Posted by Ed Kiser on September 28, 2007 at 04:12:31 from 64.12.116.198 user Kisered.
Regarding the method of waving a flag to transmit MORSE CODE, I have found several references that tell how this is to be done.
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Adventist_Youth_Honors_Answer_Book/Vocational/Communications
"One must know how to transmit dots and dashes with the wigwag flags. The sender holds two flags, one in each hand. The "rest" position is both flags straight up. To send a dot, the flag on the right is lowered straight out to the right and then raised again. To send a dash, the left flag is lowered straight out to the left and then raised again."
In the above description, only one flag is being used at a time, so I wonder why the above method seems to use TWO flags.
http://www.seascout.org/about/program/signaling.html
"...swung to the sender's left for a dash and to the sender's right for a dot."
The above two references seem to be somewhat in agreement as to how a dot and how a dash are to be transmitted.
However, in WINTER HOLIDAY, Nancy tells us a different method of sending Morse via a single flag that is not at all what the above two references indicate.
In WH CH5:
"Nancy gave Dick and Dorothea their first lesson in flag-flapping and
showed them how to make a short flap for a dot and a long sweep
from side to side for a dash."
So I wonder where Nancy gets her dot/dash methology from. It seems different from the other two sources quoted above.
I find it interesting in Winter Holiday that it is NANCY that takes on the job of teaching these newcomers the art of signalling. I would have thought, with John's father being in the Mavy, and with the Swallows all being rather familiar with how to signal Morse as well as Semaphore, that the Swallows would have gone into the teaching business with the D's on this subject. But they leave this task to Nancy, who although manages her sailboat rather well, does not have a relative related to the NAVY (like the Swallows do, with their father) and thus no father to teach her the sailor way of doing things. I can only guess that Uncle Jim was instrumental in her early years in getting her familiar with the handling of boats, although it is not brought out that he had any experience with the Navy at all. But he seems to be at home on a sailboat, as in GN.
Once again, it seems that I have dug into the lives of these characters BEYOND what is in these specific stories. They do seem so real, that surely, they have a "life" between the books, before the books, and yes, after these books are done. We feel that such a life existed, and we try to fill in these missing gaps of these all so very real people, our dear childhood friends.
Now, about the Beckfoot plumbing...
Ed Kiser, Kentucky