Sending an S.O.S at Pearson International Airport

As part of the Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA) Exhibit Program, the Canada Science and Technology Museum (CSTM), in collaboration with the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), presents Morse Code from May 6, 2006 to January 7, 2007.

Anyone passing through Pearson International Airport's Malton Gallery (Terminal 1) can experience the history and essence of electrical communication in its first century and learn how for decades, skilled Morse operators maintained lifelines to tiny railway whistle stops, isolated arctic trading posts and ships navigating the stormy North Atlantic.

Approximately 40 unique and fascinating artifacts selected from the CSTM's collections will demonstrate how manual and automated systems for transmitting Morse code became essential in making land, marine and air transportation systems safe and reliable. Even today, Morse survives in the three-letter code used to identify airports around the world.

Visitors can view some of the earliest telegraph equipment surviving in Canada, including little known devices such as the siphon recorder and the heliograph, as well as rare examples of early radiotelegraph equipment employed on ships before the First World War. The artifacts are accompanied with bilingual text and historic photographs of telegraphers and radio operators at work, bringing to life the mysterious language of dots and dashes.

'What hath God wrought' was the first message sent in Morse code via the electric telegraph on May 24, 1844 by Samuel Finley Breese Morse.

Although not the inventor of the telegraph, which was first built in 1774, Morse is credited with greatly improving the telegraph. Early machines were primitive and impractical, using 26 separate wires, each representing one letter of the alphabet.Morse was the first to create a one-wire system, in 1837. However, the ticker-tape like readings produced by the machine were often inaccurate, pressing Morse to create a better code. Finally he developed the system of dots and dashes, later used throughout the world as a primary means of communication.

Visit www.rom.on.ca/news/releases/ or www.gtaa.com/artprogram for more details.

Source: Radio Amateurs of Canada

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