Morse Code Translator(morse-coder.com)
morse-coder.com
Morse Code Translator
https://morse-coder.com/
73 comments
I work in tech for a school district. Just the other day, a request came in to unblock a Morse code learning website. Initially I was hesitant as, I was concerned kids could harass one another using codes. I was surprised to find a nicely built educational site- https://morsefree.com/
I am not sure I would worry much about harassment via Morse code. It wouldn't be a source of new bullying in the way a social media site would be, so I can't imagine how it could make anything worse
I've seen a story of HS kids 'cheating' by having one kid brodacast test answers via tapping their pencil, which worked until the teacher who knew Morse code realized what was going on and put a stop to it.
That’s likely apocryphal.
Morse requires you to know when the tone both starts and stops in order to differentiate a ‘dah’ from a break indicating a new letter or word or even just a ‘dit’.
Tapping a pencil only gives you the start of a tone since the pencil lift is silent. There is no real way to distinguish between a short tone and a pause (letter e) and a long tone (letter t) if you don’t know when the tone ends and a pause begins.
The same trope is shown in movies. You cannot tap Morse code if the recipient cannot hear when the tap ends.
In other words, the receiver has no way of knowing whether you sent an e or t without there being a signal that the pencil has lifted. Note that e or t can be substituted for any other number of paired letters.
Morse requires you to know when the tone both starts and stops in order to differentiate a ‘dah’ from a break indicating a new letter or word or even just a ‘dit’.
Tapping a pencil only gives you the start of a tone since the pencil lift is silent. There is no real way to distinguish between a short tone and a pause (letter e) and a long tone (letter t) if you don’t know when the tone ends and a pause begins.
The same trope is shown in movies. You cannot tap Morse code if the recipient cannot hear when the tap ends.
In other words, the receiver has no way of knowing whether you sent an e or t without there being a signal that the pencil has lifted. Note that e or t can be substituted for any other number of paired letters.
Couldn't you just use like the tip of the pencil for a dot and the eraser end for a dash? Use the tonal differences instead of duration?
Yes. You could just invent a different code.
The other issue is that it can take weeks of study to even reach a minimal level of fluency in Morse. 5 WPM is the basic metric. You could tap faster with much more practice, but the proctor would almost certainly notice the student furiously tapping patterns onto their desk with their pencil.
To review you need to devote weeks of study to learn an encoding that is poorly suited for the task, and that has a very slow transmission rate so that you can transmit a message that everyone in the room might be able to hear?
Morse just isn’t a practical way to cheat.
The other issue is that it can take weeks of study to even reach a minimal level of fluency in Morse. 5 WPM is the basic metric. You could tap faster with much more practice, but the proctor would almost certainly notice the student furiously tapping patterns onto their desk with their pencil.
To review you need to devote weeks of study to learn an encoding that is poorly suited for the task, and that has a very slow transmission rate so that you can transmit a message that everyone in the room might be able to hear?
Morse just isn’t a practical way to cheat.
Depends on the test. A multiple choice or true/false test would be easy to convey.
Gotta give the kids credit for working so hard to learn a skill like that.
It's very hard to decode morse from just "taps". You need to be able to hear two distinct symbols, "dash" (long) and "dot" (short) and the spaces. I remember in school we used to be able to do morse if we could see each other, using one finger for dot and one for dash, but we'd copy by looking at the fingers, not the sound of the taps.
Could have been a tap code https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tap_code
Providing an avenue that students could (and almost certainly would) use to direct slurs at one another, seems like a surefire way to make things worse. I do share your concerns about social media.
Better prohibit kids from learning ASL and the manual alphabet, too! Or "foreign" languages.
Most schools do things like teach a multitude of languages and communication skills that would be useful for encoding harmful intent. Yet, most bullying happens using the native tongue and simplistic messaging. Rare is the student who is bullied via poetry and the five paragraph essay. Rarer yet is the student bullied via Morse code. I would be willing to bet that no child ever has been bullied in a classroom using secret Morse code. Mostly because Morse code cannot be tapped out. Contrary to the movies, you need to know when the tap ends to decode it, so knocking or tapping is not a reliable way to send a message.
Narrowing kids educational resources and knowledge in an attempt to stop bullying is a fools errand.
