Morse code speeds explained: 5, 13, 20 and 30 WPM
Morse code speeds are measured in words per minute (WPM), and the four numbers you meet most often feel very different. At 5 WPM a letter such as A takes more than a second and you can count every dit. At 13 WPM counting gets hard to keep up. At 20 WPM letters are too quick to count and you recognize them as whole sounds, and at 30 WPM, with practice, short common words can start to be heard whole.
It is the same code at every speed, with the same 1, 3, 7 proportions, played at a different tempo. What changes is what your ear and your memory have to do to keep up.
The numbers behind each speed
Speed is defined with a standard word, PARIS, which is exactly 50 units long including the gap after it. At W words per minute, one unit, the length of a dit, lasts 1200 divided by W milliseconds. From that one rule:
| Speed | Dit | Dah | Letter A, .- |
One PARIS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 WPM | 240 ms | 720 ms | 1.2 s | 12 s |
| 13 WPM | 92 ms | 277 ms | 0.46 s | 4.6 s |
| 20 WPM | 60 ms | 180 ms | 0.3 s | 3 s |
| 30 WPM | 40 ms | 120 ms | 0.2 s | 2 s |
The A column is the letter itself: a dit, a one-unit gap and a dah, 5 units in all. The PARIS column includes the 7-unit gap at the end of the word.
PARIS has five letters, so 20 WPM is 100 letters a minute of text shaped like it. Real text has longer and shorter words, so treat a speed as a tempo rather than a promise about how many words of conversation fit in a minute. What WPM means in Morse code, and the PARIS standard goes through the arithmetic.
5 WPM: slow enough to count
At 5 WPM a dit lasts almost a quarter of a second and a dah nearly three quarters. You hear each element start and stop, and there is time to think “dit, dah, that is A” before the next letter begins.
That sounds like the perfect place to learn. For the letters themselves it is the opposite, and the reason matters before you pick a speed.
Sent at 5 WPM with standard spacing, a letter is not a rhythm. It is a string of separate beeps, and the natural way to read a string is to count it: three dits and a dah, look it up, V. That works well enough to get you through the alphabet. Then you try faster Morse, the elements come too quickly to count, and the letters you learned no longer sound like anything you know.
Take B, -.... At 5 WPM it is a long tone followed by three slow, separate beeps, more than two seconds of sound and silence. At 20 WPM it is one quick shape, dah-di-di-dit, over in about half a second. To your ear those are two different sounds, and someone who learned the slow one can end up learning the code a second time.
The fix is not to avoid a slow overall pace. It is to stop slowing the characters down. With Farnsworth spacing each character is sent at a brisk speed, such as 15 or 18 WPM, and the extra time goes into the gaps between characters and words. The overall speed can be 5 WPM while every letter already has the brisk rhythm it keeps as you speed up. Farnsworth spacing: what it is and when to drop it explains how the gaps are stretched.
13 WPM: where counting gets hard
At 13 WPM a dit lasts about 92 ms. H, ...., is four dits and three short gaps, over in just under two thirds of a second. You can still count it if you concentrate, but not while you also write the last letter down and listen for the next one.
For a learner who counts, somewhere around 10 to 13 WPM is where the habit tends to stop keeping up, and progress can stall there. For a learner who heard full-speed characters from the start, 13 WPM is simply a little faster than 10, with less time to think between letters.
The number also has history. US amateur radio exams once tested Morse at 5, 13 and 20 WPM. From 2000 only the 5 WPM test remained, and since 23 February 2007 the FCC has required no Morse test for any US amateur license. Internationally, the ITU’s World Radiocommunication Conference made Morse optional in 2003, and each country now sets its own rules, so check yours. Do you need Morse code for a ham radio license? has more.
So the exam speeds are history, which is one reason 5, 13 and 20 still come up so often.
20 WPM: letters become sounds
At 20 WPM a dit is 60 ms, and the four dits of H arrive in 420 ms, far too fast to count. Here Morse stops being a code you work out and becomes a set of sounds you know, the way you know a spoken word without spelling it in your head.
On the air, 20 WPM is quick enough for an easy conversation and unhurried enough that a good sender’s rhythm is easy to follow. It was also the fastest of the old US exam speeds.
It is a useful speed for a beginner too, as a character speed. Hearing each letter at 18 or 20 WPM from the first lesson, with generous gaps around it, means the sound you memorize is the sound you will keep.
30 WPM: hearing words
At 30 WPM a dit lasts 40 ms and the whole of PARIS takes two seconds. Single letters are short blips, and with practice, short common words and abbreviations, such as THE, TU or 73, can start to be heard whole rather than letter by letter. Text shaped like PARIS at 30 WPM is 150 letters a minute, two and a half a second, which is hard to keep up with by hand, so at this pace copying in your head, or typing, is the practical choice. Head copy: how to read Morse code without writing it down covers that skill.
Speeds like this come with long practice. Nobody starts here and nobody needs to. It is reached a few WPM at a time, if you want it at all.
Choosing a speed to practice at
A few rules of thumb follow from the numbers above:
- Learn characters fast and space them out. A character speed around 15 to 20 WPM, with Farnsworth spacing for an overall speed you can keep up with, avoids the counting trap.
- Raise the overall speed first. Shrink the extra gaps as your copying improves; raise the character speed once the gaps are gone.
- Send only as fast as you send evenly. A ragged 20 WPM is harder to copy than a steady 13. On the air, QRS asks the other station to send more slowly and QRQ to send faster.
- Practice a little above your speed now and then. A few minutes faster than comfortable can make your normal speed feel roomier.
If you practice on a Mac, Dot & Dash sets its machine anywhere from 5 to 40 WPM, with Farnsworth spacing as a separate setting. A new install starts at 18 WPM with spacing at 8 WPM, so the first letters you hear already have a brisk rhythm, and its Practice drills run at whatever speed and spacing you set.
Questions
What is a good Morse code speed?
The one you can copy and send cleanly. Around 20 WPM makes for an easy conversation, but a clean, even 10 WPM makes a perfectly good one too, and either side can ask the other to slow down with QRS.
Is 5 WPM too slow to learn at?
As an overall speed, no. As a character speed, it tends to build a counting habit that breaks at higher speeds, so send the characters faster and add space between them instead.
How long does a dit last at 30 WPM?
40 milliseconds, from 1200 divided by 30. At the same speed a dah lasts 120 ms and the gap between words 280 ms.
Do I need 13 WPM for a ham radio license?
Not in the US, where no Morse test has been required since 23 February 2007. Other countries set their own rules, so check with your national licensing authority.