Morse Code Translator and Alphabet Chart

How Morse code timing works

Morse has only two symbols but three kinds of silence, and the silences carry as much information as the sounds. Everything is measured in one basic unit of time, usually called a dit. Speed up or slow down the unit and the whole code scales with it.

Get the gaps wrong and the message turns to nonsense. A letter gap that is too short glues two letters into one: ... and - sent with no gap becomes a single unreadable run rather than S then T.

• A dot (dit) is 1 unit of sound.
• A dash (dah) is 3 units of sound.
• The gap between elements inside one letter is 1 unit of silence.
• The gap between letters is 3 units of silence.
• The gap between words is 7 units of silence.
• Speed is quoted in words per minute, measured against the standard word PARIS, which is exactly 50 units long.

How to learn Morse code

Do not learn from a chart. The chart is useful for looking a character up, but anyone who memorises Morse visually ends up translating dots into letters in their head, and that mental step caps you at about five words per minute forever.

Learn it by ear instead, as sound patterns. The two methods that work are the Koch method and the Farnsworth method, and most modern training software uses both together.

• Koch method: start at full target speed (typically 15 to 20 words per minute) but with only two characters. Add a third only when you are hitting 90 percent accuracy, and keep adding until you have the whole alphabet.
• Farnsworth method: send each individual character at full speed but stretch the gaps between characters. You learn the true rhythm of each letter from day one, then close the gaps as you get faster.
• Say the rhythm out loud: A is di-dah, Q is dah-dah-di-dah. Speaking it builds the same pattern memory that hearing it does.
• Practise little and often. Fifteen minutes a day beats a three hour session at the weekend.
• Send as well as receive. A straight key, a paddle or even a phone app will teach your hands the timing.

What SOS stands for (and what it does not)

SOS does not stand for Save Our Souls, Save Our Ship, or anything else. It is a backronym invented after the fact. The signal was chosen in 1906 by the International Radiotelegraphic Convention purely because ...---... is a distinctive, unmistakable rhythm that is hard to confuse with anything else and easy to pick out of noise.

It is sent as one continuous symbol with no letter gaps, which is why it is properly written with a bar across the top. Written as three separate letters it would sound different. The earlier British distress call was CQD, and both were in use for a few years before SOS won out.

On the radio, the spoken equivalent is Mayday, from the French m'aidez. Pan-pan is the lower urgency call for a serious but not life threatening situation. Never transmit any of them as a joke: distress frequencies are monitored and false alerts are a criminal offence in most countries.

Where Morse code is still used today

Morse was retired from commercial maritime service in 1999, when the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System took over. It did not disappear, it just moved.

It survives because it is extraordinarily robust. A Morse signal carries further on less power than voice, punches through interference, and can be sent by anything that can be switched on and off: a key, a lamp, a horn, a torch, a finger tapping on a table.

• Amateur radio: CW (continuous wave) remains one of the most popular modes on the bands, especially for long distance contacts on low power.
• Aviation and marine navigation: VOR, NDB and DME beacons identify themselves by transmitting their two or three letter code in Morse on a loop.
• Accessibility: switch access software lets people with severe motor impairments enter text using one or two switches and Morse timing, and both Android and iOS ship with Morse input for their on-screen keyboards.
• Military and emergency signalling: signal lamps and Aldis lamps are still trained on as a radio-silent method.
• Culture and puzzles: Morse turns up constantly in films, games, escape rooms and album artwork, which is why so many people arrive at a translator like this one.

How to write and copy Morse code as text

There is no single official way to write Morse in plain text. This site uses the full stop for a dot and the hyphen for a dash, because both are on every keyboard, survive copy and paste everywhere, and are what nearly every translator expects as input.

You will also see the typographic characters used in reference books and in the Unicode standard: the middle dot and the en dash, or the dedicated interpunct. They look tidier in print but they break when pasted into code, spreadsheets or search boxes, so plain ASCII is the safer choice.

• Separate letters with a single space: HELLO is .... . .-.. .-.. ---
• Separate words with a slash or three spaces: HI THERE is .... .. / - .... . .-. .
• Keep prosigns unbroken: SOS is ...---... with no internal spaces.
• Morse has no upper and lower case. Write plain text in either and the code is identical.

Morse code abbreviations operators actually use

Because every character costs time, Morse operators built up a shorthand long before text messaging did. Two systems overlap: plain abbreviations and the Q codes, a set of three letter groups beginning with Q that each stand for a full sentence.

You do not need these to read the chart above, but they explain why a real Morse conversation looks nothing like English.

• CQ: calling any station, the equivalent of "is anyone there".
• QTH: my location is, or what is your location.
• QRZ: who is calling me.
• QRM and QRN: interference from other stations, and natural static.
• QSL: I acknowledge receipt, message understood.
• 73: best regards, the standard sign-off. 88 means love and kisses.
• R: received. TU: thank you. ES: and. HI: laughter.