Morse Code Translator
Convert text into Morse code and Morse code back into text. Letters are separated by spaces and words by a forward slash, which is the standard written convention.
How to write Morse code
- A dot (·) is one unit of time; a dash (−) is three units.
- The gap between symbols in a letter is one unit.
- The gap between letters is three units — written as a space.
- The gap between words is seven units — written as a forward slash.
Why SOS was chosen
··· −−− ··· was adopted in 1908 not because the letters stand for anything — "Save Our Souls" is a later invention — but because the pattern is unmistakable. Nine evenly structured symbols with no ambiguous gaps make it recognisable even through heavy interference and by operators with minimal training. It is a distress signal designed to survive bad conditions, and that design goal explains everything about its shape.
Morse code today
Commercial maritime use of Morse ended in 1999, replaced by satellite distress systems. It remains alive in amateur radio, where its extreme bandwidth efficiency means a Morse signal gets through when voice cannot — a genuine advantage in poor conditions and at low power. Aviation navigation beacons still transmit their identifiers in Morse. It also serves as an accessibility input method: people with severe motor impairments can operate a computer with a single switch using Morse.
Learning it
The standard advice is to learn by sound rather than by reading dots and dashes on a page. Learners who memorise the visual patterns tend to hit a hard speed ceiling, because they translate the sound to a picture and only then to a letter. The Koch method teaches recognition of each character's rhythm at full speed from the start, adding one character at a time — slower to begin with, much faster in the end.