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U in Morse Code

U is ..- - di-di-dah, 7 units, 420 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 - U is already in it.

How long U takes

U is 2 dots and 1 dash. With the gaps that comes to 7 units, number 11 of 26 by length.

  • 5 WPM: 1,680 ms
  • 13 WPM: 646 ms
  • 20 WPM: 420 ms

The arithmetic behind them is on the timing page.

What U gets confused with

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

  • F ..-. - one more dot on the end
  • I .. - the last dash missing
  • K -.- - a dash in first place instead of a dot
  • S ... - a dot in third place instead of a dash
  • W .-- - a dash in second place instead of a dot

U in the tree

  • Built from: . = E and .. = I, then ..-
  • Carries on into: F (1 of the 26)
  • Backwards: -.. = D
  • Koch position: 5 of 26

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

Why U has this code

U makes up about 2.8 per cent of English text, which is number 13 of 26 by frequency, against number 11 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 U

Add a dot to U and it becomes F. Add two dashes and it becomes the digit 2. Dot-dot-dash is where the letters and the numbers share a road.

Frequently asked questions

Keep going

Alphabet
Chart
Morse tree
Koch Trainer