So you're a big enough nerd that you want to learn morse code in a way that's actually useful? Here's the method I used, and the method I've used to teach a number of interested hams over the years with good results.
Preface
I learned CW in 2005 to get my General class license, as it was still required at 5 words per minute (wpm), but I used a method that left me able to pass the test, and not much else. It's easy to accidentally construct obstacles that will inhibit your progression later. I relearned CW in 2014 using roughly the method I'll describe below, and have been using CW for contesting and DX chasing ever since at 25-35wpm. In the last year or two I've started doing more ragchewing, and have been working on getting my hand sending and "head copy" up to snuff. That's an ongoing project.
To be able to operate effectively, you'll need a bare minimum speed of about 10wpm, but you'll find most other stations are operating somewhere between 12 and 25wpm, with the most common "rag chewing" effective speed probably somewhere around 15-20wpm. Contesters are operating at 25-35wpm, however they use fixed message formats that make it quite a bit easier than you might imagine to achieve such high speeds. They also aren't sending by hand!
Terminology
WPM: Words Per Minute.
Character Speed: The speed at which the individual characters are sent.
Effective Speed: The average speed used to send the entire message.
Farnsworth Spacing: A method of sending where the character speed is kept high, say 18-25wpm, but additional space between the characters, and between words is added to bring the effective speed down to something between perhaps 5 and 15wpm. This gives the person copying the message time to process and write down the characters.
Part 1: Receiving
Let's start off with a couple of big "Gotchas".
DO try to commit to practicing more days than not. 5 days a week is a good goal, but it doesn't need to be a huge time sink. More frequent, shorter sessions are much more effective than long grind sessions. You'll get a lot more from 1 or 2 10-15 minute sessions per day, 5 or 6 days a week, than you will from one 90 minute session a week. It will significantly improve retention as well as reduce frustration and boredom.
DO NOT try to memorize the characters from a visual chart of dots and dashes. This teaches you to count the dots and dashes, rather than hearing the characters as one cohesive sound. Learning CW this way will almost certainly trap you below 15wpm effective speed. More commonly below 10wpm. It is a miserable habit to break, and usually requires restarting from scratch.
DO NOT start practing sending before you finish your first pass through the receiving lessons. This will cause the same problem as above.
While working through the initial lessons, or any "Code Group" type practice, DO NOT pause or stop copying when you miss a character or make a mistake. Even if it's multiple characters lost, DO NOT PAUSE OR REWIND the playback. Take a breath, refocus, and start copying again at the start of a new group. I cannot stress this enough. I did this constantly while learning, and yes it meant I got better scores on my practice groups, but it also created a habit of breaking my concentration every time I made a mistake or missed a character. This was an absolutely miserable habit to break. Avoid my mistake!
Remember, the initial pass through the lessons can be a bit of a grind. It's far and away the most common place for folks to fall off the bandwagon, and the most likely spot to encounter real frustration. Once you push through the lessons, it very quickly gets more "gamified" and much more fun.
Ok, now we're ready to get started with our receiving practice.
Continued in Part II: Building Speed and Sending
Preface
I learned CW in 2005 to get my General class license, as it was still required at 5 words per minute (wpm), but I used a method that left me able to pass the test, and not much else. It's easy to accidentally construct obstacles that will inhibit your progression later. I relearned CW in 2014 using roughly the method I'll describe below, and have been using CW for contesting and DX chasing ever since at 25-35wpm. In the last year or two I've started doing more ragchewing, and have been working on getting my hand sending and "head copy" up to snuff. That's an ongoing project.
To be able to operate effectively, you'll need a bare minimum speed of about 10wpm, but you'll find most other stations are operating somewhere between 12 and 25wpm, with the most common "rag chewing" effective speed probably somewhere around 15-20wpm. Contesters are operating at 25-35wpm, however they use fixed message formats that make it quite a bit easier than you might imagine to achieve such high speeds. They also aren't sending by hand!
Terminology
WPM: Words Per Minute.
Character Speed: The speed at which the individual characters are sent.
Effective Speed: The average speed used to send the entire message.
Farnsworth Spacing: A method of sending where the character speed is kept high, say 18-25wpm, but additional space between the characters, and between words is added to bring the effective speed down to something between perhaps 5 and 15wpm. This gives the person copying the message time to process and write down the characters.
Part 1: Receiving
Let's start off with a couple of big "Gotchas".
DO try to commit to practicing more days than not. 5 days a week is a good goal, but it doesn't need to be a huge time sink. More frequent, shorter sessions are much more effective than long grind sessions. You'll get a lot more from 1 or 2 10-15 minute sessions per day, 5 or 6 days a week, than you will from one 90 minute session a week. It will significantly improve retention as well as reduce frustration and boredom.
