CW(7)

✨ NAME ✨

CW — the international Morse code, bestie 💖

(it's a Miscellaneous Information Manual page, section 7, in case you were wondering where you are)

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

okay so. CW is an abbreviation for "continuous wave", which is the commonly used technical term for Morse code communication. and ngl, a basic knowledge or understanding of Morse code is a requirement for Radio Amateurs and Marine Radio Operators in many parts of the world. like, it's giving "you will be tested on this." 👑

🎀 MORSE CODE TIMINGS 🎀

In Morse code, a dot or a dash is referred to as an element. The basic timing unit is the dot period — that's the time taken to send a dot, not including any space before or after the dot. The lengths of all the other elements are then derived from this basic unit, using these 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 )

and the way this formula arises?? iconic. It comes from using the word PARIS as a 'standard' word for calibrating Morse code speed. PARIS is 50 units long when sent in Morse code, and analysis of English plain-text indicates that the average word is 50 units, including spaces. so it just works. ✨

🦋 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, these accented characters are also part of the generally accepted international Morse code:

ÜÄÇÖÉÈÀÑŞ (S with cedilla), Ž (Z with caron/hacek),

Finally, libcw 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
───────────────────────────
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    ----.
"    .-..-.    '    .----.
$    ...-..-   (    -.--.
)    -.--.-    +    .-.-.
,    --..--    -    -....-
.    .-.-.-    /    -..-.
:    ---...    ;    -.-.-.
=    -...-     ?    ..--..
_    ..--.-

Ch              Code    Ch                  Code
──────────────────────────────────────────────────
Ü               ..--    Ä                   .-.-
Ç               -.-..   Ö                   ---.
É               ..-..   À                   .-..-
À               .--.-   Ñ                   --.--
Ş (S+cedilla)   ----    Ž (Z+caron/hacek)   --..-

In addition to the above standard characters, the following characters are conventionally used for punctuation and procedural signals as follows:

Ch   Code      Ch   Code
───────────────────────────
"    .-..-.    '    .----.
$    ...-..-   (    -.--.
)    -.--.-    +    .-.-.
,    --..--    -    -....-
.    .-.-.-    /    -..-.
:    ---...    ;    -.-.-.
=    -...-     ?    ..--..
_    ..--.-    @    .--.-.

and the following are non-conventional extensions implemented by libcw:

Ch   Code     Ch   Code
───────────────────────────
<    ...-.-   >    -...-.-
!    ...-.    &    .-...
^    -.-.-    ~    .-.-..

An alternative view of punctuation and procedural signals is as combination Morse characters:

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]

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💀 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.

like, for real for real. do not. 🙈

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👑 SEE ALSO 👑

Man pages for libcw(3,LOCAL), cw(1,LOCAL), cwgen(1,LOCAL), cwcp(1,LOCAL), and xcwcp(1,LOCAL). go read them, they're right there 🫶

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and that's the whole page, bestie 🌈 this one came to you from the CW Tutor Package (section CW(7)), so shoutout to them for the knowledge drop. stay ditty, stay dah-ling 💖✨