CH in Morse code

No. ITU-R M.1677-1 defines the 26 letters A to Z and only one accented letter, É. CH comes from the national tables of German, Czech and Slovak, so operators who share one of those languages know it and others may not.

With a station you don’t know, send C then H instead. Between two operators who both use CH, the extension keeps the spelling exact and is shorter too.

CH was one of four letters in Gerke’s German code that International Morse leaves out, with Ä, Ö and Ü. German operators now mostly send it as C then H.

Czech and Slovak count CH as one letter of the alphabet, between H and I, and their tables keep the single sign. Spanish also counted CH as a letter until 2010.

National tables reuse spare signals, so ---- is also Ĥ (Esperanto) and Š. Each table was made for one language, so the letters never clash at home: read the signal in the language of the message.

Decoders have to pick one letter. The Morse code to English decoder on this site reads the signal as CH, whichever letter was meant.

Send C then H, -.-. ...., with a normal letter gap. Every operator can copy it. It takes 21 units, 1,400 ms at 18 WPM, 6 units longer than CH.

The translator on this site sends a typed CH the same way, as two letters.

• Hear it:

  at 18 WPM one unit lasts 66.7 ms, so CH takes 1,000 ms (15 units). Press Play above, slow it to 5 WPM to pick out each element, or turn on Repeat.

• Tap it:

  a short tap for each dot and a press three times as long for each dash, with a dot’s pause between them: long, long, long, long.

• Flash it:

  light on for each element, off between them, no faster than 7 WPM. There a unit is 171 ms and CH takes 2.6 seconds; the Flashlight signaler keeps that pace.

• Write it:

  ---- as one group, with a space on each side so it does not run into the next letter.

• Send M twice with no gap, -- then --, and you have CH.
• It is O with one more dash on the end.
• No letter of the standard alphabet has four dashes, so CH is hard to mistake for anything else.
• Czech learners say “chléb nám dává” (“gives us bread”): each syllable with a long vowel is a dash and the others are dots.
• Learn the sound, not the picture: say dah-dah-dah-dah until you hear it as one shape.

• BACH is -... .- ----, three letters and 35 units long (2.3 seconds at 18 WPM).
• CHLÉB is ---- .-.. ..-.. -..., four letters and 53 units long (3.5 seconds at 18 WPM).

Those codes use the single CH sign. To hear a whole word or sentence, type it into the Morse code translator, which sends CH as C then H; the standard letters are all on the alphabet chart, and the other national letters are with the rest of the accented letters.