Morse Code Translator

How Morse code timing works

• A dash lasts as long as three dots.
• Inside a letter, the gap between dots and dashes is one dot long.
• Between letters, the gap is three dots; between words, seven.
• Speed is measured in words per minute (WPM) with the word PARIS, which is 50 dot-lengths long. A dot lasts 1,200 ÷ WPM milliseconds: 60 ms at 20 WPM, and that's how the Play button times it.

SOS

SOS (... --- ...) is sent as one unbroken sequence, three dots, three dashes, three dots, with no gaps between the letters. It wasn't an abbreviation at first: “save our souls” and “save our ship” came later. It became the international distress signal at the first International Radiotelegraph Convention, in Berlin in 1906.

How to write Morse code

Here, letters are separated by a space and words by a slash: .... .. / .- .-.. .-.. is “hi all”. The translator also reads · and • as dots, − – — and _ as dashes, and | as a word break. Letters with accents are sent as their plain letter, except the accented e (é), which has its own code: ..-...

Where Morse code comes from

Versions of Morse code have been in use since 1844. It's named after Samuel Morse, one of several people who developed it; the alphabet-based code was developed by Alfred Vail. Today's International Morse code is the one the ITU (International Telecommunication Union) sets out in Recommendation ITU-R M.1677-1.