HELLO in Morse Code
HELLO is .... . .-.. .-.. --- - 49 units, close to three seconds at a comfortable speed. Which is roughly why no operator has ever sent it.
At this speed the screen flashes more than three times per second. If you are sensitive to flashing light, set the speed to 7 WPM or lower.
Advanced settings
HELLO is .... . .-.. .-.. --- - H, E, L, L, O
with a three-unit gap between each. 49 units in all, 2.9 seconds at 20 words per minute.
Why nobody sends it on the air
Three seconds is a long time in Morse. In the same span an operator can send a callsign, a signal report and a location - which is exactly what the opening of a contact consists of. Morse practice grew up under conditions where every element cost money, battery or daylight, and greeting words were the first thing to go.
What replaced them:
- CQ
-.-. --.-- a general call to anyone listening. Under two seconds, and it says everything HELLO says and more. - DE
-.. .- "this is", in front of the callsign. - GM / GA / GE - good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Two letters each, and they carry more information than HELLO does.
None of this makes HELLO wrong. It is a word, it encodes like any other, and if you are putting it on a bracelet or a card nobody will object. It just is not radio practice.
The double L is where it goes wrong
HELLO contains the hardest thing a beginner can be asked to send: the same character twice in a
row. .-.. .-.. is only readable if the gap between the two Ls is a
clean three units. Make it shorter and the receiving end hears eight elements in a row and has to
guess where to cut.
Cut it in the wrong place and the two Ls become something else entirely - the same eight elements can be read as other letter pairs depending on where the gap falls. That is not a flaw in your ear. It is what the gap is for.
The sending practice measures the gaps you actually produce and tells you when they drift.
Hello in other places
The Morse alphabet is the same everywhere, so a greeting in another language encodes exactly the same way - letter by letter, with the accented characters that the international code added later:
- HALLO
.... .- .-.. .-.. --- - HOLA
.... --- .-.. .- - BONJOUR
-... --- -. .--- --- ..- .-. - CIAO
-.-. .. .- ---
The alphabet page has the accented letters, including the ones only some countries ever used.
Frequently asked questions
-
What is HELLO in Morse code?
.... . .-.. .-.. ---- 49 units, about 2.9 seconds at 20 words per minute. -
Do Morse operators say hello?
Not with the word. A contact opens with CQ, then DE and a callsign, and GM, GA or GE for the time of day. Three seconds of HELLO buys nothing that two letters do not.
-
Why is the double L difficult?
Because the only thing separating the two Ls is a gap of three units. If the gap is short, the receiving end hears one long run of elements and has to guess where one letter ends and the next starts.