News

Morse coders keeping lost art alive

By Rohan Aldous

Apr 3, 2023

Morse code master: Eaglehawk’s Peter Shaw is a nationally renowned exponent of Morse code messaging and was at Merrigum on Sunday to share his passion of the historic means of communication.

Fast fingers are an important part of modern day life as mobile phone text messaging has become a daily ritual with most of the population.

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For 86-year-old Peter Shaw the modern mode of messaging is still secondary to the original form of delivering information — Morse code.

Mr Shaw and his Beechworth colleague Leo Nette operated a unique attraction at Merrigum Museum Heritage Day on Sunday, sitting only a few metres apart as visitors to the historical site dictated messages to Mr Nette who in turn Morse code messaged the information to Mr Shaw.

He then typed them into telegram form and gave the individual a keepsake from the day.

Eaglehawk resident Peter Shaw is the only member of the Bendigo Morse Code group who is still alive, the group having started in the 1990s.

He worked in Melbourne as a telegraph operator for seven months and then Bendigo for a further 15 years.

He and Mr Lette communicate regularly via telegrams, the latter having the only working telegraph station in the world at Beechworth.

“It is still faster to send a Morse code message than a text message,” Mr Shaw said.

He said in several worldwide competitions pitting the two forms of message against one another, text messages had never gotten close to Morse code messaging

It took nine months of full-time training for Mr Shaw to master Morse code.

When the queen died last year the pair sent a telegram to King Charles, via Beechworth and Eaglehawk.