V in Morse code

Three quick dots, then a dash three times as long: like U, V puts its weight on the last beat. With the gaps counted it is nine units, so at the site's 18 WPM it lasts 600 milliseconds.

The memory phrase almost writes itself: vick-tor-y VEE, three light syllables and one stressed. If you can hum the four notes that open Beethoven's Fifth, you already know V.

Written, V is three periods and a hyphen. On a key or a light, keep the three dots short and even, then hold the last tone about three times as long.

On January 14, 1941, Victor de Laveleye, a former Belgian minister of justice, suggested in a radio broadcast that Belgians use the letter V as a rallying sign. Encouraged by the response, the BBC started its V for Victory campaign, and Douglas Ritchie proposed an audible V built on the Morse rhythm of three dots and a dash.

The opening bars of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony share that rhythm, so the BBC used them as the call sign of its foreign-language programs to occupied Europe for the rest of the war. By July 1941 the V had spread across occupied Europe, and on July 19 Churchill spoke approvingly of the campaign.

V is S with a dash added, so three dots alone are S and three dots and a dash are V. Reverse V and you get B, -..., the same four elements with the long one first.

Change one element and V becomes H (....), with the dash cut to a dot, or X (-..-), with the first dot stretched into a dash. Put one more dot in front of the dash, ....-, and you have the digit 4.

The sound-alike drill groups V with A, U and 4, all characters that end on a dash after dots, and the full alphabet chart shows the whole family in one place.

Under US rules for maritime radio, a station testing its radiotelegraph transmitter sends a series of Vs, ...- ...- ...-, for no more than ten seconds, followed by its call sign. A string of Vs on the air means someone is testing, not calling you.

V also stands in for 3 in cut numbers. The full 3 is ...--; drop its last dash and what is left is V, nine units in place of 13.

Two standard signals start with V's pattern too. ITU-R M.1677-1 gives understood as ...-., V plus a dot, and end of work as ...-.-, which operators write as SK or VA.