Why Every Prepper Should Learn SOS Morse Code

You’ll never know when you will be in a life or death situation. It is vital to be prepared. If you haven’t learned SOS Morse code yet, it’s time that you do!

SOS Morse Code Can Save Your Life

Communication through dots and dashers, created by Samuel Morse, revolutionized international communications, aviation, and even amateur radio. While international Morse code might seem like an antiquated technology, it is something that we still use today.

From the standpoint of prepper use, I’m sure you get excited when you see that Morse code is used in amateur radio.

Communication is not just one of the most important parts of preparedness, it’s also one of the most overlooked. The full extent of the average person’s communications plan is an emergency radio, a cellphone, and a power bank.

In this article, we are going to look at the origins of Morse code as well as the practical uses in your modern preparedness toolkit.

Morse Code

In the 19th century, important technological experiments were happening in Europe as scientists were exploring the possibility of sending messages using electricity. Some even used static electricity in their experiments.

Samuel Morse was an artist who worked closely with physicist Joseph Henry and Alfred Vail to develop an electrical telegraph. However, they needed a voice and a language for that system.

The Morse system was originally developed to make indentations into paper. These dots and dashes, or short and long presses would combine to create a letter.

The most recognizable is SOS.

Communications Is a Vital Prep

When it comes to communications, you should depend on PACE:

• Primary
• Alternate
• Contingency
• Emergency

This is a great way to manage the many aspects of your preps. PACE can be applied to almost everything you do in preparedness. At the very least, you should apply PACE to your emergency plans.

In terms of communication, you need more than a primary means of communication. If your primary means of communication fails you, you will have to have another option or lose contact with those you love.

Cellphones, HAM Radios, Two Way Radios, GoTenna, and other methods of communication can be considered. Everyone’s primary means of communication is going to be a cellphone.

A pair of “burner” phones might be a great alternate if you have something that interrupts your particular network. Satellite cellphones are another great option that you might want to use as an emergency means of communication.

Morse code is just another means of sending a message when other options have been exhausted. In a grid down situation, the use of Morse code could be a big deal. It might be a means of communicating in secret, by a light source or some other creative method.

Morse Code in Rescue

In terms of wilderness survival, knowing Morse code holds some very real value. If you find yourself in a situation that requires rescue, you will be able to take several actions to relay a message using Morse code.

One of the most effective means of sending an SOS message in a wilderness survival situation is by using a high decibel survival whistle. When you see these whistles in survival kits you might laugh about them. However, if you need rescuing these can make a world of difference.

Another great way to signal using Morse code is to wait till the night and use your flashlight. You do carry a high lumen flashlight as part of your EDC, right? Well, then you should have the ability to do so. You will be able to send this light to the tops of trees or just out into the sky.

Using Morse code, you can relay the SOS message or some other message to those who might be hovering overhead in helicopters.

Being able to build white smoke fires or use Morse code to get yourself and your loved ones rescued is imperative survival knowledge.

The Classics Still Works!

While the allure of the latest and greatest in technology can tend to drive our modern preparedness approach, it’s important that we not forget about those skills that have carried our civilization for hundreds of years.

In fact, you could argue that we have experienced radical amnesia, brought on by convenience and the industrial revolution, that caused us to forget about self-reliance and independence. The biggest joke in all of that was that once we hit near-maximum dependence and shipped production mostly out of the nation, we were hit with a pandemic.

The way we make fire with a bow drill is thousands of years old. It still works just the same. Although we have highly advanced communications, it’s just as important to understand how to use Morse code as a means of communication in the worst of situations.

The history of these puzzle languages and communications methods are deeply entrenched in warfare as well as mass communications.  To know these languages and be able to decipher them will always give you a leg up.

Not to mention, Morse code is a pretty simple thing to learn if you study it and practice it.

Have you tried using Morse code? Share with us your experience in the comments section!

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