Got a message? How to read Morse code
Morse code writes every letter as a short pattern of two signals: a short one, the dot, and a long one, the dash, which lasts three times as long. The letters people use most got the shortest patterns. E is one dot (·), T is one dash (−), and A is the two together (·−).
The silences carry meaning too. Inside a letter the beats are one dot apart. Between letters the gap stretches to three dots, and between words to seven. That is how a stream of beeps falls apart into words, and why the message on the tape is printed in groups.
To read the message above, press play and listen for the rhythm of each letter rather than counting its beats. Tap any single letter on the tape to hear it alone, as often as you like. The slow setting leaves more space between letters without slowing the letters themselves, which is Farnsworth timing, the way operators are trained. The lamp flashes with every beat, so the message can be read with the sound off. Stuck on a letter? The Morse code alphabet lists every pattern.
Learning to read it by ear
Looking letters up in a chart gets one message read. Hearing them as sounds is what makes the next one easy, and it takes less time than most people expect. MorseForge teaches the 26 letters by ear over seven short days, about 2 hours 15 minutes of practice in total, starting with E and T. Start the first lesson, or read the seven-day plan first.
Where the message is kept
The message sits after the # sign in the link, the part of a web address called the fragment. Browsers never send the fragment when they ask for a page, so the server behind this site only ever sees a request for the message page, never the message. This page also skips the site's visitor statistics, which would record the full address, and the app's own usage counter sends only that a message link was opened and whether it worked. The message stays in the link and in your browser history.
That makes it private from this site, not secret. Morse code is an encoding, not encryption, and anyone who has the link can read it.
Writing one back
A message can be up to 80 characters: the 26 letters, the ten digits, 18 punctuation marks and the accented letters Ä Á É Ñ Ö Ü. Emoji and most symbols have no Morse code, and the form says which ones it cannot send. Write your reply, create the link, and send it however you like.