Morse Lullabies

All of my life I have been an avid shortwave radio listener. I was always (and still am) mystified that radio messages can be transmitted over thousands of miles without a single wire. Shortwave is also interesting because there are many different types of messages that are sent. There's AM broadcasters such as "The Voice of America," and "China Radio International" that transmit news and music. There's utility stations for aviation, marine and time. Then, there are "ham radio" operators that transmit all kinds of different types of hello messages to each other; voice, computer data and morse code. Shortwave is interesting because there is a variety of messages that are transmitted from places all over the world. These messages can easily be heard with a fairly cheap radio.

One of my lifetime goals that I attained recently was to become a ham radio operator myself which required a license. In order to obtain this license I had to learn morse code. I spent a couple of years becoming familiar with morse code. On some days I would spend a lot of time listening to morse code to try and decipher what the messages were. I even listened to morse code on the shortwave radio at night to help me learn. The morse code would frequently lull me to sleep. Since I attained my ham license I have grown accustom to falling asleep at night listening to static and morse code.

I am not always able to listen to Morse Code at night now for a variety of reasons. I could be traveling and I don't want to lug a large radio around. Sometimes I am in an area where I can't listen because there is a lot of interference. Sometimes there are no hams transmitting. I still wanted to a convenient way to listen. I still needed my lullaby. To offer this convenience, I built an android application that mimics how morse code sounds when transmitted over shortwave. I use it when I want to listen to "morse code and static" while "on the run."

This application is a fairly simple application that does not have much of a UI. It will only play sound through your device's sound system. If a network connection is available, it will connect to some popular RSS feeds for the latest headlines and use them as the basis for the morse code messages that are sent. It will display the messages that it plays on your device's screen.