Skip to content

A in Morse Code

A is .- - di-dah, 5 units, 300 milliseconds at 20 words per minute.

Advanced settings

Farnsworth timing: characters stay at full speed while the gaps between them grow. Set it below the speed above.

Dot / dash / letter gap / word gap -

Durations at the speed set above.

Characters without a Morse equivalent are skipped.

.-

Press play in the box above - A is already in it.

How long A takes

A is 1 dot and 1 dash. With the gaps that comes to 5 units, number 4 of 26 by length.

  • 5 WPM: 1,200 ms
  • 13 WPM: 462 ms
  • 20 WPM: 300 ms

The arithmetic behind them is on the timing page.

What A gets confused with

5 characters sit one element away from A, more than most letters manage:

  • E . - the last dash missing
  • I .. - a dot in second place instead of a dash
  • M -- - a dash in first place instead of a dot
  • R .-. - one more dot on the end
  • W .-- - one more dash on the end

A in the tree

  • Built from: . = E, then .-
  • Carries on into: J, L, P, R and W (5 of the 26)
  • Backwards: -. = N
  • Koch position: 6 of 26

The tree shows the whole shape, the trainer teaches it by ear.

Why A has this code

A makes up about 8.2 per cent of English text, which is number 3 of 26 by frequency, against number 4 by length. Close enough that the code is doing its job for this letter.

The lengths were set by counting, not by theory - the alphabet page has that story.

Worth knowing about A

A and N are the same two elements in the opposite order, and they are the first pair every beginner mixes up. The Koch method separates them deliberately: A comes sixth, N thirteenth.

Frequently asked questions

Keep going

Alphabet
Chart
Morse tree
Koch Trainer