The Birmingham age-herald., 1922-06-25
RADIO NOV|CES NOW DESIRE ID
 LEARN TIE CODE Resentment Toward Wireless Telegraph Stations Chang Ing Into Desire to
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within the 1&HE lew WeoAa th0Ev has sesn & decided change in attitude on part cS the redio audience toward ths wireless telegraph stations. Hith- arxo these stations have received nothing hut mnadulterated hate from the novice. occasionally accom- panied by an explosive line of ouss- ang which was sorely dependent in it's volume upon the ability and staying powers of the aforesaid novice.
 Up to the present telegraph sta Hons have been looked upon ns bMghting evil, and not a very neces- gary one at that. The novice has not mtopped to think how vastly more important is their work. as compared to that of the broadcasting stations. To him thay have only been con stant source of annoyance Of vary ing degree. according to the nearness of tho offending station. Appar- eutiy, from his point of view, their only raison d'etre Is for the purpose of spelling good music or informative lectures. Z However, as a result of the general dissemination of information, the nov Ice Is now beginning to realize that the wireless telegraph stations, after all. have definite mission to per form. and, moreover, the is becoming very interested in the nature Of this mission.
 Radio Telegraph Broadcasting
 As matter of fact. these telegraph stations are themselves engaged Tn broadcasting also, and the material they send out Is particularly interest," sng. In great many cases u con aists of the very latest news which Is being sent broadcast for the benefit of ships at sea. and this news matter fs several hours ahead of the news sent out by the radiophone broadcast stations It would be Of extreme value to the rural dwelier, ana also srterestiug to the city resident Of eourse. the news is only in bulletin form. but 1t carries aNittie more de- tail than does the radtophone proaa- cast.
 In addition to this there ia the lure of listening to European Wireiess slA- tions. Unless the novice can read the Continental telegraph code he cannot fell what station he Is listening to. and there are plenty. of times that he nav be actually listening to Euro mean station without knowing 1t.
 The European stations and also the American stations which are engaged In transatlantic work, use very long wave lengths, ranging up to lo,ooo meters, but these wave lengths are not beyond the receiving apparatus Of some novices. There is another class of station operating on much lower wave lengths, which also send out news These are stations similar to the navy yard stations. which op- crate on waves up to 1000 meters. Arlington. which can transmit across the Atlantic, for instance. operates on 25oo meters sending out general in- formation to ships at sea.
 Code Not Difficult to Learn
 There is nothing very difficult about learning the code. II Is Just case of steady application and prao- tice in order to acquire speed. It ia not generally known that tho United States navy co-operates In every way with the radio amateurs of the country and that the naval stations actually send out code mat ter at a slow rate of speed every day as practice for amateurs.
 A typical case is the Brooklyn navy yard, call letters NAH, which sends code practice for amateurs every night. This practice begins imrne- diately after NAH has completed It's nightly program of news for ships. It sometimes starts at o'clock In the evening, and at other times does not begin until after 10 o'clock, de- pending entirely upon the length of the news bulletins that have to be gent out For this purpose NAH op- crates. on wave length of 1.S32 me- ters.
 Quite recently there has been de- yeloped a novel system for memorix- ing the various combinations of dots and dashes which make up the code. It Is the product of Scottish radio engineer by the name of F. Macbeth who spent considerable time while In ths Orsent working 1t out in detail. It is based upon the we'll known lines of memory words. or Mnemonics.
 six Basic Letters to Code
 The novelty of the system lies in the fact that he has worked out six letters as the basic combination of all the others, and when combining, them together to form the other letters, they actually make word which Is easy to remember.
 The letters B and D will amply H. lustrate this system. For instance, the letters N. l. and I are three of the basic combinations In making B he takes the letters N and I. which together equal the dots and dashes of B. The memory word in this case ls nib. Similarly in the case of the letter D. The two Combinations in this case are and E. For the pur poses of memorizing. and E are combined with D and form the mem ory word ned This system is fol- lowed throughout.
 This novel system undoubtedly of- xers q short path for the novice to tread in memorixing the dots and dashes of the code for each letter. It does not give him the necessary speed to read what the wireless tele- Graph stations are saying. That comes alone with constant practice.