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143 in Morse code

143 in Morse code is .---- ....- ...--, the digits one, four and three. The number is not a Morse signal for I love you: it stands for the phrase by counting letters, one in I, four in love and three in you. If you want the words themselves in dots and dashes, they are on the I love you page.

143

Hear it at your speed

Speed

At 15 WPM it takes 3.8 seconds (47 units).

Letter by letter

Every letter of the phrase, with its code and how it sounds. Tap a letter to learn it.

  1. 1.----dot dash dash dash dash
  2. 4....-dot dot dot dot dash
  3. 3...--dot dot dot dash dash

“143” at a glance

Letters
3
Dots and dashes
8 · 7
Length
47 units
At 20 WPM
2.8 s
At 5 WPM
11.3 s
Collection
Love

Half the length of the words it stands for

Every Morse digit is five elements long, so three digits make a fairly long code for their size. Even so, 143 takes 47 units against 93 for I love you spelled out, so the number says it in roughly half the time. The Morse code numbers chart shows the five-mark pattern behind every digit.

Counted on pagers

The letter-count shorthand was especially popular on pagers in the 1990s. Pagers, at their height in the late 1980s and early 1990s, had little room for a message and not all of them could show text, so numbers did the work. It carried on into early chatrooms and text messages.

The Lover's Light flashing 1-4-3

About a mile off Cohasset and Scituate, Massachusetts, Minots Ledge Light has shown a white 1-4-3 flash on a 45-second cycle since 1 May 1894: one flash, then four, then three. Locals read it as I LOVE YOU and call it the Lover's Light. It is a light signal rather than Morse, and it has run automatically since 1947. Dictionary.com, retelling the legend, puts the pattern a year later, in 1895.

Mister Rogers' number and 143 Day

Fred Rogers reportedly kept his weight at exactly 143 pounds, and he explained the code as one letter to say I, four to say love and three to say you. Pennsylvania, where he was born, made 23 May, the 143rd day of the year, 143 Day in 2019, when Governor Tom Wolf declared it the state's first statewide day of kindness.

Make “143” into something

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Frequently asked questions

Does Morse code have numbers?

Yes. Each of the ten digits is a run of five dots and dashes, which is why 143 becomes .---- ....- ...--. Numbers are part of the same international code as the alphabet, so a date, a year or a number like 143 can be keyed as easily as a word.

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