I recently came across two fun Web pages with a Morse Code theme.
The first page is courtesy of the Flying Pigs QRP Club mailing list. The Sparks Telegraph Key Review describes all kinds of early keys, including the original Vibroplex and keys used to key submarine cables. One of the pages, Try Sending Morse Code with the Key!, includes a Java applet that lets you operate a straight key with your mouse. You can also type in a message, and the applet will play it back to you in Morse Code.
The second page is courtesy of the Solid Copy CW mailing list. This page is on the Hidden Mickeys website, a site devoted to inside information on the Disney theme parks. The page, “Decoding the Disneyland Telegraph,” contains a reprint of an October 2000 QST article about the telegraph message in the New Orleans Train Station. There’s also a Media Player version of the message so that you can listen to it for your self.
The article tells the story of how a radio amateur discovered that somewhere along the line the message got truncated and how Disney corrected the problem. This was interesting to me as I recently visited the Henry Ford Museum to see “Behind the Magic,” an exhibit on the history of the Disney theme parks. Disney’s attention to detail is amazing, and it didn’t surprise me at all that the Disney “imagineers” would go to great lengths to fix an error that so few people would pick up on.
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