In Morse code transmission, a "hand" refers to the unique style
or signature pattern of an individual operator when sending messages. Each telegraph
operator develops a slightly different rhythm, spacing, and timing between dots
and dashes — essentially his "fist" or "hand."
Morse code is a type of character encoding that transmits telegraphic information
using rhythm. Morse code uses a standardized sequence of short and long elements
to represent the letters, numerals, punctuation and special characters of a given
message. The short and long elements can be formed by sounds, marks, or pulses,
in on off keying and are commonly known as "dots" and "dashes" or "dits" and "dahs".
The speed of Morse code is measured in words per minute (WPM) or characters per
minute, while fixed-length data forms of telecommunication transmission are usually
measured in baud or bps. Morse Code Translator in RF Cafe's
Espresso Engineering Workbook (free).
Originally created for Samuel F. B. Morse's electric telegraph in the early 1840s,
Morse code was also extensively used for early radio communication beginning in
the 1890s. For the first half of the twentieth century, the majority of high-speed
international communication was conducted in Morse code, using telegraph lines,
undersea cables, and radio circuits. However, the variable length of the Morse characters
made it hard to adapt to automated circuits, so for most electronic communication
it has been replaced by machine readable formats, such as Baudot code and ASCII. - Wikipedia Here is the
ITU-R M.1677-1 (10/2009) International Morse code document.
Dash (—) is 3x the length of a dot (•) Space between
letters is 3x length of a dot (•)
Space between words is 7x length of a dot (•)
Letter
Morse
Letter
Morse
Digit
Morse
Punctuation
Morse
A
•—
N
—•
0
—————
Full—stop .
•—•—•—
B
—•••
O
———
1
•————
Comma ,
——••——
C
—•—•
P
•——•
2
••———
Colon :
———•••
D
—••
Q
——•—
3
•••——
Question mark ?
••——••
E
•
R
•—•
4
••••—
Apostrophe '
•————•
F
••—•
S
•••
5
•••••
Hyphen —
—••••—
G
——•
T
—
6
—••••
Fraction bar /
—••—•
H
••••
U
••—
7
——•••
Left Parenth (
—•——•
I
••
V
•••—
8
———••
Right Parenth )
—•——•—
J
•———
W
•——
9
————•
Quotation mark "
•—••—•
K
—•—
X
—••—
Double hyphen
—•••—
L
•—••
Y
—•——
Error
••••••••
M
——
Z
——••
Plus sign
•—•—•
Multiplication sign
—••—
Understood
•••—•
End of work
•••—•—
"at" sign @
•——•—•
These characters with diacritics are not recognized by the official ITU Morse
code standard, but are sometimes used.
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