Since both of us are ham radio operators, we enjoy opportunities to watch movies that have anything to do with amateur radio and Morse code.
This particular movie is a post-apocalyptic drama film. Among the notable stars in this film of Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner and Anthony Perkins, is a surprise one- Fred Astaire. I guess I'm used to watching him only in movies where he sings and dances. Trust me, he wasn't in much of a singing or dancing mood in this one! It takes place partly in Australia, so in one scene there was drunken singing of "Waltzing Matilda", but I'm pretty sure that was the only singing!
Anyway, back to the Morse code. As I mentioned earlier, this is a doomsday story. The Australian Navy survivors receive Morse code signals, but are unable to decipher them because they don't make any sense and are not real code. They eventually track down where the signal is coming from, but don't find anyone alive. There was a Coca-Cola bottle hanging by a shade pull hitting the straight key and sending "code" whenever the wind blew through the open window. Interesting....
The thing that bothers me about this movie is that you don't actually see anyone that is dead, what's that about?? Everyone just disappeared. Well, it was done in 1959, guess they had ethics or something. Mind you, it's not that I WANT to see the dead people, it just seemed quite odd that there were none!
Back again to the Morse code. I went on my favorite info site, Wikipedia, and looked up this movie. Well, then there was a link to info on Morse code and that is where I found this most awesome chart of the Morse code alphabet.
This is "a binary tree of the Morse Code adapted from the dichotomic search table in the en:morse code Wikipedia entry."
For anyone who has studied or is studying Morse code, and is visual, this is a wonderful find!! This makes it easier to grasp than just the audio, which is how I had to study it. So, isn't this just awesome?? I'm so excited about finding this chart! Thank you Wikipedia! Maybe now, I will actually be able to remember those pesky code characters, and have a DX QSO in CW without help from Hubby!
