Where is Morse code still used today?
Yes, Morse code is still used, though in far fewer places than a century ago. Its busiest home is amateur radio, where it is heard on the bands every day. Aviation radio beacons still identify themselves in Morse, ships still flash it between them with signal lamps, and some people use it to type with one or two switches. What it no longer does is carry distress calls at sea: that job passed to a satellite and radio system, the GMDSS, which was fully in force on 1 February 1999.
Here is where Morse lives on, what each use looks like, and where it has been retired.
Where Morse is used, at a glance
| Where | Still used? | How |
|---|---|---|
| Amateur radio | Yes, every day | CW contacts, keyed by hand or with a keyer |
| Aviation | Yes | Radio beacons and localizers identify in Morse |
| Ships | Yes, by light | Signal lamps between ships in sight of each other |
| Distress at sea | No, since 1999 | Replaced by the GMDSS |
| US amateur license exams | No, since 2007 | No Morse test required |
| Typing with switches | Yes | One or two switches send dits and dahs |
| Hobby, puzzles and gifts | Yes | Messages, escape rooms, jewelry |
Amateur radio: where Morse is busiest
On amateur radio, Morse has its own name: CW, for continuous wave, the mode used to send it. Tune across an amateur band and you will often hear it, from slow, careful contacts between newer operators to fast exchanges in contests.
Hams keep using it for practical reasons as well as for love of it. A Morse signal occupies a narrow slice of the band, and a trained ear can often pick it out of noise and fading that would leave a voice signal hard to follow. The equipment can be simple, which makes it a popular mode for people who build their own radios or run low power, which hams call QRP. And a basic contact is built from a short set of abbreviations and Q codes, so two operators who share no language can still exchange callsigns, reports, names and locations.
What has changed is that, in many places, you no longer have to learn it for a license. The ITU’s World Radiocommunication Conference made Morse optional internationally in 2003, and US amateur licenses have not required a Morse test since 23 February 2007. Other countries set their own rules, so check yours. In the US, anyone who learns it now does so by choice. You need a license to transmit on the amateur bands, but not to learn or practice. What is CW? Morse code on ham radio, explained goes further.
Aviation: beacons that spell their own names
Some of the most dependable Morse in the world is sent by machines. Aviation radio beacons, VORs and NDBs, and ILS localizers identify themselves with a short identifier of a few letters, sent in Morse again and again. A pilot who tunes one listens to the identifier and checks it against the code printed on the chart beside the station’s name. If a beacon’s made-up identifier were XYZ, the chart would show -..- -.-- --.. and the pilot would listen for dah-di-di-dah, dah-di-dah-dah, dah-dah-di-dit.
Pilots do not need to send Morse, or even read it at speed: a few letters, compared against a chart, is the whole skill. It is an elegant use of the code, because it works with nothing more than a receiver and a pair of ears. Why aviation beacons still identify in Morse code explains it in detail.
At sea: lamps instead of radio
For much of the twentieth century, ships called for help by radio in Morse, with SOS as the distress signal from 1908. That era ended with the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System, the GMDSS, which replaced Morse for distress at sea and was fully in force on 1 February 1999. The story of that change is in When did ships stop using Morse code?.
Morse did not disappear from the sea entirely. Signal lamps that flash dots and dashes are still used to signal between ships within sight of each other. A light needs no radio, and it reaches only the ships that can see it.
Typing with one or two switches
Morse needs only two signals, and with timing, even one is enough. That makes it a way to type for people who can reliably press only one or two switches: one switch for dits and one for dahs, or a single switch where a short press is a dit and a longer press a dah. Every letter, figure and common punctuation mark is within reach, and with practice the rhythm can become fast and automatic. Morse input has been offered on assistive devices and in some phone keyboards for this reason. Morse code as an accessibility tool: typing with one or two keys looks at how it works.
Hobby, puzzles and messages
Outside radio and transport, Morse lives on because it is fun and because it can be sent with anything that switches on and off: a tone, a light, a tap on a table, even a blink. In 1966 Jeremiah Denton, a US Navy pilot held as a prisoner of war, blinked T O R T U R E in Morse during a televised interview, a striking proof that the code needs no equipment at all. In Morse that word is - --- .-. - ..- .-. ..
Today people use it in much lighter ways:
- Puzzles and escape rooms, where a row of short and long marks is a classic clue.
- Jewelry and tattoos that carry a name or a date as dots and dashes.
- Secret messages between friends and in families, tapped, flashed or written.
- Music, where a word becomes a rhythm.
- Learning for its own sake, as a skill you can practice anywhere with nothing but your ears.
Why Morse has lasted
A few properties keep Morse useful long after the telegraph wires came down.
- It works over anything. Sound, light, radio, touch: any channel that can carry on and off can carry Morse.
- It has an international standard. International Morse code is set out by the ITU in Recommendation ITU-R M.1677-1, and the ITU added a code for the at sign,
.--.-., as recently as 2004. - It is human-readable. Unlike most digital signals, Morse is meant to be decoded by a person. You can learn it with a pencil and your ears.
- It is cheap to send and receive. A switch and a tone, or a switch and a light, are all the equipment it needs.
If one of these uses has you curious, you can start learning Morse with no equipment at all. On a Mac, Dot & Dash teaches it on a machine drawn on screen that you key with Space, in twenty short chapters, two or three characters at a time, starting with letters that make real words from the first chapter.
Questions
Is Morse code still used today?
Yes. It is used every day on amateur radio, by aviation beacons that identify themselves in Morse, by ships signaling with lamps, and by people who type with one or two switches. It is no longer used for distress calls at sea, which moved to the GMDSS in 1999.
Do pilots still use Morse code?
Pilots listen to it rather than send it. Radio beacons and ILS localizers identify themselves in Morse, and pilots check the identifier against the code printed on the chart.
Do ships still use Morse code?
Not for distress by radio: the GMDSS replaced Morse for that, fully in force on 1 February 1999. Ships still use signal lamps that flash Morse to signal to other ships in sight.
Do you need Morse code for an amateur radio license?
Not in the US, where the Morse test was dropped on 23 February 2007, and not under international rules since 2003. Other countries set their own requirements, so check with your national licensing authority.