Why in a modern war, between drones and hypersonic missiles, does Russia continue to use Morse code that is more than 150 years old

Modern warfare is full of cutting-edge technology – from artificial intelligence to drones and hypersonic missiles – but one technology more than a century old is still proving its worth: Morse code.

The streams of staccato tones, which a railway worker from over 150 years ago would recognize instantly, are still used by the Russian army in the War of Ukraine.

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Even today, many people can identify the characteristic sound of Morse code, especially the well-known pattern three short, three long, three short (… – – – …), which forms the SOS emergency signal.

Today messages are sent in Morse code from Russian bombers to their control centers, or from Baltic Fleet ships to their shore headquarters.

The shortwave bands used by amateur radio are similarly filled with beeps known to enthusiasts as “dits” (.) and “dahs” (-), or as dots and dashes to the general public. Even spies still tune into the shortwave bands to hear clandestine stations broadcasting in Morse code.

Invented in the 19th century

So why is a technology created in the first half of the 19th century still used today?

First of all, Morse code was not conceived by an engineer or technological wizard, but by a man who made a living painting portraits. Samuel Morse initially designed what we would today call a teleprinter, a device that receives and prints text on paper.

Morse enlisted the help of Alfred Vail, a machinist more interested in mechanics, to get the details right. It was the latter who created the dots and dashes to represent the code and had the idea of ​​using sound to transmit information.

At first, the sound was only intended to test a connection. Before long, Morse and Vail realized that the idea of ​​printing was not practical. Although, By adding sound, they stumbled upon a concept that was more brilliant and useful than they could have imagined.

The notable feature of Morse code is that, in sound form, it forms a rhythm. Therefore, it has points in common with music. In fact, it has been observed that people with musical talent can learn Morse more quickly.

Morse code and the telegraph were vitally important in World War II. (GET IMAGES).

By stimulating the innate human sense of rhythm, Morse code also activates our sense of pattern recognition. This is an ability deeply rooted in our brain and has great potential to decipher messages even if they are incomplete.

An experienced Morse code operator can fill in blanks caused by interference, poor reception, noise, or equipment malfunction.

In the neurological sense, Morse inhabits a very peculiar niche, which has been compared to “reading with your ears”.but where transmitting and receiving are more similar to the act of speaking than writing.

The other notable aspect of Morse code is its technological simplicity. Anyone with basic technological knowledge can build their own transmitter using standard components.

The signal generated by a Morse transmitter is similarly minimalist and uses a very narrow bandwidth of just 100-150 hertz (standard voice communications use 2,500-3,000 hertz).

This also means that receivers can use very narrow filters and thus eliminate much of the ambient noise generated by various forms of interference.

Being so efficient, Morse only needs a minimum of energy to travel significant distances.

Amateur radio operators demonstrated in 1956 that only 78 milliwatts could be enough power to transmit from Massachusetts to Denmark.

That’s less than a tenth of what a single LED bulb uses. When a standard coffee maker brews most people’s favorite morning brew, it uses more than a thousand times that energy.

????????HQ of the Baltic Fleet of the Russian Navy in Kaliningrad [RMP] sending weather conditions in Morse code to REO. REO is a collective call sign meaning “To all Russian ships in the Baltic Sea”.
Received in ????????Milan Italy 8417KHz on April 15, 2024 at 1801z pic.twitter.com/HloKlrZRKr

– Onda Curta78 (@shortwave78) April 15, 2024

This combination of technological simplicity and efficiency proved useful during World War II, when members of the resistance and Allied commandos used their portable Morse transceivers to maintain contact with London from deep within German-occupied territory.

It was a very risky task, since the Germans were constantly listening to the radio waves. Morse code, although unintelligible to the untrained ear, does not provide security by itself.

Today, even those without training can use software to decipher the content of a message sent in Morse code. However, any message can be made secure by encrypting it before sending it, as Vail proposed in 1845.

In fact, one of the most secure forms of encryption, “disposable notebook”, requires nothing more than pencil and paper. Basically, a one-time block is a random sequence of characters, at least as long as the message to be encrypted.

The sender uses his block to encrypt, while the receiver uses a copy of the same block to decode the message (there must be only two copies and each must be destroyed immediately after use).

As long as a notebook is never reused, it remains theoretically unbreakable, even with the most modern technology (although it is difficult to produce truly random strings of characters).

Although there are more efficient digital communication technologies today, nothing can rival the unsurpassed combination of simplicity and efficiency which allowed Morse code to survive for over 150 years.

*Tony Ingesson is Associate Professor of Political Science at Lund University.

*This article was published on The Conversation and reproduced here under a Creative Commons license. click here to read the original version and see links to the studies cited.

Source: Elcomercio