Writing and reading Morse
Each letter becomes a pattern of dots and dashes, with a space between letters and a / between words: SOS is ... --- ... and HELLO WORLD is .... . .-.. .-.. --- / .-- --- .-. .-.. -... Morse has no capitals, so a decoded message comes out in capitals. When you paste Morse in, · and • count as dots, – and — as dashes, and | works between words as well as /.
Hearing it
Play beeps the message as a 650 Hz tone at 18 words a minute. At that speed a dot lasts about 67 milliseconds and a dash three times as long; the gap between letters is three dots and between words seven, the spacing Morse operators learn. Stop cuts it off, and so does picking another code.
What it covers
The letters A to Z, the digits 0 to 9 and 18 marks: . , ? ' ! / ( ) & : ; = + - _ " $ @. Accented letters are sent without their accent (é as E), and anything else, such as # or an emoji, is left out of the code.
Questions
Why is my Morse marked red?
A group of dots and dashes that is not a letter cannot be read, and the message names it. The usual cause is a missing space: ...---... written as one group is not a letter, while ... --- ... is SOS.
Is this International Morse?
Yes, the International Morse code used by radio amateurs and at sea. American Morse, once used on US railway telegraphs, has different patterns for several letters and is not covered.
Can it listen to Morse?
No. It reads Morse typed or pasted as dots and dashes, not from a microphone or a flashing light.