Greetings.
Wednesday 25 September 2019 is the 212th birthday of Alfred Vail.
While Samuel F. B. "Finley" Morse is correctly credited with conceiving and
parenting the telegraph as a communication system - the global wired
information network and business - the details of how information was to be
passed across that network, using human operators, was largely the work of
his partner, Alfred Vail.
In other words, Morse invented the "electro-magnetic telegraph," but Vail
was "The First Telegrapher."
Among other things, Vail invented the straight key, the up/down printing
register (which first revealed the signals as "dots and dashes"),
discovered "copy-by-ear" (listening to the thunking of his printing
register), and authored "American Morse" (to increase efficiency and
throughput using his keys and printers). Vail may also have invented the
original dot-dash alphabet, which was used for some early demonstrations,
and was at worst its co-author.
I'm writing a book about all that, hoping to pierce the fog of time and
render our understanding more clearly. But one thing was abundantly clear:
Morse's telegraph was the first "smart device" - made so by the inclusion
of the telegrapher's mind as an integral component of the system -
performing "copy by ear." This gave it a critical market advantage early on
when line quality was terrible, and mechanical reliability poor.
As a matter of the greatest irony, until its inevitability was forced upon
him by those economic realities, and the weight of telegraphers almost
universally practicing it, Morse was strongly opposed to copy-by-ear
because it diminished the importance of "permanent printouts," which were a
key distinguishing feature of his original invention and the original
patents.
You see, Morse never imagined copy-by-ear would happen, or that it was
important.
Vail lived it.
So: I'm commemorating Vail's birthday by using a replica of Vail's straight
key for all QSOs on the 25th, and I'll be calling "CQ VVV." There's a
picture on my QRZ page. The key works well up into the low 20s, but I'm
always happy to QRS.
Feel free to join in and send some Vs yourself! Hope to work you on the
air! Oh, and I'll be using a K3 and KPA500...:-)
73 Chris NW6V
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