Morse Playground
One text, four views of it. Change the speed and watch the bars move, the numbers change and the sound follow.
| Element | Units | Duration |
|---|
What to try
- Move the character speed. Everything shortens together, and the proportions stay exactly the same. That is the point of the whole system: it is a ratio, not a set of durations.
- Now move only the effective speed. The dots and dashes stay put and only the gaps grow. That is the Farnsworth method, and here you can see why it works - the characters keep the rhythm they will have at full speed, and only the thinking time changes.
- Change the tone. Nothing in the picture moves, because pitch carries no information in Morse. It matters only for your ears: most operators settle between 500 and 700 hertz.
- Type PARIS. It comes to exactly 50 units - the word the whole speed scale is built on.
Laboratory, not tool
This page is for understanding, not for getting work done. If you just want text turned into Morse, with sound, light and a downloadable file, the translator is faster and does more.
What you get here instead is the connection between the numbers and what you hear. A dot at 20 words per minute lasts 60 milliseconds; that sentence means nothing until you have watched the bar shrink while the sound sped up.
Frequently asked questions
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What are the units in the table?
Everything in Morse is measured in dot lengths: dot 1, dash 3, gap inside a character 1, between characters 3, between words 7. The millisecond column shows what that means at the speed you have set.
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Why does the effective speed only change the gaps?
That is what the Farnsworth method is. Characters at full speed, more room between them - so you learn the real rhythm from the start and only get more time to think.
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Does the tone affect the timing?
No. Pitch and timing are independent; the code is the same at 400 hertz and at 900. Pick what is comfortable to listen to for an hour.