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What do you do when you are just getting a bit tired of working on this 3 hours a day. 7 days a week for 6 months. I am on lesson 23 now but I am starting to feel like I may never get this done. So, What do you do. How do you keep interested. It looks to me like I may not get to lesson 40 in one year. I have been a ham for a while now. I still hear guy's say how easy this is. It doesn't take long. I am sorry but I feel this is just bull.

Do you know the book "The Art & Skill of Radio-Telegraphy"?
http://www.tasrt.ca/TASRTVersions/TASRT.pdf
It contains many advices on staying motivated and describes the right learning strategies in general. There are many wrong ways which can lead to disappointment (e. g. counting dits and dahs), this book helps you avoiding them. Very worth reading.
73 Johannes

Zen and the Art of Radio Telegraphy by Carlo Consoli may also include some helping ideas:

http://www.w0uce.net/Zen_and_the_Art_of_Radio_Telegraphy.pdf

Kind Regards

Lynn:
Do not do this for 3 hours a day.

Do it for 15 minutes and just each day.

That is not a burden, and when you like it or not, proceed, because you are an american girl and your parents learned you perseverance.

So enjoy your life but spent each day those 15 minutes. No more please.

The initiator of this website advices 20/10
I think 20/5 would be better, because in that case you master the complete code faster and you can start on the bands with CW. Slow ok, but in general hams are going QRS to help you.

After you finish the course you can repeat it with 20/10 or so. I tell you that I can pretty fast copy CW by head, but when I listen to random characters 20/10 I can't make 20/10 without errors.

So I am afraid DJ1YFK initiates with 20/10, the default speed, a lot of quiters.

So concluding:
1. Exercise your lessons with 20/5. use pencil and type over one out of ten for a score
2. Do Word exercises by head . Characters restricted to your lesson number, start with short words, when OK more characters per word allowed. Normal spacing between characters please, because that is Morse code.

Please keep us informed about your experiences and progress.

Lynn, 3hrs a day is way too much. You cannot get concentrated that long. What is your effective speed rating? I had to go down to 8/17 or so to stay motivated. Send me a private email before you give up altogether.

Andreas F4GFT

Koch is not the only, nor necessarily the best way to learn Morse, and for some folk the progressive nature of the Koch method just isn't any good at all. Think back to the way you learned to read and write. Did you spend a while learning each letter, or did you learn them all at once, or something in between? Did you learn to read and write words using individual printed letters, or go straight in to joined-up (cursive) script?

There's a long-running thread on eHam that might be worth a skim (at least of the thread starter's posts), here:

http://www.eham.net/ehamforum/smf/index.php/topic,93658.0.html

73, Rick

Yes don't go on too long. Stop at a good point so you always end off having a good feeling about it.

Lynn, I agree with Chairfone, you are at lesson 23 -- more than half way there! Back it down to 20/8 or 20/5 if need be, but keep plugging away at it for 15 minutes at a time, max. If you really want to spend more than 15 minutes a day, then give yourself several hours in between 15 minutes sessions to let the synapses re-organize their pathways from the last session. This re-organization occurs when you are away from the code and no longer under stress -- sorta like muscles that build while you rest after they have incurred microscopic tears by doing hard physical exercise.

I just finished the 40 lesson course that I started back in February. It took longer than I hoped and I had to stop for a 6 weeks stretch this summer due to family commitments. That 6 weeks off really set me back, so my advice is don't quit! Keep at it. Now I'm teaching myself to send morse with a buddy who found me from this forum. It's been very helpful to work together on sending and copying, but first one needs to know the 41 elements in the LCWO course.

73,
Mike
W9MIC

Lynn, I think we have a consensus here. You work too hard at it. Follow the advice: No more than 15 minutes at a time, at a wpm rate that is both fun and rewarding. This strategy will get you on the air sooner, and THIS is where the fun part really begins.

73, Andreas F4GFT

Thank you all for your help. This has been a hard mountain to climb for me. I will stay at it until the end. It is nice to not have to climb alone.
Lynn
KI6WXM