Narrowing kids educational resources and knowledge in an attempt to stop bullying is a fools errand.
Who is spending weeks learning and practicing Morse, and also getting their friends to buy-in, just to bully people discreetly?
When I was in school, they'd just come up with agreed upon dog whistles and use them in front of you, directed at you. They'd usually be otherwise innocuous but packed with some alternative meaning only the in-group knew until they told you.
That's a lot less effort than learning an entire communication system.
When I was in school, they'd just come up with agreed upon dog whistles and use them in front of you, directed at you. They'd usually be otherwise innocuous but packed with some alternative meaning only the in-group knew until they told you.
That's a lot less effort than learning an entire communication system.
> I was concerned kids could harass one another using codes
If you even had to think about if a site like this is appropriate for teenagers, the problem isn't kids harassing each other.
If you even had to think about if a site like this is appropriate for teenagers, the problem isn't kids harassing each other.
I would love it if schools would focus on actually preparing our kids for the real world rather than pretending it doesn’t exist.
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It's very active in the amateur radio community.
"very" might be an overstatement. but it does exist there
In the 2024 field day contest that lasts 24 hours, 490,813 Morse code contacts were made between participants. Just turning on my radio now I heard more than 10 conversations in Morse happening and that was just on one of the 10 popular frequency bands.
31,628 people participated in field day 2024. google says there are ~750,000 amateur radio licenses in the US and ~3 million world wide. my experience with field day is that it attracts the most dedicated subset of radio amateurs, a group which (also in my experience) vastly over represents cw users. combined with the point of field day being to make as many contacts as possible, combined with cw being one of if not the best way to make difficult and long distant contacts.. can you see why i doubt field day results are an accurate representation of normal, average amateur radio?
i have attended club meetings and activities, hamfests local and around the US, participated in online forums etc for many years. morse code isn't a big topic anywhere outside of very specialized contexts, such as field day and qrp operation.
i have attended club meetings and activities, hamfests local and around the US, participated in online forums etc for many years. morse code isn't a big topic anywhere outside of very specialized contexts, such as field day and qrp operation.
I don't think it's at risk of being overstatement. CW bands are more crowded than ever before, because there are more CW ops than ever before.
This is, I think, because it's easier to learn than ever, ham radio equipment is more capable for a cheaper (adjusted) price, and ham radio has grown tremendously worldwide due to all barriers being lowered a bit.
CW is very popular, especially given all the other options that are easier.
That it's a smaller percentage of hams that know CW than before is another way of saying ham radio has expanded well beyond CW and the population has grown. But if you have a finite resource (bandwidth) and it's in significantly more demand than ever before, it's a hard argument to suggest that it's not 'very' active.
This is, I think, because it's easier to learn than ever, ham radio equipment is more capable for a cheaper (adjusted) price, and ham radio has grown tremendously worldwide due to all barriers being lowered a bit.
CW is very popular, especially given all the other options that are easier.
That it's a smaller percentage of hams that know CW than before is another way of saying ham radio has expanded well beyond CW and the population has grown. But if you have a finite resource (bandwidth) and it's in significantly more demand than ever before, it's a hard argument to suggest that it's not 'very' active.
On the surface, it seems like CW usage should be in a decline because 1) CW is no longer required to get a license in most countries and 2) digital modes like FT8 are clearly superior at very low signal-to-noise ratios.
But the bands tell the opposite story, as crowded as they often are. I think the primary reason to use CW these days is because it's fun, it feels like you're really doing something and not just delegating the whole task to the computer, and CW is definitely far better than SSB for DX at low, possibly QRP, power.
But the bands tell the opposite story, as crowded as they often are. I think the primary reason to use CW these days is because it's fun, it feels like you're really doing something and not just delegating the whole task to the computer, and CW is definitely far better than SSB for DX at low, possibly QRP, power.
-.-- . ...
plenty of cw usage in the radio world
Like 1/3 of all Escape Rooms use it.
The Wordle spinoff Morsle (https://morsle.fun/) inspired me to learn Morse this year. It's been surprisingly enjoyable listening exercise.
Man. That looks pretty fun. I can't seem to get it to work on my iPhone in several different browsers. The sound won't play. Am I the only one that can't get it working on mobile?
