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Hey guys,

I'm learning cw for a few weaks now. I started just completely blank with a morse sign chart and an old army morse key at a field day a weak ago.

Now I have tried some different ways to learn it. Anyways, in my opinion the Koch system is simply the best. So I started with 24 WpM (to achieve 120 WpM in the end) for the signs, and 7 WpM effective.

Now I want to know when and how fast I should reduce the gap and increase the effective speed?
Are there some experiences? Or shall I do it like I feel it's best?

Greetings
Tom

If your goal is 120 WpM, then I would ignore the gaps altogether. Instead, I would keep raising both character speed and effective speed by the same amount (24/7 -> 25/8 -> 26/9 -> ...).

When -- after a few weeks -- you have reached 120 WpM, you will notice that the difference between 120/103 and 120/120 is rather marginal. ;-)

Example "Paris" at 120/103:
http://cgi3.lcwo.net/cgi-bin/cw.mp3?s=120&e=103&f=800&t=Paris%20%20%20%20%5E

Example "Paris" at 120/120:
http://cgi3.lcwo.net/cgi-bin/cw.mp3?s=120&e=120&f=800&t=Paris%20%20%20%20%5E

73 -- Georg

To be honest, funny that you gave me that example so serious after my little mistake! xD

Ofc (i hope that is quite obvious) i want to achieve 120 Bpm effective, so my setting was 24 WpM for characters to start with the correct character end speed.

I wrote obvious because I'm definitely not able to take or give morse code. And i know that even the "pros" "just" achieve about 300-350, maybe 400 BpM. (There may be some exceptions ...)
120 WpM would mean I want to achieve 600 BpM. I think that is for an human unreachable :P

73 Tom

I mean that speed: http://cgi3.lcwo.net/cgi-bin/cw.mp3?s=24&e=24&f=700&t=Paris%20%20%20%20^

But now back to the topic. I still don't know how fast I should decrease the gaps between the single characters ...
What is better? To get further with bigger gaps and decrease the gap's length then?
Or get the gaps as soon as possible rather small?

73 Tom

Hello Tom,

there are a very few people on here who are able to read at 120 WpM, Fabian is one of them.

Everybody works differently, so you will have to figure out what's best for you. Since reading morse code seems to involve many orthogonal abilities, I'd suggest a stepwise approach. First, learn recognizing characters with the morse machine. Start with a comfortable speed, and later on make it challenging.

When you can reliably recognize characters, do word training sessions at a challengingly high character speed with long gaps, but also sessions with a comfortable character speed and shorter gaps. With the latter session type, don't overdo it at first, e.g. 15/7. Only when you start to be able to read words letter by letter, eventually shorten the gaps until effective speed matches character speed. At this time, shorten gaps in the first session type. Then, slowly increase overall speed for the second type to keep it slightly challenging.

Also, I recommend doing the lessons at a slightly challenging speed.

This strategy has worked and still works fine for me, but it won't necessarily work for you. You will have to experiment.

73 -- Georg