜线 [/]	▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄	▄ ▄ ▄▄   ▄▄  (UT)
问号 [?]	▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄	▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄ ▄		连字号 [-]	▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄	▄ ▄ ▄ ▄   ▄ ▄▄ ▄ ▄  (HX)
叹号 [!]	▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄	▄▄ ▄▄ ▄▄ ▄		括号 (open) [(]	▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄	▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄   ▄▄ ▄  (PN)
& [&]	▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄	▄  ▄ ▄ ▄		括号 (close) [)]	▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄	▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄   ▄ ▄   ▄ ▄  (PII)
段落	▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄	▄▄ ▄▄ ▄▄ ▄▄		引号 (open) ["]	▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄	▄ ▄ ▄▄ ▄   ▄▄ ▄  (QN)
分号 [;]	▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄	▄ ▄ ▄   ▄ ▄  (SI)		引号 (close) ["]	▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄	▄ ▄ ▄▄ ▄   ▄▄ ▄ ▄▄ ▄  (QJ)
冒号 [:]	▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄ ▄	▄▄ ▄ ▄▄   ▄   ▄  (KEE)

See also

• Telegraph in United States history

Bibliography

• Chesnoy, Jose, Undersea Fiber Communication Systems, Academic Press, 2002 ISBN 0-08-049237-1.
• Coe, Lewis, The Telegraph: A History of Morse's Invention and Its Predecessors in the United States, McFarland, 2003 ISBN 0-7864-1808-7.
• Lyall, Francis, International Communications: The International Telecommunication Union and the Universal Postal Union, Routledge, 2016 ISBN 1-317-114345.
• Pope, Frank L. Chapter VIII Hints to Learners. Modern Practice of the Electric Telegraph: A Handbook for Electricians and Operators 11th. New York: D. van Nostrand. 1881.  Also available in PDF.

External links

• Samuel Morse's first "What hath God Wrought?" telegraph message, sent May 24, 1844 (American Morse recorded on a paper tape)
• Circa 1910 recording of an American Morse radio transmission
• Morse Telegraph Club, Inc.
• The Dot and Line Alphabet, a sketch from Edward Everett Hale about (American) Morse code, first published 1858
• Morse Code Sounder Allows conversion and sounding of American Morse