F in Morse code

F is two quick clicks, one long tone, then a last click: di-di-dah-dit. The stress lands on the third beat, the way it does in a question with one heavy word.

• Did she LIKE it:

  the phrase many people in Britain learned for F. Only LIKE is stressed, and it is the dash.

• did I FAIL it:

  the same shape, two light words, a heavy one, then a light one.

• cafe:

  in Douglas Harder's one-word system the tall f is the dash and the short c, a and e are the dots.

Say the phrase with the sound until the rhythm sticks, then drop it and name F from the sound alone.

More memory phrases

F belongs to a family of four-element letters with one dash. Where the dash falls tells you which one you heard:

• L:

  .-.. is F backward, with the dash second. F's dash is third.

• U:

  ..- stops after the dash. F has one more dot, so wait for the letter gap.

• Q:

  --.- swaps every element, three dashes around one dot.

• H:

  .... has no dash at all. If you heard a long tone, it was not H.

Drill F against L and U in the Sound-alike drill, and find every letter's code on the Morse alphabet chart.

• Write it:

  two periods, a hyphen and a period, ..-. with a space before the next letter.

• Tap it:

  tap, tap, press, tap, holding the press about three times as long as a tap.

• Flash it:

  short, short, long, short. The light on this page plays at 7 WPM, under three flashes a second, and the Flashlight signaler sends whole words.

A worked example: OFF is --- ..-. ..-., three dashes for O and then F twice. Each F keeps its own four elements, and a three-unit gap separates the two.

On the air, operators send FB, short for fine business, to mean good or great: "FB on your signal" is a compliment.

The American, or Railroad, Morse of the old US telegraph lines used a different F: dot, dash, dot, written .-. in this page's notation. That is the code of R in today's International table, so an old telegraph F would be read as R now.