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Something I always wanted to know, but were afraid to ask.

Thanks for the advice and encouragement!

My people with aphantasia out there, how do you account for #3?

Thanks for posting this. What can you share with us 7 years later? :)

Thank you

When in the Royal Navy, I could not ditch the pencil, as we had to write down the messages to show the command, but awesome idea.

That is pretty stupid advice! Don't throw away that paper with the code characters on it. You first have to learn what dot/dash goes with what letter/number. The you learn the sounds and rhythms.

Thank you very much friend! I’m still early on in my cw learning and I’m planning on implementing these ideas.

Thank you. I was about to start learning morse code and would have done it wrong if I had not found this video...73...KN6KNB

Thanks, very much for this video. That writing plateau is real and I'll be re-looking my own practice. Thanks again.

Thank you for this video, I learned a few new things, some of the others I already learned but the hard way as you did. I started with a PC computer at 5WPM, real 5WPM and progressed up to 10WPM where I got stuck for months. I gave up for some time and restarted the same way and got stuck again at 10WPM until I discovered Koch-Farnsworth with 20WPM letters. Point 1: I knew about forgetting about the visual but when you start at real 5WPM you clearly hear the dits and dahs and it is very difficult for your brain not to hear them even if you are not counting. You don't hera the letters. When you reach 10WPM your brain get lost as it does not hear the dits and dahs. Point 2: With letters at 20-25WPM you learn to hear the letters which makes it easier to shorten the spacing. It is when I started to make rapid progress. Point 3: I always tried to avoid pencil and as you said at some point you cannot write and copy at the same time. Point 4: This is a new one for me and will have to try it. I knew that being a good operator means hearing words not letters. I can regonize a few of them but until now I did not know how to do it. Point 5: This is also a new one for me. Right now my QSOs are relatively short for this reason. No rag chew at this time. When you are really good at CW: I met this ham and we were talking while he was making rag chew QSOs at 30WPM. Unbelievable!

Thanks. I am a new technican and will try and follow your advise to learn CW.

Thanks for the excellent advice, I fully agree with those recommendations. I am learning for over 5 months now according to these points and, slowly but truly, I do progress. This is an excellent way to go and study, may you be heard.

This is pretty good advice. I learned the letters fairy quickly but i never got past 15 wpm because i still visualize some letters in my head. Not good.

Great advice. Thank you for this information.

Thank you

And to exactly nobody's surprise, the Anglophone has absolutely no qualms about not only not pronouncing Koch correctly but also not bothering to find out whether there could be anything wrong with his pronunciation. Koch is a German name. And not just that; it is the German name of a German person. Funny double-standard you have. You say the whole letter in Morse is a sound, even a word is a sound, and ought to be trained as such, not a series of individual short and long noises to reassemble in your head, like the individual strokes on paper that make up letters and words. Funny how that somehow doesn't apply to a name and its sound, and not just any name and its sound but the name and its sound that identifies a particular person. How is that?

Great advice. Thanks!

Just interested, nothing special.😅

It's been a while since this video was produced and I'm not sure if you still monitor it, but I'll comment anyway. First, I found the suggestions interesting and I plan to pursue them if possible. I "learned" my Morse Code in Radioman A school back in 1967 and looking back, the method used there was absolutely the worst, but it was designed for Naval communications with a resulting hard, printed copy. I learned to repeat the dits and dahs in my conscious mind and then type the letter on a typewriter as I heard them. Looking at the text on the typewriter platen (as I received it) would cause me to completely lose my train and miss a whole string of following characters. I barely made it out of RM A school at the minimum required speed and to this day, I am extremely (extremely) poor at receiving MC. Once on active duty they were going to assign me to a CW net, but I begged so earnestly and sincerely for them not to, they (for once) had pity on me. To this day, I can't listen to MC without repeating the dits and dahs in my head and many times long characters causes me to doubt what it was and then let the next five characters go by, completely losing my place in the message. I have to use a keyboard or pencil and I can't look at the copy until after the transmission of the message. Even at my age now, I would love to be proficient enough to use MC and I have a wonderful (unused) CW QRP radio I built from a kit many, many years ago, but I'm afraid my lack of natural talent together with my unbreakable bad training will continue to doom me. As mentioned, I will follow the suggestions in your video, but if you have any specific ones you think might help, I would very much appreciate it.

Farnsworth method is the absolute best way. I was not aware of this method until about 30 years after being in Ham radio.

Than you for your insights. Very helpful

I have a hard time writing down call signs even in English on SSB. I get confused when they say their call sign and the call sign of who they are taking to. Which call sign is the senders and who's is the recipient? Which one is usually said first?

