
2004年4月15日付け ポキプシー・ジャーナル(ニューヨーク)からモールス符号を発明したサミュエル・モースに所縁のあるポキプシー近郊に住むスイート夫妻から新聞の切抜きを送ってもらいました。写真の手は、ポキプシー・ジャーナルに載った友人ハービー・スイートの指と電鍵です。
In 1844, Samuel F. B. Morse sent the first Morse code message over a long-distance telegraph. The phrase "what hath God wrought" traveled almost instantly from Washington to Baltimore.
Ham radio hobbyists use Morse code to exchange e-mail addresses on the air so that they can trade files or lengthy Web addresses, said Rick Lindquist, the senior news editor at the American Radio Relay League, the largest association of amateur radio enthusiasts in the country. "Most of our members have e-mail capability," he said.
Until now, those ham operators had to spell out @ with two letters of code: "A," a dot followed by a dash, and "T," a dash. The resulting sound is "dit-dah-dah," which also translates to the letter "W."
Now the @ symbol is transmitted by combining the letters "A" and "C" and has a sound not shared by any other single character.
"I think they designed it wrong," said Herb Sweet, the treasurer of an amateur radio club in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. "I have a hunch that people are more than likely to just go A-T - dit-dah-dah."
Mr. Sweet's wife, Barbara, is also a member of the club. In 1976, Mr. Sweet brought home a ham radio and installed it in their bedroom. Mrs. Sweet had just purchased an electric knitting machine, so "there was nothing I could really say," she said. Today, she is the president of the club.
Ham operators will probably learn the symbol but may opt not to use it, Mrs. Sweet said.
The Sweets live minutes from the Samuel Morse Historical Site, which sits on a Victorian-style garden estate in Poughkeepsie called Locust Grove. "He's right down the road here, Samuel, F. B.," Mrs. Sweet said. "We go by him every day."
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