Morse code
Morse code is a primitive form of communication created on Earth during the age of telegraph communications. Its inventor; Samuel Morse, worked very closely with this assistant in its making and even among modern scholars the designation 'Morse' code is only used due to antiquity's use.
In Morse Code, each letter is formed with a series of dots and dashes. It is used in the modern age as a form of rare emergency communication when primary subspace radio equipment has been rendered inoperable. In some cases officers will not recognise Morse Code very easily: as its usage in modern times is so very rare - so rare that it has not been taught at the Academy for decades.
In radio-frequency communications, Morse code is known as Continuous Wave, or "CW." CW is a method of modulating a radio-frequency carrier; it is an electromagnetic wave of constant amplitude and frequency, in which the carrier wave is switched on and off. Information is carried in the rhythm and spacing with which the signal is sent, as can be seen in the dash-dot chart below. CW is thus is a form of on-off keying (OOK). An unmodulated carrier has no bandwidth and conveys no information; the act of keying the carrier on and off produces a finite bandwidth relating to the transmission rate.
Continuous-wave radio was called radiotelegraphy because like the telegraph, it worked by means of a simple switch to transmit Morse code. However, instead of controlling the electricity in a cross-country wire, the switch controlled the power sent to a radio transmitter. CW has the distinction of using the smallest amount of spectrum possible to convey intelligence, around 50Hz. Comparatively, Frequency Modulation (FM), a common voice communications mode, requires on the order of 180kHz for a monaural signal.
A very general rule of thumb in RF communications is that the more information being passed, the larger the bandwidth, "information" being concurrent with the manner in which the carrier is modulated; i.e., CW, AM, FM, SSB, high-baud/bit data (AFSK), in no particular order.
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