NAME
CW - the international Morse code
DESCRIPTION
CW is an abbreviation for "continuous wave", the commonly used
technical term for Morse code communication. A basic knowledge or
understanding of Morse code is a requirement for Radio Amateurs and
Marine Radio Operators in many parts of the world.
MORSE CODE TIMINGS
In Morse code, a dot or dash is referred to as an element. The basic
timing unit is the dot period. This is the time taken to send a dot,
not including any space before or after the dot. The lengths of all
other elements are then derived from this basic unit, using the
following rules:
The duration of a dash is three dots.
The time between each element (dot or dash) is one dot length.
The space between characters is three dot lengths.
The space between words is seven dot lengths.
The following formula calculates the dot period in microseconds from
the Morse code speed in words per minute:
dot period = ( 1200000 / speed )
This formula arises from the use of the word PARIS as a ’standard’ word
for calibrating Morse code speed. PARIS is 50 units long when sent in
Morse code. Analysis of English plain-text indicates that the average
word is 50 units, including spaces.
MORSE CODE CHARACTERS
The following list shows the IS0 8859-1 (Latin-1) characters that have
commonly understood representations in Morse code:
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789"$()+-./:;=?_@ and space
In addition, following ISO 8859-1 and ISO 8859-2 accented characters
are also part of the generally accepted international Morse code:
ÜÄÇÖÉÈÀÑ, S with cedilla and Z with dot above.
Finally, cwlib adds the following ASCII characters as extensions to
single character procedural signals:
<>!&^~
MORSE CODE CHARACTER TABLES
The following table shows the Morse code equivalents for the ISO
8859-1, accented ISO 8859-1, and accented ISO 8859-2 characters above.
The ASCII portion of this table is taken from the ARRL Handbook, and
the accented extensions from various other sources:
Ch Code Ch Code Ch Code Ch Code
-------------------------------------------------------
A .- B -... C -.-. D -..
E . F ..-. G --. H ....
I .. J .--- K -.- L .-..
M -- N -. O --- P .--.
Q --.- R .-. S ... T -
U ..- V ...- W .-- X -..-
Y -.-- Z --..
0 ----- 1 .---- 2 ..--- 3 ...--
4 ....- 5 ..... 6 -.... 7 --...
8 ---.. 9 ----.
" .-..-. ’ .----. $ ...-..- ( -.--.
) -.--.- + .-.-. , --..-- - -....-
. .-.-.- / -..-. : ---... ; -.-.-.
= -...- ? ..--.. _ ..--.-
Ü ..-- Ä .-.- Ç -.-.. Ö ---.
É ..-.. À .-..- À .--.- Ñ --.--
S with cedilla: ---- and Z with dot above: --..-
In addition to the above standard characters, the following characters
are conventionally used for punctuation and procedural signals as
follows:
Ch Code Ch Code Ch Code Ch Code
-------------------------------------------------------
" .-..-. ’ .----. $ ...-..- ( -.--.
) -.--.- + .-.-. , --..-- - -....-
. .-.-.- / -..-. : ---... ; -.-.-.
= -...- ? ..--.. _ ..--.- @ .--.-.
and the following are non-conventional extensions implemented by cwlib:
Ch Code Ch Code Ch Code Ch Code
-----------------------------------------------------
< ...-.- > -...-.- ! ...-. & .-...
^ -.-.- ~ .-.-..
An alternative view of punctuation and procedural signals is as
combination Morse characters:
Ch Prosig Ch Prosig Ch Prosig Ch Prosig
---------------------------------------------------------
" [AF] ’ [WG] $ [SX] ( [KN]
) [KK] + [AR] , [MIM] - [DU]
. [AAA] / [DN] : [OS] ; [KR]
= [BT] ? [IMI] _ [IQ] @ [AC]
< [VA],[SK] > [BK] ! [SN] & [AS]
^ [KA] ~ [AL]
NOTES
Despite the fact that this manual page constantly and consistently
refers to Morse code elements as dots and dashes, DO NOT think in these
terms when trying to learn Morse code. Always think of them as ’dit’s
and ’dah’s.
SEE ALSO
Man pages for cwlib(3,LOCAL), cw(1,LOCAL), cwgen(1,LOCAL),
cwcp(1,LOCAL), and xcwcp(1,LOCAL).