Unsilence the ringer
…kinda an unfortunate answer to have to give :) well they call it Silent Mode which makes it a bit better although it’s inconsistent … I digress
…kinda an unfortunate answer to have to give :) well they call it Silent Mode which makes it a bit better although it’s inconsistent … I digress
People who use it call it CW https://longislandcwclub.org/
In the amateur radio community, yes. You probably know this, but for those who might not: CW isn’t totally synonymous with Morse code.
Morse is the encoding scheme; CW is one particular method of transmission. You could instead flash a light source, or you could use FM radio, or… I don’t know… use smoke signals! CW (‘continuous wave’) just means ‘pulsing a carrier wave on and off’.
Morse is the encoding scheme; CW is one particular method of transmission. You could instead flash a light source, or you could use FM radio, or… I don’t know… use smoke signals! CW (‘continuous wave’) just means ‘pulsing a carrier wave on and off’.
Come to think of it, a good example of the distinction are the NDBs (non-directional beacons) that aircraft use for navigation. They transmit, repeatedly, an identifier in Morse code, but the signal is an audio range frequency (somewhere around 500Hz) amplitude modulated onto a (radio frequency) carrier rather than being the carrier itself being pulsed.
One difference is that, if you tune an ordinary AM radio to the carrier frequency, in the CW case you’d hear nothing. In this case, you’d hear the tone as intended.
One difference is that, if you tune an ordinary AM radio to the carrier frequency, in the CW case you’d hear nothing. In this case, you’d hear the tone as intended.
Every ham radio operator kind of aspires to use it regularly!
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Yea, it's fun to know and it can be useful from time to time. I know the alphabet but cannot copy very fast at all.
I've always wanted to make a messaging app that would vibrate in Morse code when you get a message. I love the idea of feeling a message in my pocket and 'reading' it without looking, but I'm also not great at deciphering it, so it wouldn't get much use.
Oh I really like this idea! If you do make this please post it here.
This would be a great learning tool for those of us who are trying to learn it also.
This would be a great learning tool for those of us who are trying to learn it also.
I have a feeling this app would greatly increase the number of phantom vibrations I experience.
That would be fun. I think a lot of non-tech people didn't realise that the old Nokia default text message notification was the morse for S.M.S. (short message service). That was a worryingly long time ago though.
I love that idea
I've been wanting to write a keyboard app that would allow me to write a message from my pocket :D
I've been learning it, mostly as a fun hobby.
I journal a little bit about my experience here: https://owoga.com/posts/2025-03-18-learning-morse-code/
I've been a licensed HAM for a while, but what actually prompted me to start learning Morse code was when I was troubleshooting some hardware that only had a blinking light to communicate back to me. Instead or print statements, I started using blinks to tell me what was happening. I realized it would be so much faster if I knew Morse code.
LICW is a great place to learn. But I also recently discovered https://morsecode.world/ and really like it.
I journal a little bit about my experience here: https://owoga.com/posts/2025-03-18-learning-morse-code/
I've been a licensed HAM for a while, but what actually prompted me to start learning Morse code was when I was troubleshooting some hardware that only had a blinking light to communicate back to me. Instead or print statements, I started using blinks to tell me what was happening. I realized it would be so much faster if I knew Morse code.
LICW is a great place to learn. But I also recently discovered https://morsecode.world/ and really like it.
This is comment I was looking for. Can't wait to read about your learning experience and thanks for the link to morsecode.world
I got my ham license before the "no code" license became a thing. I missed my "Extra" CW test by one point and never tried again, which is sorta cool, because the "Advanced" class is now gone, so I'm keeping mine.
I've got a lot of friends who are avid CW users. One friend used to do CW in his car, which is also very cool.
I learned CW with SuperMorse (on DOS). I went from no skills to passing the General/Advanced in two weeks. It was a fun and easy way to learn.
I've got a lot of friends who are avid CW users. One friend used to do CW in his car, which is also very cool.
I learned CW with SuperMorse (on DOS). I went from no skills to passing the General/Advanced in two weeks. It was a fun and easy way to learn.
Me and the other nerds used to send each other notes written in Morse code in high school.
