Transportation and Telecommunications
The
wheel, the sail, the steam engine, and the electric motor are among the technological
breakthroughs in transportation that allowed man and his materials to be moved
from place to place and from one continent to another. Until the invention
of the telegraph, even distant communications were dependent on transportation.
From earliest times, trade, conquests, armed conflicts and search for new
lands and resources had been the impetus in the development of maritime transport
and the establishment of transportation routes. Since the beginning of recorded
history, maritime trading networks had waxed and waned, particularly with
Europe, the Mediterranean Basin, Asia and Africa.The 15th
century CE ushered in the Age of Discovery. During this period, the voyage
initiated by Ferdinand Magellan completed the first circumnavigation of the
globe by one of his crew, Sebastian El Cano. Between the 15th
and 18th century, new lands and maritime routes had been discovered
or rediscovered and east-west maritime trade begun to assume a global structure.
The
growth of trade, especially the British East India Company had influenced
the designs of ships throughout the 16th and 17th centuries.
The end of the Napoleonic Wars and the American War of 1812 led to the great
revival of trade and colonial expansion and subsequently, technological advances
in maritime transport given impetus by the Industrial Revolution, made use
of steam, ships made of iron and later, steel. These advances meant that
large volume of cargoes and passengers could be transported to various parts
of the world. The maritime industry underwent significant major changes in
ship construction, cargo handling, port operation and management and navigational
safety as a result of rapid technological progress in the 20th
century, especially after the Second World War. The expansive growth of the
shipping industry beginning in the late 18th century saw the need
to regulate the shipping industry not only in the registry and construction
but also on safety at sea. After the Second World War, the International
Maritime Organization was established ushering in a new prospect on international
cooperation in maritime navigation.Marine telecommunication
evolved from the development of the telegraph. With the invention of the
telegraph in the late 18th century, distance communication had
become a reality. In 1844, Samuel Morse in America while William Cooke and
Charles Wheatstone in Britain successfully staged public demonstrations of
the electric telegraphs. Thereafter, the growth of the telegraph had been
rapid. The early expansion of the telegraph was made possible by the railway
network and the installation of submarine cables and thus, telecommunication
had become internationalised. Submarine cables installed in the late 1850s
onwards, especially across the Atlantic made telegraphy a thriving commercial
operation worldwide.
More
than 30 years after the public demonstration of the electric telegraph, Alexander
Graham Bell made a public demonstration of his invention, the telephone in
1876 at the exhibition for the centenary of the United States in Philadelphia.
By 1880, there were 30,000 telephones in use around the world.In 1896, the
wireless telegraphy was invented, which was the first and earliest type of
radiocommunication and became widely used in maritime purposes. This was
followed by voice transmission in 1906. By the 1920s, public radio broadcasting
had become widespread.
The growth
and expansion of the telegraph networks resulted in the first International
Telegraph Convention in 1865 and the establishment of the International Telegraph
Union. With the advancement of communication system since that time, the
Union decided to change its name in 1934 and now known as the International
Telecommunication Union (ITU).
With growth
of the telegraph, submarine cable remained the fast and reliable means of
international telecommunications until the advent of radio. During the late
1920s, the British’s Telegraph Construction and Maintenance developed lightweight
coaxial cables, which enabled a high transmission rate (i.e., 2,800 characters
per minute by 1928). Then in the 1940s, submersible repeaters were developed
and enabled engineers to overcome the loss of signal strength over long cables
and in the 1950s, the first transatlantic telephone cable was laid. By the
1980s although satellite telecommunications has became dominant, the use of
optical fibres opened new avenues for submarine cables. In 1988, the first
transatlantic fibre optic cable was installed.
Today,
the synergistic effects arising from the integration of computer technology
with communications have led to wider applications in business, public services
and even at home as well as the growth of superhighway information network
like the Internet and Marine Electronic Highway.On 12 July
1999, 155 years after the first words were transmitted by telegraph, the last
commercial maritime Morse Code message was sent out from North America by
Globe Wireless’ KFS Marine Station at Half Moon Bay, San Francisco. For the
maritime sector, the Morse Code system was replaced by the Global Maritime
Distress and Safety System (GMDSS).
International Morse Code
| Letter | Morse | Letter | Morse | Digit | Morse | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | .- | N | -. | 0 | ----- | ||
| B | -... | O | --- | 1 | .---- | ||
| C | -.-. | P | .--. | 2 | ..--- | ||
| D | -.. | Q | --.- | 3 | ...-- | ||
| E | . | R | .-. | 4 | ....- | ||
| F | ..-. | S | ... | 5 | ..... | ||
| G | --. | T | - | 6 | -.... | ||
| H | .... | U | ..- | 7 | --... | ||
| I | .. | V | ...- | 8 | ---.. | ||
| J | .--- | W | .-- | 9 | ----. | ||
| K | -.- | X | -..- | ||||
| L | .-.. | Y | -.-- | ||||
| M | -- | Z | --.. |
If the duration of a dot is taken to be one unit then that of a dash is three units. The space between the components of one character is one unit, between characters is three units and between words seven units. To indicate that a mistake has been made and for the receiver to delete the last word send ........ (eight dots).
| Letter | Morse | Punctuation Mark | Morse | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ä | .-.- | Full-stop (period) | .-.-.- | |
| Á | .--.- | Comma | --..-- | |
| Å | .--.- | Colon | ---... | |
| Ch | ---- | Question mark (query) | ..--.. | |
| É | ..-.. | Apostrophe | .----. | |
| Ñ | --.-- | Hyphen | -....- | |
| Ö | ---. | Fraction bar | -..-. | |
| Ü | ..-- | Brackets (parentheses) | -.--.- | |
| Quotation marks | .-..-. | |||