Developer Finds Morse Code Timing Math Far Harder Than Building the Alphabet

A developer building an online Morse code translator discovered that mapping letters to dots and dashes was straightforward, but accurately replicating Morse timing ratios took weeks to get right. The international standard ITU-R M.1677-1 defines all durations as strict multiples of a single base unit, where a dash is exactly three units and word gaps span seven units. The developer had initially treated dot and dash durations as independent values tunable by ear, causing longer messages to sound subtly wrong compared to real amateur radio recordings. Once all timing was derived from a single base unit calculated using the PARIS reference word standard, the output began sounding accurate. The same timing engine was later extended to drive flashlight strobes, screen flashes, and mobile vibration outputs, including accessibility-focused use cases for users with limited motor control.