# Morse Code Facts: Become a Morse Code Expert

The innovation of Morse code allowed a fast transmission of details and finally the practical use of the telegraph.

## Morse code-based assistive too
Morse code is a method of encoding text characters based on signal duration. Alphabets and numbers are represented as dots and dashes. There is a standard code pattern for alphabets and numbers in [morse code chart](https://morsecoder.org/morse-code-chart), for example, A is represented as .-, B as -…, and 1 as .- -.

Similarly, the code is available for all alphabets and numbers. Yang, Lin, Lin, and Lee (2013) suggested that Morse code thus generated requires a stable writing speed, which is difficult for the disabled.

Yang, Chuang, Yang, and Luo (2003) solved this problem by using an adaptive signal processing algorithm called [least mean square](https://www.techopedia.com/definition/33276/least-mean-square-algorithm-lms-algorithm) (LMS) that adapts to unstable writing speed.

## How Traditional Radio Works
Morse code served radio well and is still useful for emergency purposes because it requires the absolute minimum of equipment and it is the most efficient use of radio; even a low-power long-wave transmitter can have a very long range using Morse.

It is not exactly useful for entertainment purposes, however, or for long-distance telephone calls, and though a method of carrying sound signals over radio waves had been demonstrated early on (on Christmas day in 1906), it took a long time to make this a commercial proposition (in 1920, in fact).

The use of radio waves to carry the information of sound waves requires what we call modulation, and in the early days of radio, this was always the type we call amplitude modulation (AM).

## Morse Alphabet Translator

devices, which are produced with today's technology and can automatically understand 40-50 sentences per minute, are used. Devices that translate this alphabet are used by amateurs and on military bases.

On the Internet, some sites automatically translate. As an example, we translated the word " find information " in morse code and faced "-… .-..- .-.. –. .-..- / -… ..- .-..” this translation is out. If you want, you can turn your name or the words you are curious about into morse by using the morse alphabet letters we have given you above or by using the converter sites.

## Online Morse decoder
We've been working on the communicator badge with the Scout Group and one of the tasks that we’ve been working on is Morse Code. We discovered a great ad-supported site called Morse Code Translator - Morse Decoder which lets you press dashes and dots into one window and get an immediate text translation in the other window. It also functions in the other direction.

Here’s a screenshot showing it in action. On the left you type in text and the Morse code seems to be on the right. Alternatively, you can type dots and dashes on the right and see plain text occurring on the left-hand side.

## Morse Code Texting

It's an amusing thought that tapping out a message in Morse is still faster than trying to type a text message on a mobile phone, and it uses only a tiny fraction of the bandwidth. To start with, we have to change the sounds, whether speech or music, into electrical waves, using a type of transducer called a microphone.

Microphones were, thanks to the use of telephones, reasonably familiar devices in 1906 (in the USA at least) so the only obstacle to broadcasting in these early days was knowing how to make a radio wave of 100 kHz or more carry a wave, the audio signal, of a much lower frequency, about 300 Hz.

The simplest answer is to make the amplitude of the radio wave rise and fall in sympathy with the lower (audio) frequency (Figure 6.4). This is what we mean by amplitude modulation: the amplitude of the carrier wave is controlled by the amplitude of the audio signal.

Amplitude modulation had been possible even in the early days of spark transmitters, but only with difficulty and using primitive equipment. The use of radio vacuum tubes, or just ‘tubes', in the USA, made efficient modulation possible because the vacuum tube (called a valve in the UK) allows a large current to be controlled by a small voltage.

In addition, another tube can be used as an oscillator, generating the radio waves and replacing the mechanical or spark type of generators. The first radio station intended for entertainment began operation in November 1920 in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.

The usual way of modulating was to control the DC supply to the output tube of the transmitter, using another tube, and applying the amplified audio signal as the input of this tube.

## Morse code: Continuous-Wave Telegraphy

The typical weighting in Morse Code or CW (for continuous-wave signaling) considers the dot as the standard unit of length and:

1. A dash is three dots long.
1. The distance between dots and dashes within one character is one dot long.
1. The distance between letters within a word is three dots (or one dash) long.
1. The distance between words is seven dots (or a little more than two dashes) long.

So, MORSE CODE would be:
− − − − − • − • • • • • − • − • − − − − • • •

There's also what's called the Farnsworth method used in training — the letters themselves are sent at a more elevated speed with the inter-character and inter-word spaces magnified. Maybe the letters were sent at 20 wpm speed but spaced out for a net 5 wpm rate.

## Summary

Modulating a radio carrier wave always causes sidebands to appear. For amplitude modulation, the difference between a sideband frequency and the carrier frequency is equal to the modulating frequency.

A modulated wave, therefore, requires greater bandwidth than an unmodulated wave, and its efficiency is low because the carrier and one sideband contribute nothing: all of the information is contained in each sideband (so that either sideband can be used to extract the signal at a receiver).