The Daily Courier - HOW'D THEY DO THAT? Morse code translations keep Prescott man busy

The Daily Courier - HOW'D THEY DO THAT? Morse code translations keep Prescott man busy: "Morse code is a dying art.

The romantic notion of a brave wireless radio operator resolutely tap-tapping out distress signals while rising sea water laps at his feet (think Titanic) has gone the way of the old-fashioned ice box and the wringer washing machine.

'It takes too long to learn,' admits Chuck Adams, a 65-year-old retired astrophysicist living in the high desert hills on the edge of Prescott.





Don't get him wrong - Adams loves Morse code. He is one of the fastest code transcribers in the United States. Since 1985 - just for fun - Adams has been translating books into Morse code. He has done about 25 so far.

About four years ago, he started putting the translated Morse code tones on CDs and selling them for a token amount on the Internet. He gets about three or four requests for the CDs a month.

Transcribing the books is not as complicated as it sounds because Adams wrote a software program that does the translation for him on a computer.

It takes about an hour and 15 minutes to do one book. He has sold about 100."