Living By The Code Computer Modems And Telephone Telegraphy Help Morse Code Practitioners Keep In Touch

In the back of L.R. Keith’s Post Falls mobile home is a room that could be 100 years old.

Antique telegraph keys sit alongside old railroad company typewriters. A spittoon sits on the floor, near the seat where Keith, wearing a green eyeshade, taps on a telegraph key.

The key is connected to a device that looks wildly out of place among the old tobacco cans, Western Union telegraph forms and spittoon: a computer modem.

Keith and other members of the Illinois-based Morse Telegraph Club have converted obsolete 300-baud Tandy modems to send Morse Code over phone lines. Through a converter, the modems activate the antique telegraph “sounders,” which are a sort of clicking receiver.

“You can pick up the phone, kick in the modem, and telegraph,” said Keith. “We call it a giant step backwards.”

There are about 100 such setups in the nation, and about 2,400 former telegraphers in the group, according to president Bill Dunbar. Many are former railroad telegraphers, others worked for news wire services or telegraph companies.

“We were the original on-ramp to the information superhighway,” said Dunbar. “You could send a letter 500 miles in just minutes.”

At 70, Dunbar is one of the group’s younger members. Telegraphers are literally dying out, and new recruits are virtually nil. Learning Morse Code, Keith says, is akin to learning to play a musical instrument. Few people have the time to devote to an arcane craft.

“We’re kind of a last-man club now,” Dunbar said. “It’s going to be a historical footnote at some point.”

Still, the telephone telegraphy allows old friends to stay in touch.

“We just enjoy keeping the code alive,” said Seattle club member Wayne Baldwin, via telegraph.

Dunbar said each telegrapher has a rhythm as unique as a human voice. When the lines were quiet, telegraphers would often converse over the wires.

“Sometimes we’d never meet each other, but we know quite a bit about each other,” he said. “We were proud. We felt a real contribution to society. It sped communication up so much. It changed society.”

Keith assembled his telegraph room from old telegraph equipment being discarded or scrapped by railroads.

“We either stole it, bought it or took it off. Any way we could get it,” he said.

Spokane telegraph club president Charles Dayley still uses the telegraph sending key he bought for $14 in 1941. He figures the brass device will outlast him.

“What will happen to it after that? Who cares. Nobody will be able to use it,” he said. “It’s like an automobile without a driver.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo