From Ace Centre projects
Morse Code
As part of AAC in the Cloud Conference for 2020 and the CM Sessions we presented on our work using morse code with clients. Find below the video of this presentation – but also some more detail about the resources we mention in the video and our ongoing development projects related to morse code (namely learn-morse and BLEMorse).
Background to Morse code
There is an absolutely fantastic podcast from the Memory Palace – called “Distance” which tells the story of Morse and why it was developed – have a listen
For a lot of radio operators and HAM enthusiasts morse sounds like this:
Morse in AT – Evidence base
AT-Node is an invaluable resource for looking at text entry rates and comparing them between input methods. As part of this, there is a nice overview of morse code – looking at the stats from AT-Node here.
The book that we mention is Thomas W Kings Modern Morse code in rehabilitation. It may be out of print but it’s still excellent; if you can get a copy do. If you can’t check out AdaptiveDesigns pages where they have got the entire book available to download in sections.
Learning Morse
As another great introductory video on Morse take a look at this video from VSauce who nicely discusses the pros and cons of different ways of learning morse:
There are a lot of different tools to learn morse online:
- The standard chart which some people just wrote learn (Wikipedia)
- A graphical “dichotomic search table”
- Original Google – Learn-Morse app
- Baden-Powell’s (updated) visual Mnemoic
- Jerry Wheeler’s Code Quick system
So we have used the Morse learn for a number of clients but as we discussed this isn’t great for people who have a visual impairment – and some (e.g. the VSauce video above) feel that auditory just works better for them. So we have created an adapted morse-learn app which is available at https://morse-learn.acecentre.net – we have some plans for this – and we are welcome to people helping out to improve it. See more at http://github.com/acecentre/morse-learn
Ace Auditory Mnemoics
| Letter | Phonetic | Morse | Mnemoic |
| A | Alpha | •– | a-PART |
| B | Bravo | –••• | BE a good boy |
| C | Charlie | –•–• | CHAR-lies ANG-els |
| D | Delta | –•• | DOG did it |
| E | Echo | • | eek! |
| F | Foxtrot | ••–• | did i FAIL it |
| G | Golf | – –• | GREAT GATS-by |
| H | Hotel | •••• | hip-pi-ty-hop |
| I | India | •• | eye-eye! |
| J | Juliet | •– – – | lets JUMP JUMP JUMP |
| K | Kilo | –•– | KAN-ga-ROO |
| L | Lima | •–•• | a LA-dy bug |
| M | Mike | – – | LIKE MIKE |
| N | November | –• | NA-vy |
| O | Oscar | – – – | OH MY GOD |
| P | Papa | •– –• | a POO-PY smell |
| Q | Quebec | – –•– | GOD SAVE the QUEEN |
| R | Romeo | •–• | a RABB-it |
| S | Sierra | ••• | SS-SS-SS (like a snake) |
| T | Tango | – | TALL |
| U | Uniform | ••– | un-der-WHERE? |
| V | Victor | •••– | beet-ho-vens FIFTH (“der der der DUUUUH”) |
| W | Whisky | •– – | a WHITE WHAAALE |
| X | xray | –••– | EXX marks the SPOT |
| Y | Yankee | –•– – | YOUR’E-a-COOL-DUDE |
| Z | Zulu | – –•• | ZINC ZOO keep-er |
Solutions to use Morse in AT & AAC
Do have a look at Jim Lubins website for a lot of links to products and solutions available.
In short, we have some hardware like the excellent TandemMaster which sees any PC/Mac/iOS device as a keyboard & mouse – OR there are some software solutions that you can use on iOS or Windows.
