Morse Code is making a comeback! Children as young as FIVE are learning it

Forget TikTok and Instagram – children and teenagers want to learn Morse Code! 

Despite being created 180 years ago and not being a requirement for amateur radio operators to learn since 1990, it has been kept alive by radio enthusiasts – and now more young people are getting involved. 

A combination of pandemic lockdowns forcing youngsters to learn something new, and the use of Morse Code by popular K-Pop bands, has led to ‘a renaissance’ in teens wanting to learn the once groundbreaking form of communication.  

From five-year-olds to 99-year-old war veterans, people all over the world are tapping in to communicate with others on the radio.

In Long Island, 70-year-old Howard Bernstein said he has loved radio since he was a young child, listening to shortwave radio and the BBC from across the pond.

‘Radio is in my genes’, he told MailOnline, as he recalled first learning Morse Code 57 years ago, at the age of 13.

His father had been a radio operator who used the skill to communicate with allies while flying a B-17 out of RAF Polebrook in Northamptonshire during the Second World War.

Now, more than half a century later, Bernstein is teaching the same skill to hundreds of children and teenagers – some young as five – who are turning their backs on social media for a few hours each week to learn Morse Code. 

In 2017, Bernstein and his friend Richard Collins decided to form a community group for fans of amateur radio in and around New York.

The Long Island CW Club soon started gaining traction, with more and more recruits joining from other states across the US.

Soon enough, the club had become a global hub for amateur radio fans, attracting members from 47 countries worldwide, including a considerable number of Brits.

Mr Bernstein said: ‘It all began online and on Zoom. I found this very early on because I was coincidentally using this for work.

‘It really helped propel the club, and then when Covid hit that spurred it on even more.

‘The majority of people using ham radio are over the age of 50 but there’s a lot of younger people coming through now, which is really refreshing.

‘There’s really a renaissance with the youth coming back to learn Morse Code.’

Today, 3,500 members log on each week to practice their skills and learn more about the communication form – 400 of those being children and teenagers. 

Each week, the society runs around 80 classes and forums on Zoom, in what Mr Bernstein calls an ‘around the clock’ operation.

Classes allow people to learn Morse, practice it in conversation with other people and listen to presentations about the history of the code or discussions about how it could be used in the future in military warfare or even in space.

He added: ‘We had no idea kids would be interested in this and we did not think about it until one of our members, who worked with kids for a living, offered to teach them during the Covid lockdown.

‘Over the pandemic people were joining more. 

‘Parents loved their kids learning it as it was still quite academic.

‘We started with the kids of members and continued to grow from referrals.’ 

But why are younger people trying to learn the code, when there are so many other distractions online? 

Mr Bernstein said people are ‘tiring of cell phones and computers – everything that gives instantaneous gratification’.

Further to that he says it is ‘a very efficient way to communicate’ and has a ‘romantic element’ to it.

Back in the UK, Michael Stanton, 56, who helps run the Long Island CW Club from Thatcham, West Berkshire, said K-Pop is partially responsible for the surge in popularity from younger generations.

South Korean boy bands NU’EST and TXT have both used Morse Code within their music videos, and even communicate hints about upcoming songs to fans.

Mr Stanton explained to MailOnline: ‘I found that young people between the age of 11 and 14 enjoy it but when they get older, they have more going on, exams, drinking, partying, dating – all those sorts of things.

‘It is then only when people get to around 40 or 50 that they realise they have more money and time to get into amateur radio.

‘However, during the lockdowns, the internet exploded, the ways of communicating got better and lots of the radio things we were doing moved to the internet – including the ability to use Morse Code.

‘This made it more accessible to all age groups. 

‘At the same time there have been a few K-Pop bands, TXT being the most notable, that have been using Morse Code.’

At the start of TXT’s song Crown, Morse Code is used to spell out the title before the song gets underwa.

Similarly, NU’EST’s song Help Me spells out its title at the start of the song, as translated by Bernstein.

NU’EST even had flashing lights, communicating in Morse Code, on their website to reveal the titles of their upcoming songs. 

This prompted young fans of the bands to scour the internet trying to find out the hidden meaning of the beeps. 

‘These bands have used Morse Code quite a lot in their music and communicating with fans. It is mostly written down, but in their music, they obviously use the sounds,’ Mr Stanton, who learned the skill 35 years ago, explained.

‘And that sparked quite a lot of interest amongst the younger generation, teenagers who think “hey my pop idols do this Morse Code thing, it seems quite cool, I can have secret conversations with people using it”.’

Elsewhere across the UK, amateur radio is being used during hikes, attracting people of all ages to get outside and communicate via radio.

Summits on the Air (SOTA) was created 20 years ago and is now operating in almost 100 countries worldwide. 

It is a scheme that rewards radio amateurs who make contact with each other from summits around the world.

Amateur radio operators set up temporary portable stations on mountain summits, where there are favourable conditions on the radio, benefiting from lower background noise than in urban environments. 

It means more distant stations can be heard and hopefully contacted, from even as far away as Australia.

Using efficient modes such as Morse further enhances the chances of such communication.  

Tom Read, 52, from Cheshire, said: ‘It started just over 20 years ago and was designed to get people involved in ham radio a little more active, because it had this stereotype of being used by old men who sat in sheds and weren’t particularly active. 

‘When it stared there were just a few dozen people involved in England and Wales, but now it has gone completely worldwide.

‘It has got tens of thousands of participants, attracting the full spectrum of ages and genders.’ 

In a world where technology is continually advancing, Morse Code appears to offer an escape for some, providing a focus on communicating with others away from the pesky troubles of using social media.