How to Build a Morse Code Translator with Player in Python

Morse code, a classic method of encoding text into sequences of dots and dashes, has been a cornerstone in the world of communication. While it's less common today, learning Morse code can be an exciting challenge, especially if you're interested in amateur radio or historical communication methods. To get a hands-on feel for Morse code, check out an online Morse code tool like convertmorse.com.

In this beginner-friendly tutorial, we'll walk through creating a Morse Code Translator and Player in Python. Let's dive in!

Step 1: Setting Up the Morse Code Dictionary

Our first task is to map each alphabet letter and number to its corresponding Morse code sequence. We use a Python dictionary to do this:

morse_code_dict = {
    "A": ".-", "B": "-...", "C": "-.-.",
    "D": "-..", "E": ".", "F": "..-.",
    "G": "--.", "H": "....", "I": "..",
    "J": ".---", "K": "-.-", "L": ".-..",
    "M": "--", "N": "-.", "O": "---",
    "P": ".--.", "Q": "--.-", "R": ".-.",
    "S": "...", "T": "-", "U": "..-",
    "V": "...-", "W": ".--", "X": "-..-",
    "Y": "-.--", "Z": "--..", " ": "/"
}

Step 2: Input the Message

Now, let's get the message from the user:

message = input("Type a message to translate into Morse code: ")

Step 3: Translating to Morse Code

The next step is translating each character of the message into Morse code. We'll iterate through the message and convert each character:

morse_message = " ".join(morse_code_dict[char] for char in message.upper())
print("Morse Code:", morse_message)

Step 4: Play the Morse Code

To make our translator more interactive, we'll add functionality to play the Morse code using sound. We use the winsound module for Windows users. For each dot, we play a short beep, and for each dash, a longer beep:

import winsound
import time

for char in morse_message:
    if char == ".":
        winsound.Beep(1000, 200)  # frequency, duration in ms
    elif char == "-":
        winsound.Beep(1000, 600)
    elif char == " ":
        time.sleep(0.5)  # pause for space
    time.sleep(0.2)  # short pause between each signal

Complete Program

Putting all these steps together, you have a simple Morse code translator and player in Python:

# Complete program here combining all the above steps
import time
import winsound

# Morse Code Dictionary
morse_code_dict = {
    "A": ".-", "B": "-...", "C": "-.-.",
    "D": "-..", "E": ".", "F": "..-.",
    "G": "--.", "H": "....", "I": "..",
    "J": ".---", "K": "-.-", "L": ".-..",
    "M": "--", "N": "-.", "O": "---",
    "P": ".--.", "Q": "--.-", "R": ".-.",
    "S": "...", "T": "-", "U": "..-",
    "V": "...-", "W": ".--", "X": "-..-",
    "Y": "-.--", "Z": "--..", " ": "/"
}

# Input Message
message = input("Type a message to translate into Morse code: ")

# Translate to Morse Code
morse_message = " ".join(morse_code_dict[char] for char in message.upper())
print("Morse Code:", morse_message)

# Play Morse Code
for char in morse_message:
    if char == ".":
        winsound.Beep(1000, 200)  # frequency, duration in ms for a dot
    elif char == "-":
        winsound.Beep(1000, 600)  # frequency, duration in ms for a dash
    elif char == " ":
        time.sleep(0.5)  # pause for space
    time.sleep(0.2)  # short pause between each signal