[BCMA] Introduction to ABMTC Line Project

[Moderated BCMA subscriber listserv]

Greetings

Thanks for letting me join the BC Museums Association listserv and 
please allow me to introduce myself and the Alberta MTC Line Project.

My name is Kevin Jepson and I am a board member for the Calgary Chapter 
of the international Morse Telegraph Club. I am also the "Wire Chief", 
I.E. the technical lead, and instigator of the Alberta MTC Line Project.

The ABMTC Line Project is an ambitious plan to connect museums, and 
other groups in Western Canada, that are interested in preserving and 
demonstrating land line Morse Telegraphy, to a functional telegraph line 
running across the Internet.  Land line Morse was used by railways and 
commercial telegraph systems in Canada from the advent of the CPR in the 
1870s right up to the last telegraph message sent on the CPR telegraph 
system a hundred years later in 1973. The telegraph was THE long 
distance communication system. The project is connecting the old 
telegraph equipment, that many museums have in their collections, to our 
working telegraph line. Many small museums across Western Canada are 
actually housed in old train stations where that equipment was actually 
used. There is a surprisingly large amount of this equipment gathering 
dust in our collections or in static displays. We aim to bring it back 
to life to make our displays actually work, to add the sounds of Morse 
code to these displays and keep the sound of Morse alive. We don't just 
want canned sounds we want the line to carry real telegraph traffic from 
real people!

Beginning in 2024 and to-date we have connected 9 museums and groups to 
the line, 3 in BC and 6 in AB, and there are more than 30 groups and 
museums who have expressed an interest in getting connected. We have 
interested museums and groups across Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British 
Columbia. We have also received expressions of interest from as far 
North as the Yukon, as far West as Southern Vancouver Island, and as far 
East as Quebec.

As part of the project it was necessary to develop an inexpensive, 
standard, turnkey interface setup that would make connecting physical 
telegraph equipment to the Internet easy, safe, and secure. Our system 
enables Morse code to be sent across a virtual line to other stations 
just like it would have been sent across those thousands of miles of 
physical wire! Our setup has been very successful and as long as a site 
has some kind on internet access available we can usually get it hooked up.

The website for the project has a map showing the current active 
stations on the line updated in real time. Feel free to check it out 
here: https://abkob.servehttp.com
The software used to make the connection has the ability to translate 
the Morse code traffic into English letters and there is a real time 
transcript of the traffic available here: 
https://abkob.servehttp.com/traffic.html

It does a fairly good job with the old pros but for us just learning to 
send it can be... "interesting".

In order for the project to be successful we also need people to use it.
To that end we focus on education and training on the use of American or 
land line Morse Code (which is different than International Morse code 
used on radios), and the history of the telegraph in Canada and 
elsewhere in the world. Of course the telegraph was intimately linked 
with the railroad, but it was also used for government, banking, 
newspapers, and other commercial traffic. We have resources available 
for learning to send and receive American Morse Code, and technical 
information on keeping this old equipment working properly. Many of 
these resources are available through our low volume mailing list at: 
https://groups.io/g/Alberta-MTC and the website for the Calgary chapter 
of the Morse Telegraph Club here: https://alberta-mtc.blogspot.com/

At Supertrain in Calgary last year I was interviewed by a Ham Radio 
video blogger, Vince d'Eon, about the project.
You can see that video here: https://youtu.be/-jM10EvASBE

I send out a semi-regular update on the status of the project and am 
happy to add anyone interested to that mailing list.

If this sounds interesting and you would like more information, or would 
like to participate in the ABMTC Line Project, please reach out to me, 
Kevin Jepson, at albertamtcline at gmail.com

73 (Telegrapher's code for 'Best Wishes')
Ciao
Kevin Jepson (KJ)
Instigator and Wire Chief
Alberta MTC Line Project


Calgary (CG) Chapter Morse Telegraph Club