PARIS
PARIS is the standard word used in Morse code to represent the standard word length when measuring transmission speed. It takes exactly 50 dot-units to send, counting the word space that follows it. Sending PARIS twenty times in one minute is 20 words per minute.
The other reference word is CODEX, at 60 units. It is used for random code groups rather than plain language, and a speed quoted without a reference word means PARIS.
A dot is one unit. A dash is three. The gap inside a letter is one, the gap between letters is three, and the gap between words is seven. Counting each letter with the gap that follows it:
| Letter | Morse | Units (with the gap after it) |
|---|---|---|
| P | .--. | 14 |
| A | .- | 8 |
| R | .-. | 10 |
| I | .. | 6 |
| S | ... | 8 |
| Rest of the word gap after S | 4 | |
| Total | 50 | |
Because PARIS is 50 units and a minute is 60,000 milliseconds, one unit at W words per minute is 1200 / W milliseconds. That single number drives every other duration: a dash is three of them, a word gap is seven.
5 WPM
dot = 240 ms, dash = 720 ms
Beginner pace
13 WPM
dot = 92 ms, dash = 276 ms
The old FCC licence requirement
20 WPM
dot = 60 ms, dash = 180 ms
Proficient operator
30 WPM
dot = 40 ms, dash = 120 ms
Contest speed
You can hear any of these: the audio generator plays text at any speed from 5 to 40 WPM, and the audio decoder estimates the WPM of a recording it decodes.
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See how it worksPARIS. It is the standard reference word for Morse code speed because it takes exactly 50 dot-units to send, including the word space that follows it. Sending PARIS twenty times in a minute is 20 words per minute.
Because its length in dot-units is close to the average of ordinary English text, so a speed measured with PARIS matches what an operator actually experiences. It was adopted as the convention rather than derived from a rule, and both the ITU and amateur radio practice use it.
CODEX is the other reference word, used mainly for measuring code groups of random letters rather than plain language. It is 60 dot-units instead of 50, so the same dot length produces a lower number in words per minute. If a figure does not say which word it used, it almost always means PARIS.
Divide 1,200 by the speed in words per minute. At 20 WPM a dot is 1200 / 20 = 60 milliseconds; a dash is three dots, so 180 ms. The 1,200 comes from PARIS being 50 units and a minute being 60,000 milliseconds: 60,000 / 50 = 1,200.
No. Farnsworth sends each character at a higher speed but stretches the gaps between characters and words, so a single WPM number does not describe it. It is quoted as two figures, for example 18/5, meaning characters at 18 WPM spaced out to an overall 5 WPM.
