{"id":3821,"date":"2021-06-26T21:36:03","date_gmt":"2021-06-26T21:36:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/redfrontdoor.org\/blog\/?p=3821"},"modified":"2022-05-07T08:50:23","modified_gmt":"2022-05-07T08:50:23","slug":"decoding-a-morse-code-easter-egg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redfrontdoor.org\/blog\/?p=3821","title":{"rendered":"Decoding a Morse code Easter Egg"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One of the sports in the <em>Wii Sports Resort<\/em> game is <em>Island Flyover<\/em>, where you get to pilot an aeroplane round the island and its surrounding waters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/redfrontdoor.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Wii-sports-resort-airplane.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3822\" width=\"384\" height=\"216\" srcset=\"https:\/\/redfrontdoor.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Wii-sports-resort-airplane.jpg 700w, https:\/\/redfrontdoor.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Wii-sports-resort-airplane-300x168.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 384px) 100vw, 384px\" \/><figcaption>Island Flyover (Screenshot: User &#8220;Nic olivares&#8221; on <a href=\"https:\/\/wuhupedia.fandom.com\/wiki\/Wuhupedia_-_The_Wii_Sports_Wiki\">Wuhupedia<\/a>, under <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0\/\">CC-BY-SA<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There is a lighthouse, and when you fly near it, you hear a sound very like Morse code.  My younger two children and I decided to see if this really was Morse code, or just something made to sound a bit like it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Our first job was to capture the audio while a player flew the plane near the lighthouse.  This is what we got:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/redfrontdoor.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/messages-full-speed.mp3\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This was going to be tricky for us to analyse, so, in Audacity, we applied a high-pass filter to try to cut out some of the engine noise, and then also slowed the recording down considerably.  Once we&#8217;d done this, it did sound like it might genuinely be Morse code, which was exciting.  We now had something we had a chance at transcribing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Here&#8217;s a snippet of the first message:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/redfrontdoor.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/first-message-excerpt.mp3\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And here&#8217;s a piece of what sounded like a reply:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/redfrontdoor.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/second-message-excerpt.mp3\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Now it was possible to pay attention, pause often to look up the symbol, and write down the letters, which \u2014 spoiler alert! \u2014 were:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>Why does anyone use Morse code anymore?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>Good question.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think it&#8217;s cool that the designers and programmers chose to put a real Morse code message into the soundtrack here, rather than just some random beeping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">See also<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Morse code appears in various movies and songs \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/the-daily-dabble.com\/morse-code-music-movies\/\">The Daily Dabble has collected some examples<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the sports in the Wii Sports Resort game is Island Flyover, where you get to pilot an aeroplane round the island and its surrounding waters. There is a lighthouse, and when you fly near it, you hear a sound very like Morse code. My younger two children and I decided to see if this really was Morse code, or just something made to sound a bit like it. Our first job was to capture the audio while a player flew the plane near the lighthouse. This is what we got: This was going to be tricky for us to analyse, so, in Audacity, we applied a high-pass filter to try to cut out some of the engine noise,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","comments-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redfrontdoor.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redfrontdoor.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redfrontdoor.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redfrontdoor.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redfrontdoor.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3821"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/redfrontdoor.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3821\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3849,"href":"https:\/\/redfrontdoor.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3821\/revisions\/3849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redfrontdoor.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redfrontdoor.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redfrontdoor.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}