MorseCode Mystery Cache
cannonfodder32: Time for this one to retire
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The cache is not at the published coordinates but, if you do go there, then you will see some Morse code. The sculpture that is at the published coords was designed by a local artist and constructed with the help of local scouts. The morse code on the sculpture spells out the scout motto
Morse code is a method of transmitting text information as a series of on-off tones, lights, or clicks that can be directly understood by a skilled listener or observer without special equipment. It is named for Samuel F. B. Morse, an inventor of the telegraph. The International Morse Code encodes the ISO basic Latin alphabet, some extra Latin letters, the Arabic numerals and a small set of punctuation and procedural signals (prosigns) as standardized sequences of short and long signals called "dots" and "dashes", or "dits" and "dahs", as in amateur radio practice. Because many non-English natural languages use more than the 26 Roman letters, extensions to the Morse alphabet exist for those languages.
Transmission
Morse code can be transmitted in a number of ways: originally as electrical pulses along a telegraph wire, but also as an audio tone, a radio signal with short and long tones, or as a mechanical, audible or visual signal (e.g. a flashing light) using devices like an Aldis lamp or a heliograph, a common flashlight, or even a car horn. Some mine rescues have used pulling on a rope - a short pull for a dot and a long pull for a dash.
Morse code is transmitted using just two states (on and off). Historians have called it the first digital code. Morse code may be represented as a binary code, and that is what telegraph operators do when transmitting messages. Working from the above ITU definition and further defining a bit as a dot time, a Morse code sequence may be made from a combination of the following five bit strings:
1 short mark, dot or "dit" (·) : 1
2 longer mark, dash or "dah" (–) : 111
3 intra-character gap (between the dots and dashes within a character) : 0
4 short gap (between letters) : 000
5 medium gap (between words) : 0000000
Note that the marks and gaps alternate: dots and dashes are always separated by one of the gaps, and that the gaps are always separated by a dot or a dash.
Morse messages are generally transmitted by a hand-operated device such as a telegraph key, so there are variations introduced by the skill of the sender and receiver — more experienced operators can send and receive at faster speeds. In addition, individual operators differ slightly, for example using slightly longer or shorter dashes or gaps, perhaps only for particular characters. This is called their "fist", and experienced operators can recognize specific individuals by it alone. A good operator who sends clearly and is easy to copy is said to have a "good fist". A "poor fist" is a characteristic of sloppy or hard to copy Morse code.
Speed in words per minute
All Morse code elements depend on the dot length. A dash is the length of 3 dots, and spacings are specified in number of dot lengths. An unambiguous method of specifying the transmission speed is to specify the dot duration as, for example, 50 milliseconds. Specifying the dot duration is, however, not the common practice. Usually, speeds are stated in words per minute. That introduces ambiguity because words have different numbers of characters, and characters have different dot lengths. It is not immediately clear how a specific word rate determines the dot duration in milliseconds.
Some method to standardize the transformation of a word rate to a dot duration is useful. A simple way to do this is to choose a dot duration that would send a typical word the desired number of times in one minute. If, for example, the operator wanted a character speed of 13 words per minute, the operator would choose a dot rate that would send the typical word 13 times in exactly one minute.
The typical word thus determines the dot length. It is common to assume that a word is 5 characters long. There are two common typical words: "PARIS" and "CODEX". PARIS mimics a word rate that is typical of natural language words and reflects the benefits of Morse code's shorter code durations for common characters such as "e" and "t". CODEX offers a word rate that is typical of 5-letter code groups (sequences of random letters). Using the word PARIS as a standard, the number of dot units is 50 and a simple calculation shows that the dot length at 20 words per minute is 60 milliseconds. Using the word CODEX with 60 dot units, the dot length at 20 words per minute is 50 milliseconds.
Because Morse code is usually sent by hand, it is unlikely that an operator could be that precise with the dot length, and the individual characteristics and preferences of the operators usually override the standards.
For commercial radiotelegraph licenses in the United States, the Federal Communications Commission specifies tests for Morse code proficiency in words per minute and in code groups per minute. The Commission specifies that a word is 5-characters long. The Commission specifies Morse code test elements at 16 code groups per minute, 20 words per minute, 20 code groups per minute, and 25 words per minute. The word per minute rate would be close to the PARIS standard, and the code groups per minute would be close to the CODEX standard.
Farnsworth speed
Sometimes, especially while teaching Morse code, the timing rules above are changed so two different speeds are used: a character speed and a text speed. The character speed is how fast each individual letter is sent. The text speed is how fast the entire message is sent. For example, individual characters may be sent at a 13 words-per-minute rate, but the intercharacter and interword gaps may be lengthened so the word rate is only 5 words per minute.
Using different character and text speeds is, in fact, a common practice, and is used in the Farnsworth method of learning Morse code.
So all of that lot is extracted from a popular website which is well worth a read.
The puzzle part of the cache starts here……
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