[xb95]

In amateur radio, the characteristics of someone's CW (morse code) is called their "fist". I used to be able to do 5 WPM and one year I participated in field day (the annual ham competition to contact as many people as you can, etc) with it -- that year was magical because I used morse code for my first time to talk to someone. The feeling of dits and dahs coming across the airwaves actually being communication from somewhere far away? It was brilliant.

So: kudos for learning an aging and mostly deprecated form of communication. Some folks still do it for hobby (I've lost all skill by this point), and I highly recommend the experience.

If nothing else, find a local ham group and go poke around in late June and see if they're doing anything for field day. It's worth checking out.

[hyperbovine]

I'm not sure if deprecated is the right word. When the zombie invasion comes, I do not feel confident in my ability to get the cellular network back up running. I could easily build a spark gap transmitter though, using spare parts that can be found anywhere and high-school level electrical engineering. In seriousness, it seems somehow foolish to deprecate an extremely reliable, cheap and time-tested form of communication. That said, I never got far in my own attempts to learn Morse code :-)