I learned at 6 w.p.m. and worked up to probably 15 w.p.m. in 12 weeks for my test at 12 w.p.m. Passed first time. When learning I used a pencil so I could check with the text afterwards. As speed increased I discarded the pencil as I couldn't write fast enough. Listening on air is good too as I did because at some time you will need to listen through QRM, fading and other noises and it helps you to understand the make up of a typical QSO. Words do come over: the, and, they, and so on. Head copy was another stage. Now happy at 18 to 20 w.p.m. and can push 25 reasonably well and some at 30 w.p.m. My question is whether the Koch-Farnsworth method is faster? Could I have learned it in 6 weeks? Not that it matters, I was quite happy with what I did. G4GHB.

The rest of us learned before computers, phones and aps.

Thank you so much. Great advice! 73 de NM5T

Great video! Thank you! I. Am starting my very first step today and I am really quite intimidated. I found this helpful

Excelente idea para probar algo "practico", se ve entretenido, lo hare apenas pasen las lluvias en este hemisferio. 73 y buenos dx.

so lets say i want to be stabbed with a banana as the template scary phrase I simply take that phrase and make recordings of it in different numbers 1 for a or 16 time in a row once so we dont mistake it for the bad suprising one.. then when i finally have a 26 for z and a 36 for 9 or 10 i can noww accociate these numbers to be converted to morse code.. then i re english the message.. no more fear.

A project that im authoring is to take all scary phrases and make them at least 16 times in a row made into a spelling version of dashes and dots for example ffoorr eexxaammppllee then i work a way to make the thoughts into a morse code imitation of the same message then i convert it back to english

Glad I found this, I’m just starting out. I realize now that Morse is not a code, and it’s not a written language, it’s a language that is ONLY SPOKEN. No one ever sits and writes out the lines and dots. The writing (if you do write it out) is English or whatever other language you’re using, you’re translating in your mind from Morse, but never actually writing Morse. It’s only heard and “spoken”, with the key being the voice. Learning the lines and dots is just creating an extra translation, like 1) hearing dahdidit 2) thinking ok dahdidit is long short short or dah dit dit, and 3) ok long short short or dah dit dit is D. That’s double or triple the amount of mental work you need to be doing. D in Morse code is NOT “long short short”, or dah dit dit, it’s the SOUND dahhdidit (spoken quickly) Or bahbudup, or whatever. The spelling is irrelevant cuz it’s not a spelled or written language. “D” is pronounced “dee”, when kids are learning English, you don’t tell them D is pronounced “deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeyyyy”, so why would you tell a Morse beginner that D is pronounced “dah dit dit”? It isn’t. It’s dahdidit (fast). Thanks!!

Thank you! 73 de KG5JAW! 😎👍

With all due respect, I believe you're overthinking it. I agree that learning words is a good tactic to raise up your speed (although I've personally never tried it). Otherwise, the best way is to practice, practice, practice, putting down your received characters on a keyboard (you're right about using a pencil - you can't go fast enough). In Tech school, we had a fellow student who could only type at 15WPM, but could copy code at 30WPM. This disparity was actually quite common. One other thing ... CW operators today are accustomed to clean code. But what do you do when you're copy someone who's sending garbage? How do you copy such an operator? (Hint: you know what he's gonna send it before he does). The answer is more and more practice. Good luck!

Thanks for the tips!

I like the mag loop in the background, great birdies too....

That was my big mistake, I visualize and then convert the image in my brain to symbols, and for this I can't get past 10 wpm. But how do I reverse this?

Thank you for your advice. Very good suggestions here.

Very nice video. I would only add that Practice makes improvement, so practice practice practice and remember nobody is perfect.

How do you transition to see morse flash? Reason I wanted to learn Morse is to send messages by flashlight, say for example during emergencies, etc.

satellite phone

👍👍👍

Perfect timing mate!! Thank you ! 👌 I'm just bout to start 👌👌👌👍👍👍😁😁😁

I agree it should be audio and not visual but - Why lose the pencil? If you're a radio operator, you need to WRITE the messages down so you can then pass them to a third party! Of course if you're only gonna learn 5NN TU 73 QRZ? then lose the pencil!

Thank You That app works pretty good. I started out over 43 years ago in Amateur Radio as a Novice. I struggled with the code. Now I have hearing aids that I can feed the audio in directly and I can hear so much more than I ever did. I am going to take another swing at CW. Its amazing its coming back to me. Thank You for your video! DE K8OCN

I don't agree with the "lose the pencil" point. Yes writing fast is not easy but not a limiting factor up to about 20 WPM. In fact the FCC Administered Code Tests up to 1980 by examining the text of the testee. This included the Extra Class grade CW test. If you couldn't write it down you couldn't pass.

ok, but i dont own any ios devices, i own all andriod... what programs will work on android? NS9T

I use morsemania, its an App and include what ever you recommend

This is pretty much what Jean Shepherd said.

Happy to find you Scott

You are absolutely correct. I attained my General lic in 1985 or 6. I was copying code at 23 wpm when I took the 13wpm code test and still only got 70percent on the test. But, still passed. So sorry I ever let my lic expire 13 years ago.