Morse Code to Telegraph

-Karthik Gurnmurthy

So Morse code is basically this ingenious communication system made up of dots, dashes, and spaces that represent letters, numbers, and punctuation marks. You can transmit it through electrical impulses (like with the telegraph) or visually with flashing lights.

The original Morse code was created in 1835 by Samuel Finley Breese Morse and his assistant Alfred Vail for their telegraph system. While it worked for English, it didn’t handle accents and special characters used in other languages. So Vail developed a simpler version called International Morse code, which European nations adopted in 1851.

In International Morse, all letters are made up of dots and dashes. A dot is a super short sound or flash, and three dots equal one dash. Between sounds there’s a pause equal to one dot, between letters a pause equal to one dash, and between words a pause equal to two dashes. Pretty clever timing system!

The telegraph itself was revolutionary – the first device capable of sending messages rapidly over long distances. The word “telegraph” comes from Greek words meaning “far” and “to write.” It consisted of a sending instrument and receiver connected by miles of insulated wire. The sender would tap out Morse code, and almost instantly an electromagnet at the receiving end would become magnetized and rap against metal, creating audible clicks operators could interpret.

In more advanced versions, the arm clicked against a sounding box with unique click patterns for each letter. The most advanced telegraphs connected typewriters to the circuit – each pattern of clicks activated the corresponding letter key, automatically typing out messages.

Morse developed his transmitter in 1830 with a metal key that, when tapped, would make patterns of long and short electrical impulses. This tapping system proved to be the most effective way of communicating by telegraph.

In March 1843, Congress approved $30,000 for Morse to build a telegraph line between Washington D.C. and Baltimore – about 37 miles. Though Morse initially wanted to bury the line (an idea he later abandoned), the aboveground line was completed in May 1844. The first message sent on this new system was prophetic: “What Hath God Wrought!” – which turned out to be fitting considering the communications revolution that followed.

As the telegraph network grew, improvements kept coming. In 1856, the pen-etching receiver was replaced by a device that made audible clicks, and operators would listen and write down the messages. About 20 years later, typewriters were adapted for telegraph receivers.

Interestingly, Morse wasn’t working in isolation. In England during the late 1830s, Charles Wheatstone and William Fothergill Cooke (with help from Joseph Henry) developed a commercial telegraph that sent signals over five wires to a receiver with five magnetic needles pointing to letters on a dial to spell out messages. They installed it along a 13-mile railway stretch outside London in 1838, and by 1852, there were already 4,000 miles of telegraph wires along British railways.

Morse actually became interested in telegraphy in 1832 while on a ship voyage when a fellow traveler described how electricity could travel long distances through wire. Before even reaching shore, he had sketched a crude telegraph and developed an early version of his code.

As a professor of art at what’s now NYU, Morse used the university facilities to experiment, and by 1836 had built his first working telegraph. His transmitter was a horizontal rod with a groove, where he’d place different shaped metal blocks to represent letters. The receiver had an electromagnet with a lever and pencil that would make V-shaped lines on a rotating paper drum when signals came through.

Morse initially could only send messages over short distances because the electrical current would weaken. In 1837, geology professor Leonard Gale helped him build more powerful batteries and electromagnets and create a relay system that extended his range to 10 miles.

The theory of electrical messaging goes back to 1753, when someone identified only as “C.M.” published a letter in a Scottish magazine proposing a system with 26 wires (one for each letter). Scientists in the late 1700s and early 1800s tried to implement this but had limited success.

Two key scientific discoveries made telegraphs possible: Alessandro Volta’s electric battery in 1800, which provided steady low-pressure electricity, and Hans Christian Ørsted’s 1820 discovery that electric current flowing past a magnetic needle causes it to rotate.

During the 1830s, several experimental telegraphs emerged. Joseph Henry (who many consider the true father of the telegraph) strung a mile of copper wire around a classroom in 1831, using a battery and electromagnet to ring a bell. He even developed a relay system for long-distance transmission but didn’t patent it – a decision he later regretted after losing a patent dispute with Morse in 1854.

Russian diplomat Pavel Schilling built an electromagnetic signaling device around 1830 using magnetic needles that turned right or left to code for letters. German scientists Carl Friedrich Gauss and Wilhelm Weber built a working telegraph in 1833 that recorded dots on paper, but the Bavarian government abandoned their implementation project as too expensive.

Although now outdated, the telegraph was seen as nothing short of miraculous when introduced. It sparked the communications revolution by drastically increasing message speed and paved the way for every communication technology that followed – telephones, radios, televisions, computers, fax machines, satellites, and eventually the Internet.