How to Tap Morse Code
Tap Morse code with short and long taps, and short and long pauses. Try it on the key below: hold for a dash, tap briefly for a dot, and the letters appear as you go.
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Pause for a letter gap, pause longer for a word gap. On a computer the space bar works too. Timing follows the speed in Settings.
Decode Morse from sound or a picture
Play a Morse tone near the microphone, or open a recording. The decoder finds the pitch and the speed by itself and works best on a clean tone between 300 and 1500 Hz. An image works when the dots and dashes are solid shapes on a plain background, like a screenshot or a printed card. Nothing is uploaded: everything is processed on your device.
Set overall speed lower than letter speed for Farnsworth timing: letters stay quick, the gaps get longer. This is how most people learn.
Morse code chart
Tap any character to hear it.
Letters
Numbers
Punctuation (ITU)
In common use, not ITU
National letters, not ITU
Procedural signals (prosigns)
Sent as one signal with no gap between the letters. Type them in angle brackets, like <SK>.
The rhythm
- Dot: one short tap.
- Dash: a tap three times as long. On a table or wall, where every knock sounds the same, press and hold, or make a longer scraping sound.
- Between the parts of a letter: a pause as long as a dot.
- Between letters: a pause three dots long.
- Between words: a pause seven dots long.
So SOS is tap-tap-tap, three long presses, tap-tap-tap.
Tapping on a hard surface
Knocks all sound alike, so long signals are hard to make by knocking. That is why prisoners used the simpler tap code, where each letter is two groups of knocks. If both sides know Morse, tap for dots and scrape or thump for dashes.
Practise
Start slowly with letters that are all dots or all dashes: E, I, S, H and T, M, O. Then the sending practice on the Learn page gives you words to send and checks them.
More Morse code tools
Send and signal
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