The Morse Code

The teddy bears have been using secret messages amongst themselves so others don't know what they are saying. They started by using the lolly stick method which they talked about in one of their previous stories (you can read that again by clicking here).

That particular method involved several items to be found before it could be used - they needed wooden lolly sticks and a marker pen. Scary had told them then that there were other ways of passing on secret messages and they wondered if there was any other method where they didn't have to find things to use first.

So they asked Scary if he had any other ideas. "Oh, loads!" he said. "How about I show you a way that doesn't involve any sticks or pens?" The other bears were all ears. "All you need are your voices!" he continued. "Although I will explain afterwards some other ways of using this method which might need you to find other stuff first."

Scary ran off to his bookshelf and came back with a slim booklet. Its title was "International Morse Code" and it contained pages showing strange markings next to each letter of the alphabet and the numbers 0 to 9. You can view or print these off by clicking here.

"These marks next to each letter and number" explained Scary, "are dots and dashes. You use the combination of dots and dashes to make up the letters and numbers. You can use your voice to mimic the markings so that a dot is just spoken as 'di' (a very short sound) and a dash is spoken as 'dah' (a longer sound)."

He pointed out the marking next to the letter 'A' on the first page. It was marked as a dot and a dash which would be spoken as 'di, dah'. "Try it out" Scary encouraged.

James tried first. "Di, dah," he said. "Perfect," responded Scary. "Now try the letter 'B'."

The marking next to the letter 'B' was a dash and three dots which James said out loud as "Dah, di, di, di." "Perfect, again!" said Scary.

All the other bears took it in turns to try out this new 'language'. "Now all we have to do is put the letters together to make a word," Scary told them. "Leave a little gap (about the length of 3 di's) between the letters so that whoever is listening knows that you have finished a letter. They can either try very hard to remember the letters you have said, or they could write them down until they discover what the word is."

So James tried a word first whilst the other bears tried to work out what it was. His sounds were "Di, dah, dah, dah, pause, di, dah, pause, dah, dah, pause, di, pause, di, di, di." Can you work out what that was? Teddy was the first one to decipher it. It was James' name in morse code!

Here is Scary's initial sentence for the other bears to decode: -- (pause) . (pause) … (pause) … (pause) .- (pause) --. (pause) . (pause) … (long pause) .. (pause) -. (long pause) -- (pause) --- (pause) .-. (pause) … (pause) . (long pause) -.-. (pause) --- (pause) -.. (pause) . (long pause) .- (pause) .-. (pause) . (long pause) … (pause) . (pause) -.-. (pause) .-. (pause) . (pause) - (long pause to finish)

What do you think that said? The answer can be found at the end of the story.

Scary was very proud when the other bears managed to work out quite quickly what the sentence was. They needed to use their Morse Code list at first but they very soon managed to pick up some common letters, like 'E' and 'S' without having to check on the list.

"You can also use other methods for spelling out the letters" explained Scary. "You can knock a piece of wood on a metal bucket, or something similar, or you can even use a torch and flash it on and off to represent the dots and dashes, leaving the torch lit longer for the dashes than the dots. The most important word in Morse Code is … (pause) --- (pause) …" continued Scary. "That is the international signal for help (it stands for the initial letters of Save Our Souls) and is recognised all over the world, so that might be a good one to memorise."

Only a few people nowadays use the Morse Code - mainly the military - so there would be little chance of anyone else knowing what the bears' secret messages were about. The bears went away to practice amongst themselves and declared that they were very pleased to now have lots of other ways of passing on their secret messages to each other.

Maybe you could try using Morse Code for your secret messages too. You may even be able to memorise some of the letters so you don't spend ages having to look them up each time. Working out your name in Morse Code is a good start. By the way, the sentence which Scary did earlier translated as "Messages In Morse Code Are Secret."