

Show HN: Morse code radio [audio] - bkanber
http://morsecode.me/

======
andmarios
If a link is going to destroy your speakers, give you temporary deafness and a
good scare I would really like to have a warning in the title.

~~~
bkanber
Added a warning. Did not anticipate what this would be like when 30 people are
all mashing keys at once, sorry!

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wglb
Not a problem.

No worse than being on the receiving end of a pileup.

~~~
grandalf
that was what I thought too... it's a good thing :)

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mappum
Cool idea. I'm glad I remembered how to say "ASS".

Typical morse code keyers have 2 buttons, long and short, so you don't have to
worry about how long to hold it down. I think that would make this a lot
easier.

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iLoch
Too bad our keyboards only have one button. :(

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0xdeadbeefbabe
My iambic paddle is connected to my mouse; it's an easy hack.

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jorgearturo
As silly as it may sound, toys like this are the sort of thing that remind me
that in this community I've found my favorite people in the world. No matter
what age.

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bkanber
And _this_ is why I make software :)

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jorgearturo
And I thank you for it :D I loved the overall UX feeling.

Even if it gets messy with so many "morsers" in the room, what's not to love
about mess? For a moment there, I felt like part of an orchestra, tuning my
instrument; adding my bit to a more transcendent byte, petabyte, or whatever.

Just to illustrate, watch this:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xxz630u7YlQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xxz630u7YlQ)

Oldie but goodie

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ChrisNorstrom
This is hilarious. There's like 30 people beeping and no one can spell
anything out. I was so proud of myself when I finally got "H E LL O" to
appear.

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KamiCrit
I'm still stuck on the "HELLO" boss.

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XaspR8d

      function cheat(str, name) {
    
        if (!name) {name = me.id}
    
        var arr = str.split();
    
        for (var i=0; i<arr.length; i++) {
    
          socket.emit('l', {id: name, l: arr[i]});
    
        }
    
      }
    
      cheat("hello world!", "god");

~~~
tokenizerrr

        function cheat(m){for(var i in m)socket.emit("l", {l:m[i]})}

~~~
XaspR8d
Yeah I've been avoiding for-in loops in Javascript since getting burned by a
colleague that was attaching objects to arrays. :/

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wglb
Lot of fun. Even more fun would be to give each active user a different
column, but obviously that has a pretty small limit. But this is cool.

To make this work, use the space bar on your keyboard as if it were a straight
key.

Don't try to send faster than about 18 WPM. Leave really long spaces between
words--longer than you would otherwise.

Morse code is one of the few protocols that is readily understandable by both
humans and computers. You might be on the verge of something with a lot of
potential.

de w8lvn

~~~
bkanber
Thanks, appreciate it! The auto-translator is set to 15 WPM, so like you said
anything faster than 18 or so doesn't get recognized. If real, interested
people actually end up using this I'd be happy to make that user-configurable!

~~~
wglb
My max straight key speed these days is 20, but 15 is certainly fine for this
experiment.

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nlh
Oh wow. This is cool. And clever. And making me remember my old morse. Who
said Ham radio is dead? DE K2KD....

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monochr
There is a bug in Linux where if the key is pressed and released too quickly
the site assumes you're just holding it down indefinitely.

This is unfortunate since I was trying to cheat with xdotool and it kept
bugging out depending on how many people were beeping along with me.

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oskarth
This is really cool, but quite hard. Maybe you could add some tip on how long
you are supposed to hold the tones for? I'd also like to see who I am more
prominently displayed, it took me a while to find it.

~~~
bkanber
Thanks for the suggestions! There's certainly a steep learning curve, and
based on my observations over the last few days I've come to realize that
you're right, it's important to give an example to beginners so they can get a
better feel for the pacing. Just a side project but I'll see if I can work
that in!

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hadronzoo
Morse code instructional video from the US Army:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Li8Hiwbc664](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Li8Hiwbc664)

~~~
jorgearturo
The "Juliette" and "Romeo" suggested mnemonic imagery on 4:57 was hilarious
and very revealing about other suggested "attitudes" of the time and context.

------
ay
I am trying to send "A", but it keeps sending "E" \- anyone else noticed that
?

edit: seems like I have been timing it badly. Does work now well.

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nullc
Doesn't seem to work correctly on firefox nightly, just instantly sends "E" on
any letter that begins with a dot no matter how fast I key. :(

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bkanber
I'm in channel 2 if anyone wants to try actually morse-ing rather than mashing
on the keys ;)

~~~
oskarth
Maybe there should be a channel with a password that you have to morse to
enter ;)

~~~
bkanber
That's hilarious and might be something I build in!

Of course, this place'll be quiet after it's off HN so it may be a non-issue!

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malexw
Not necessarily - in the few minutes I played with it, I managed to memorize
the code for A, E, H, I, L, M, T, Y, :, and /. This seems like a great
learning tool. I'm excited to keep playing with it in the future!

~~~
bkanber
Thanks, I hope you do!

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huherto
Oh God. If we ever need to use morse code to fight super intelligent machines.
We are doomed.

~~~
omegant
When I had to learn morse for my pilot license most People tried to learn
using codewords for each letter. But that wa you yave to lear two different
thigs. For me the easiest way is to take any text and start translating it in
to written morse. Once you are fluent writting you take any morse program and
start doing the same into sounds. And then listening. The learning rithm is
similar to learning to type in a keyboard. In a couple of weeks you can be
pretty good.

~~~
omegant
But then you have to learn two different things, Sorry for this aweful
sentence! writing from the iphone it´s difficul to to spot sometimes.

"But that wa you yave to lear two different thigs"

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grandalf
this is pretty cool -- it actually works if a few people send proper morse.

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spingsprong
Gah, not done morse code in years. This is so difficult

~~~
bkanber
Friend of mine joked that "this is the slowest IRC ever".

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68656c6c6f
The site is vulnerable to xss

~~~
bkanber
Thanks for the heads up, will fix. Edit: wait, is it? I'm not seeing it..