DO NOT try to memorize the characters from a visual chart of dots and dashes. This teaches you to count the dots and dashes, rather than hearing the characters as one cohesive sound. Learning CW this way will almost certainly trap you below 15wpm effective speed. More commonly below 10wpm. It is a miserable habit to break, and usually requires restarting from scratch.
DO NOT start practing sending before you finish your first pass through the receiving lessons. This will cause the same problem as above.
While working through the initial lessons, or any "Code Group" type practice, DO NOT pause or stop copying when you miss a character or make a mistake. Even if it's multiple characters lost, DO NOT PAUSE OR REWIND the playback. Take a breath, refocus, and start copying again at the start of a new group. I cannot stress this enough. I did this constantly while learning, and yes it meant I got better scores on my practice groups, but it also created a habit of breaking my concentration every time I made a mistake or missed a character. This was an absolutely miserable habit to break. Avoid my mistake!
Remember, the initial pass through the lessons can be a bit of a grind. It's far and away the most common place for folks to fall off the bandwagon, and the most likely spot to encounter real frustration. Once you push through the lessons, it very quickly gets more "gamified" and much more fun.
Ok, now we're ready to get started with our receiving practice.
- To start, create an account on LCWO. This site is completely free, and was designed by Fabian Kurz, DJ5CW, one of the fastest CW operators in the world. The dude literally listens to "audio books", which are just ebooks converted to CW. He's been running this site for at least 15 years now, and for most of that it has been the defacto resource for learning, and it is the primary focus of this primer, especially in the beginning.
- On the left side panel, click on Change CW Settings and adjust these settings:
Character Speed set to at least 20wpm. I know this sounds high, but it's very important. This is going to teach you to hear the letter, not envision it as a set of dots and dashes. I personally think it's easier to start at 25wpm, but anything above 20 is ok.
Effective Speed set to somewhere between 4 and 7wpm. Higher is better, but if you start off at 4wpm for a few lessons, that's ok. Try to bump it up above 5 in your first 10 lessons or so once you start to get a feel for the rhythm. The higher this is set at the start, the slower your initial progression may be (but only slightly), but the faster you'll gain speed later.
Extra Word Spacing at 0.
Tone(Hz) I recommend setting this to "random" as early as possible, as CW on the air won't always be exactly at your sidetone frequency, and it will throw you if you haven't practiced. That said, if you want to leave it set to a preferred frequency to start, that's fine. I recommend switching to random once you finish the initial lessons at least. I find the default 750Hz rather grating, but it's purely preference. Keep it above 400Hz and below 900Hz, as anything outside that range may cause issues with narrow CW filters on good receivers.
Transmission Prefix Checked.
Start Delay This is again preference. I like a 1 or 2 second start delay, especially early on, just to let you get settled on the keyboard after hitting start.
Group Length I strongly recommend selecting "Random". Keeping it set to a fixed length will get you into the habit of copying words of specific lengths, which will trip you up when they're longer or shorter once you start doing more advanced practice.
Make sure you click "submit" to save settings
- Again on the left side panel, click Lessons. Start working through the lessons, and follow the general guidance the site provides. If you copy the practice groups above 90% two times in a row, move to the next lesson.
- If you get stuck on a lesson (you likely will), or find that there are a couple of characters that you're constantly mixing up (it will happen, probably with S/H/5), click on Change CW Settings again, on the right side you'll see a whole bunch of check boxes. Uncheck all, and then check only the characters that are causing you problems, and maybe one or two that are similar but not in the group that's bothering you right now, then click Submit. Click on Code Groups OR Morse Machine on the left panel. Code groups will just send you groups just like the lessons, but if you select Custom Characters from the pulldown box at the top, it will consist of only those characters you've checked in your settings panel. The Morse Machine is an awesome tool. On the pulldown menu at the top select the line with (Custom Characters), or select (Koch Characters) and use the +/- buttons to select the lesson number you want to practice, then hit space and it will start feeding you the letters one at a time, with a tone to indicate a missed character, which it will then repeat. You can also change your character speed for a bit of variety or challenge. Use these two tools until you feel more confident copying those problematic characters, then return to the lessons.
- When you've completed the first pass of all the lessons, getting 90% or better on all of them at least once, you can switch to Morse Machine to start building speed. I recommend starting with Morse Machine, in the top pulldown select (Koch Characters), use +/- buttons to pick Lesson 40, and start hammering away. If you get a long string of characters correct, increase the character speed by 2 or 3wpm and keep going. You can see the "Effective Speed" displayed just above the green bars, this is the average speed you're copying at. It will start low, likely 3-5wpm, but you should notice it steadily climbing over the course of a few days of practice. It's almost impossible to get it above about 12wpm because of the latency in how the characters are played, but once you're above about 7-8wpm with mistakes coming perhaps every 10 characters or more, move on to the next step.
Continued in Part II: Building Speed and Sending
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