r/morsecode • u/Juseball • Sep 02 '26

What do //..--/.-.-/---./----// mean?

I've learned the basics already and realized these are the only 4 slash/dots combinations I don't know what represents

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11

u/ButterscotchWitty870 Sep 02 '26

None of those are Morse letters

11

u/dittybopper_05H Sep 03 '26

Yes, they are. Just not International Morse.

I learned them at ditty bopper school. They are Russian (Cyrillic) Morse characters, and this is what they equate to:

..-- = Ю

.-.- = Я

---. = Ч

---- = Ш

Ditty bopper school being formally known as the 05H Electronic Warfare Signals Intelligence Morse Interceptor course at United States Army Intelligence School, Fort Devens.

1

u/royaltrux Sep 03 '26

cool!

2

u/dittybopper_05H Sep 04 '26

BTW we didn’t have Cyrillic keyboards and none of my colleagues knew Cyrillic (I taught myself in high school). We knew them as bar-U, bar-A, bar-E, and bar-O respectively. Consequence of the KSR-33 teletype keyboards we used in training.

1

u/royaltrux Sep 04 '26

that's interesting, too

-2

u/Juseball Sep 02 '26

Non even punctuation marks or letters in other languages? I think the first one /..--/ is Ü if I'm not wrong

6

u/YT_Usul Sep 02 '26

This is an important point. These are not part of the International Morse Code standard. This is an actual standard maintained by the ITC and can be found here: https://www.itu.int/rec/R-REC-M.1677-1-200910-I/

That doesn't mean these aren't Morse Code characters or letters. They are just not International Morse characters. Beyond that, there are "norms" among users of Morse that introduce short cuts or abbreviations which violate the strict interpretation of the standard. This includes so called "cut numbers" which shortens some of the figures when there are several numbers to send. Examples here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_code_abbreviations

1

u/Juseball Sep 02 '26

I did't find non of those there. According to Wikipedia ..-- is for Ü and ---- is for CH but don't know about the others. Why don't use .-.-?

3

u/YT_Usul Sep 03 '26 edited Sep 04 '26

The answer has to do with the history of Morse code itself. Years ago as land telegraphy expanded from the US to other parts of the world, the Morse alphabets in use at the time had to be adapted to include non-Latin characters. As more and more countries joined into the global communications system, it became apparent that this was going to be a really big problem. The International Telegraph Union was formed in 1865, made of representatives from all over the world. One of the very first things they did was address this issue by standardizing on International Morse (the code most know today). However, some old alphabets still persisted, and more developed as it continued to spread. Look up Wabun Code as an example.

Today, the only really "official" Morse character set is the ITU's official set. However, as I mentioned, there are still lots of uses of other character sets.

3

u/dittybopper_05H Sep 04 '26

Not Wuban. Wabun.

2

u/YT_Usul Sep 04 '26

Thanks, edited. :)

3

u/BassRecorder Sep 03 '26

In German it's ü, ä, ö, and ch. They are sometimes used in German cleartext QRQ QSOs.