Communication Pioneer. He is remembered for his revision of the American Morse code that he accomplished in 1848, now known as the International Morse Code. Born into a modest family, at the age of 16, he came to Hamburg, Germany as a servant and houseboy to the private scientist Arnold Schuback. In 1820 he went to Canada and joined the British Army but became dissatisfied and returned to Hamburg three years later. In 1838 he joined the optical telegraph of Johann Ludwig Schmidt, who established a private telegraph line between Hamburg and Cuxhaven and became their technician. Ten years later, he opted to go to the Elektro-Magnetische Telegraph Company after seeing a demonstration of their electrical Morse telegraph. He perceived the disadvantages of the American Morse code and changed nearly half of it into its present form, the International Telegraph Alphabet. The original Morse code consisted of four different hold durations (the amount of time the key was held down), and some letters contained inconsistent internal durations of silence. In his improved system there were only "dits" and "dahs", the latter being three times as long as the former, and the internal silence intervals are always a single dit-time each. This improved code was adopted by the Deutsch-Oesterreichischer Telegraphenverein in 1851 and the International Telegraph Union in 1865 and is still in use today. In 1868 he built the Hamburger Telegraph Office and became its first director. He died at the age of 87.
Communication Pioneer. He is remembered for his revision of the American Morse code that he accomplished in 1848, now known as the International Morse Code. Born into a modest family, at the age of 16, he came to Hamburg, Germany as a servant and houseboy to the private scientist Arnold Schuback. In 1820 he went to Canada and joined the British Army but became dissatisfied and returned to Hamburg three years later. In 1838 he joined the optical telegraph of Johann Ludwig Schmidt, who established a private telegraph line between Hamburg and Cuxhaven and became their technician. Ten years later, he opted to go to the Elektro-Magnetische Telegraph Company after seeing a demonstration of their electrical Morse telegraph. He perceived the disadvantages of the American Morse code and changed nearly half of it into its present form, the International Telegraph Alphabet. The original Morse code consisted of four different hold durations (the amount of time the key was held down), and some letters contained inconsistent internal durations of silence. In his improved system there were only "dits" and "dahs", the latter being three times as long as the former, and the internal silence intervals are always a single dit-time each. This improved code was adopted by the Deutsch-Oesterreichischer Telegraphenverein in 1851 and the International Telegraph Union in 1865 and is still in use today. In 1868 he built the Hamburger Telegraph Office and became its first director. He died at the age of 87.
Bio by: William Bjornstad
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