Does the morse code at the beginning of 'Planet Claire' actually say anything?

[chacoguy]

From the B-52"s

[Xema]

Googling says it’s from a Canadian automatic weather broadcast, and consists of:
NAWS DE CFH II ZKR F1 3394 4156.66238

[hajario]

Apparently it’s gibberish.

https://plus.google.com/+PatRing/posts/3qHQFYdHJ1v

[chacoguy]

Two direct hits in fifteen minutes, thanks guys.

[desertmonk]

@hajario

Apparently it’s gibberish.

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Your link says the same thing as the guy above you; I just listened to it and Xema has it right. It looks like gibberish but is identifying the station at the beginning, I don’t know what the rest means.

[Ornery_Bob]

@desertmonk

It looks like gibberish but is identifying the station at the beginning, I don’t know what the rest means.

A station, no doubt, under the control of the Robot Overlords. By the time we figure out what it means, it will be too late.

[gnoitall]

@hajario

Apparently it’s gibberish.

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@desertmonk

Your link says the same thing as the guy above you; I just listened to it and Xema has it right. It looks like gibberish but is identifying the station at the beginning, I don’t know what the rest means.

If you read down the comments, you find one that explains it pretty well, if you can believe random commentators on a forum. :rolleyes:

@Dave Mushing

Dave Mushing
Aug 29, 2015
The morse code you hear at the beginning of the song is what’s called a “call tape” or “ZKR tape”. The station transmitting it, at the time, would have been Canadian Forces Station Mill Cove in Hubbards, Nova Scotia, which was the Naval Radio Station supporting the east coast fleet. The tape would be transmitted on several different frequencies advising ships which frequencies were available for them to call/transmit their messages. The ship would listen to the call tape, select the best frequency from the list based upon the time of day, and transmit a call to Mill Cove. Mill Cove would then interrupt the tape, and an operator would respond by hand in morse code, advising the ship to transmit their message(s), or to advise them the frequency was no good and to select another. The tape would then be resumed. When a ship started working a frequency, that frequency would be temporarily removed from the list of frequencies in the call tape. The morse code sent is “NAWS DE CFH - ZKR F1 3394…”, where NAWS is a callsign meaning “Any or all Allied warships”, DE is a prosign meaning “this is”, CFH is the callsign of CFS Mill Cove, II which is a short break or dash, ZKR means "I am guarding frequency … " (guarding means listening on), F1 means “radioteletype mode”, and then the list of frequencies begins, listed in kilohertz. I was a Naval Radio Operator for 5 years (1985-1990) before progressing to become a Naval Electronics Technician (Communications) in the Canadian Navy. As Radio Operators, we spent a lot of time with a headset on, listening to this call tape over and over and over…

Emphasis added.

I was most of 21 years in USAF communications, though not radio, and some of what he says makes sense according to what I recall. Particularly, message format (<addressee> DE <originator> <message>)… I recognized that without the rest of the explanation.