I touched on the topic of Morse Code in the last post. I learnt AMA in under a day and Cykey coding in less than an hour. Could I memorize Morse? Here is how I approached the task.
Firstly, learn the letters as sounds. Use your phonetic alphabet and say the Morse after the letter. “Whiskey: dot, dash, dash” or “Quebec: dah, dah, dit, dah”.
Most of you will already know one bit of Morse: SOS is three dots, three dashes and three dots.
Learn the vowels first.
Alpha is a simple dot-dash. Echo is the most used letter in English so is a single dot. India is two dots, like a pair of eyes. Oscar you already know from SOS. It is three dashes. Uniform is two dots and a dash (un-i-FORM).
Each of these vowels have a Morse character that is either their reverse or their inverse.
Alpha written backward is November, dash-dot. A and N form the word “An”.
You cannot write Echo backwards but you can swap the dot for a dash. A single dash is Tango. E and T go together as in “ET phone home”.
The inverse of India is Mike, two dashes. I and M form the abbreviations “I’m” or “’im”.
The inverse of Oscar is three dots, which is Sierra which you already know from SOS.
Uniform backwards gives us Delta dash-dot-dot. D and U form “du”, a phonetic rendering of “do”. Or you could think of “depleted uranium”.
To the above we will slip in another letter you may already know. “v-for-VICTORY”, three dots and a dash you may have seen in old war films. I always remember a scene when a Lancaster bomber flies past and flashes this signal to the ground troops, on of the soldiers explaining it to the others.
The reverse of Victor is the Morse code for Bravo. B and V sound similar.
You have just learnt twelve letters in Morse code! That is nearly half the alphabet, and includes some of the most commonly used letters. You can create many messages with just these.
Next, learn some simple words that use other characters.
I learnt my name which gave me the codes for Papa, Hotel and Lima.
Papa is actually the letters A and N together. The inverse of this is N and A and is the code for X-Ray. P and X go together as PX (Post Exchange).
Hotel is four dots, or two Indias. There is no four dashes in the standard international Morse alphabet.
The code for Lima reversed gives me that for Foxtrot. I associate this pairing by thinking Lima sounds like an animal and Foxtrot that it sounds like something to do with animals. Lima is one I remember by the visual mnemonic: A line with a dot on top and two to the side.
The chart below is a visual representation of Morse code. You will see a number of different versions of this. I like this one since it reproduces the codes in a linear fashion beneath each character, avoiding misreading the graphic. This chart will help you remember some characters. .
There are various ways to learn the other characters.
Charlie (CATCH-it-CAN-it) is memorable because it seems odd it is so long. Dash-dot-dash-dot. There is no reverse of this in the standard alphabet.
Juliet is another loner. It is one dash more than Whiskey..
Quebec, dash-dash-dot-dash also sticks in my mind, and may be remembered by the rhythm of “GOD SAVE the QUEEN”. The reverse of Quebec is the code for Yankee. Associate this pairing by thinking both “Q” and “Why” can be questions.
Kilo (KICK-the-CAN) is dash-dot-dash. “K” and “R” look similar and Romeo is the inverse of Kilo, dot-dash-dot.
You will encounter different versions of these and some put “dash/dah” on the other side, so look carefully.
This key is mainly of use in translating from Morse. It helps me remember that Juliet is one dash more than Whiskey (the-WORLD-WAR).
The reverse of Whiskey is Golf. Golf and Whiskey are associated, or you can think of G and W paired as in “Gross Weight” or “Games Workshop”/“Greedy Wizard”.
Some letters I remember by breaking them up into smaller letters. X-Ray is dash-dot-dot-dash so I remember it as “NA”. Like the letter X the code is symmetrical.
Zulu is dash-dash-dot-dot so “MI”.
The question mark is dot-dot-dash-dash-dot-dot. This is also the Morse prosign for “I will repeat” or “please repeat”. It is often taught as “IMI”.
Memorizing the Morse code is not the same as being proficient or fluent in it, of course.
An emergency situation is not a time for tests of memory if you can help it. Therefore I suggest you include backups.
I have a small wallet that holds credit cards, membership cards and the like. For years it has carried a laminated card I made with Morse code on. Many of you will recognize the book I photocopied the original from (Note misprint of numbers! All numbers have five elements). It is folded just above “Sending Signals” so that the alphabet is on one side of the card and the signals on the other.
For larger kits I suggest you consider a suitably sized rendition of the chart below. I have modified this so that the linear form of the codes is below each character.
An alternate card may be found here.
