Every newcomer to CW will naturally be drawn towards copying the code that’s often dubbed into movies or songs. Proud of your new accomplishment, you may find yourself announcing the content of that code to others that are also watching. You will also be surprised how often a producer will simply dub in fake code or gibberish. While my daughter was listening to her favorite bands on Youtube, I was immediately taken back by the code at the beginning of this song. After playing the beginning back several times, it sounded to me like one of those repetitive beacons that you run across on the short wave bands, but I decided more research was needed. Maybe there’s some hidden message. Is Paul McCartney dead? Is Elvis alive? The following is what I found about this particular code. Of course I can’t vouch for the total accuracy of this guys post, but in breaking it down, I found a fair portion of it to be correct from my own understanding of the terms.
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.
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.