I'm sure that I'm not the only person that has struggled with figuring out what songs to identify with different people in my cellphone contact list. Music is a large part of my life, but when it comes to associating songs with people, it was quite a struggle. I remember first getting a cellphone that could use separate ringtones, I spent a couple hours searching and browsing through song titles only to assign a grand total of 2 songs as ringtones. Not only is the consideration of whether or not a song fits a person and will remind you of them, but there's also the concern of whether or not that song might be one you want to hear every time they call, no matter where you are, or who you are with. So, for a long time I left my phones ringtone set to the default ring.

Being interested in amateur radio though, I had learned morse code at one point in my life, although I was a bit rusty in interpreting it. I had the idea that it would be fairly easy to create morse code mp3 ringtones. So, I created over 9000 of them for various names and place names. I've also created ringtones for voicemail (vm) and txt as well as pix to identify the different kinds of messages that my phone receives. I even scripted a web based tool to automatically generate morse code in mp3 format from text.  They are also all free to download.

Morse code has had a history of use of over 160 years to date and I believe that it will be around for many uses and purposes for many more years. I would also bet that if you don't yet know morse you would learn it pretty quickly if you used ringtones that were morse code for the various callers in your contact list.

The great benefits to me of using Morse Code Mp3 ringtones are that I get daily practice of my morse code recognition, I know exactly who is calling or whether I've received a voice mail or text message, it's easy to assign ringtones to people.  I use either someones initials or first name usually to assign a ringtone and don't have to think twice about it.  It's also not the kind of thing that I would have to think about whether or not I want them to know what their ringtone is, or worry about it playing wherever I am.  Now if I could only input text messages by tapping morse code on the case of my cellphone!

Morse code uses a series of short and long tones called dit's and dah's to represent each letter of the alphabet.  They can be represented by things other than sound (light or touch for instance.)  For your reference here is a representation of the alphabet in morse code using the period symbol for the dit and the hyphen as the dah.

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 --..

It's best to memorize based on the sound rather than thinking "dot dash".  It's suggested if you want to learn for speed (to be able to interpret at fast transmission rates) that you go ahead and start learning with faster sources.

Words per minute is a speed rating of morse code that assumes an average word length of 5 characters per word.  Rates can be as slow as 5 WPM (words per minute) or as high as 50 WPM (or faster although 50 WPM is near the fastest that can be reliably interpreted by people.)  The record for receiving was set in Asheville, NC in 1939 at 75.2WPM (!)  Some experienced with morse code can transcribe it in their head at speeds up to 40 WPM.

Among Amateur Radio operators morse code is still a preferred means of communication particularly over long distance, low powered radio links because it is much easier to select the narrow bandwidth of a morse tone and the ear has an easier time catching it as opposed to the nuances of the human voice which may be lost from time to time due to signal drift and interference.