This site is timely. Just the other day I turned on the emergency setting on my flashlight and thought oh that's an interesting pattern. Why would it flash three long then three short then three long? About 30 seconds later I realized that I had forgotten an entire alphabet.
This site is timely. Just the other day I turned on the emergency setting on my flashlight and thought oh that's an interesting pattern. Why would it flash three long then three short then three long? About 30 seconds later I realized that I had forgotten an entire alphabet.
SOS is the only Morse code I still remember. One of my early coding projects was a Morse code transcriber.
My old Nokia phone had a SMS ringtone that spelled out "SMS" in morse. It's quite similar to SOS, and now I don't know which is which
A proper SOS should be transmitted without breaks (and is therefore sometimes displayed as "SOS" with a bar on the top).
___
SOS (emergency call) = ...---...
SMS = ... -- ...
SOS (three letters) = ... --- ...Yeah I think my Nokia skipped the pauses, making it sound more similar to the proper SOS signal. But it only had the 2 long notes instead of three, obviously.
OSO? Maybe it was a Spanish flashlight warning of a bear nearby? ;)
Yes! I love Morse. I copy in my head and I send with an Iambic paddle and straight key.
I like to be able to build the smallest possible radios--and nothing's simpler than a CW transmitter. I have a 5 watt transceiver (based on a Si48xx rx chip) that fits in an altoid tin I use when I travel. Hang a wire off the hotel balcony (I have a mini EFHW tuner, too) and start making contacts.
I've been an "extra" since 1977, so we had to learn code back then. I also have the (now-obsolete) first class radiotelegraph licence where I had to copy code at an FCC field office at 25 WPM for 5 minutes in order to pass....
I like to be able to build the smallest possible radios--and nothing's simpler than a CW transmitter. I have a 5 watt transceiver (based on a Si48xx rx chip) that fits in an altoid tin I use when I travel. Hang a wire off the hotel balcony (I have a mini EFHW tuner, too) and start making contacts.
I've been an "extra" since 1977, so we had to learn code back then. I also have the (now-obsolete) first class radiotelegraph licence where I had to copy code at an FCC field office at 25 WPM for 5 minutes in order to pass....
I have my 20 WPM Extra Class. I still love to pound brass once in a while on a QRP rig under the absolute worst conditions to pull out some weak signal stuff.
Back when I was really active, I had an iambic key in my truck and would make QSO's mobile.
Back when I was really active, I had an iambic key in my truck and would make QSO's mobile.
Hammie here.
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Related: The book "The Victorian Internet" [0] by Tom Standage was very interesting. I never realized how many social things that were impacted by the broad use of the telegraph would have future analogs during the dotcom age.
Highly recommend!
"For centuries people communicated across distances only as quickly as the fastest ship or horse could travel. Generations of innovators tried and failed to develop speedier messaging devices. But in the mid-1800s, a few extraordinary pioneers at last succeeded. Their invention--the electric telegraph--shrank the world more quickly than ever before.A colorful tale of scientific discovery and technological cunning, The Victorian Internet tells the story of the telegraph's creation and remarkable impact, and of the visionaries, oddballs, and eccentrics who pioneered it. By 1865 telegraph cables spanned continents and oceans, revolutionizing the ways countries dealt with one another. The telegraph gave rise to creative business practices and new forms of crime. Romances blossomed over the wires. Secret codes were devised by some users, and cracked by others. The benefits of the network were relentlessly hyped by its advocates and dismissed by its skeptics. And attitudes toward everything from news gathering to war had to be completely rethought.The telegraph unleashed the greatest revolution in communications since the development of the printing press. Its saga offers many parallels to that of the Internet in our own time--and is a fascinating episode in the history of technology."
[0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28949978
"For centuries people communicated across distances only as quickly as the fastest ship or horse could travel. Generations of innovators tried and failed to develop speedier messaging devices. But in the mid-1800s, a few extraordinary pioneers at last succeeded. Their invention--the electric telegraph--shrank the world more quickly than ever before.A colorful tale of scientific discovery and technological cunning, The Victorian Internet tells the story of the telegraph's creation and remarkable impact, and of the visionaries, oddballs, and eccentrics who pioneered it. By 1865 telegraph cables spanned continents and oceans, revolutionizing the ways countries dealt with one another. The telegraph gave rise to creative business practices and new forms of crime. Romances blossomed over the wires. Secret codes were devised by some users, and cracked by others. The benefits of the network were relentlessly hyped by its advocates and dismissed by its skeptics. And attitudes toward everything from news gathering to war had to be completely rethought.The telegraph unleashed the greatest revolution in communications since the development of the printing press. Its saga offers many parallels to that of the Internet in our own time--and is a fascinating episode in the history of technology."
