Z in Morse code

Z puts its weight up front: two long tones, then two short ones. Counting the gaps it is 11 units, the same as X, so at the site's 18 WPM it lasts about 733 milliseconds.

ZINC ZOO-keep-er fits it, two stressed syllables and then two light ones, and so does ZSA ZSA did it. More phrases built the same way are in the memory phrases for every letter.

Keyed or flashed, hold the first two tones three times as long as the last two. Written, Z is two hyphens and two periods.

G, --., is Z without its final dot, and the digit 7, --..., is Z with one more. All three open the same way, so count the dots at the end: one for G, two for Z, three for 7.

The comma is --..--, Z with two dashes added after it. Change one element of Z instead and it becomes L (.-..), B (-...) or Q (--.-), all letters it can be mistaken for at speed.

The sound-alike drill groups Z with G, Q and 7, the characters that start with two dashes. The full alphabet chart shows them together, with Z in last place.

UTC is written with the letter Z, and because the phonetic alphabet's word for Z is Zulu, it is often called Zulu time, above all in aviation. A log entry of 1430Z means 14:30 UTC, and in Morse that Z is the same four elements as in any word.

Z is the rarest letter in English text, about 0.074% of letters, so outside times, call signs and abbreviations you will not hear it often. One famous place you will is the end of Rush's YYZ, whose intro plays Y, Y and Z in Morse; YYZ in Morse code has the full pattern.

The American Morse of the US telegraph lines sent Z quite differently: as the pattern of S then E, three dots, a long pause inside the letter, and one more dot. That inner pause was used in only a few characters, C, O, R, Y, Z and the ampersand, and was sometimes mistaken for a gap between two letters.

Radio and modern decoders use the International Z only. The American Morse code guide covers the older table if you are reading a telegraph-era chart.