[0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28949978
On http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901/ you can still see and listen to people using Morse code live in the purple amateur radio bands, usually on the lower frequencies (left part of the purple ranges)
correction: the green, not the purple ones
As a kid I didn't have a phone, but my parents gave me a cheap iPod Nano. I flashed a custom OS on it (RockBox), which used Morse code as the primary input, since iPods only have a single button.
Programming in lua and writing my diary in Morse code on this microscopic device was a lot of fun.
Morse was a clever way to bypass limitations, which is the definition of hacking itself.
Programming in lua and writing my diary in Morse code on this microscopic device was a lot of fun.
Morse was a clever way to bypass limitations, which is the definition of hacking itself.
The time has apparently come for yet another Unix command line program to be turned into a huge unnecessary web site. This time it’s “morse”: <https://manpages.debian.org/jump?q=bcd>
Long ago at a startup, In-System Design, I was on a team that made one of the first USB-to-ATA mass storage adapter chips. Small company, having fun, one of us put in an easter egg so that when the drive was plugged in and before the OS enumerated it the drive activity light would blink our team cheer, "ISD rocks!", in morse. He even added a test to make sure it worked in verilog simulation.
The chip was fairly successful and years later someone out in the world noticed the funny blinking on their retail USB drive that used it and they figured it out. They wrote a letter to the editor of Byte or Dr. Dobbs or something, wondering what the message "Sis you rock!" meant. Twisted sister fan, maybe?
We saw the letter in the magazine and were chuffed that our easter egg had hatched but... It turns out the designer had typoed the table of ASCII-to-morse values and dot/dash timing he used to build the messaging circuit, so it really was saying "Sis you rock!". And because he also wrote the test it didn't catch the error. Doh!
The chip was fairly successful and years later someone out in the world noticed the funny blinking on their retail USB drive that used it and they figured it out. They wrote a letter to the editor of Byte or Dr. Dobbs or something, wondering what the message "Sis you rock!" meant. Twisted sister fan, maybe?
We saw the letter in the magazine and were chuffed that our easter egg had hatched but... It turns out the designer had typoed the table of ASCII-to-morse values and dot/dash timing he used to build the messaging circuit, so it really was saying "Sis you rock!". And because he also wrote the test it didn't catch the error. Doh!
Related: Show HN: I Built a Telegraph Simulator https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43260251
We sold badges at DEFCON31 that had a Morse code blinking option. Have to go back and look at the code to remember if it just flashed DEFCON or something else
We also had an option to connect up via serial and it would dump DEFCON or our team name at the terminal and we had games on the terminal. Amongst other things our badge did, it was a great value for $20
We also had an option to connect up via serial and it would dump DEFCON or our team name at the terminal and we had games on the terminal. Amongst other things our badge did, it was a great value for $20
While we're on the topic, I wrote a little Python script that generates Morse Code 'palindromes'.
Ie playing a word backwards results in another word.
The most interesting one I found is TREVOR / ROBERT
Other notable mentions:
Ie playing a word backwards results in another word.
The most interesting one I found is TREVOR / ROBERT
Other notable mentions:
fins / sail
urea / nerd
waits / sting
loops / spoof
queer / reedy
rebel / fever
is anyone going to point out that the linked website is absolute AI-generated ad-filled slop? or is this just a comments thread starter for "hey, morse code, right?"
On my phone at least, the morse code audio is very wrong. The spacing between the elements is too long, so H sounds like EEEE etc.
I've been waiting for maybe some 15 years for some statistical method or (more recently) AI model able to decode live Morse Code in HF radio (CW as ham radio operators usually refer to it). This has been challenging not only because radio transmissions SNR is always changing and, just like handwriting, each operator sends Morse in its personal way (unless, of course, they use a PC keyer).