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Hey guys, I just completed the last step of lesson 40 at a speed of 22/12! You cannot imagine what a feeling it is at my age (63) to have achieved this!

Am I glad that I kept going. Of course, there were highs and lows, but there is nothing better than the feeling of having really achieved something.

All of you out there who think about desisting: I believe now that ANYBODY can learn CW and have fun with it. Keep on going - it's worth while! See you on the band. I will now go out and have my first QSOs.

73
Wolf

How long did it take you?

...and, if you're willing to share, what does your course summary look like? Mine looks like this at present:

Lesson Attempts Accuracy Time spent
min. max. avg (days)
2 155 57.8 100 88.1 153
3 202 40 100 76.8 154
4 66 52.5 94.2 75.6 42
5 38 37.5 80 62.4 15

@Wolf

Congratulations!
Please let us know your experience with QSOs.

@Rick
Find my stats below in case you're interested. Note that I started out with one-minute attempt only. From about lesson 15, I start out with 1-minute lessons. Once I hit over 90%, I switch to 3-min lessons. When I hit over 90% again, I go to the next lessons.

Joep

Les Pogingen Nauwkeurigheid Gebruikte tijd
min. max. avg (dagen)
1 2 28 98 63 1
2 16 0 100 79.5 1
3 39 48 100 77.6 1
4 8 71.2 97.8 82 1
5 23 60 100 78.7 1
6 65 62.3 95.6 82.7 5
7 70 40 93.4 76.2 1
8 49 62.3 93.4 81.1 1
9 22 62.3 93.4 78.9 1
10 27 57.8 95.6 76.7 1
11 105 48.9 95.6 77.8 2
12 40 66.7 95.6 84.5 1
13 55 70 97.8 84.4 1
14 38 66 94 83.8 1
15 33 60 100 81 1
16 68 60 96 78.7 2
17 66 62 96 80.5 3
18 8 82 96 88.2 1
19 45 68 93.4 83.8 3
20 17 70 94.7 85.5 1
21 28 72 94 83.9 1
22 54 68 98 83.6 3
23 14 78 96 87.6 1
24 39 68 97.4 80.9 10
25 14 70.7 96 82.5 1
26 30 66 93.4 80 2
27 45 60 94 80.7 7
28 41 70 90.7 79.2 6
29 50 66 90 82 12

ok, here is my statistics:
1 3 88 96 92 1
2 2 92 98 95 1
3 2 96 98 97 1
4 8 68 100 91.1 1
5 4 90 100 95.8 1
6 2 96 98 97 1
7 6 86 98 92 1
8 2 95 98 96.5 1
9 4 83 99 89.5 1
10 5 80 98 90 1
11 6 80 96.7 91.5 1
12 8 82.7 97.2 90.8 1
13 8 78 98 92.1 1
14 6 92 98 94.9 1
15 7 90 100 94.6 1
16 6 93 100 95.7 1
17 14 69.6 98 89.1 1
18 9 82 99 92.1 1
19 11 77.4 98.5 91.3 1
20 27 77.5 97 88.3 22
21 6 8.2 95.5 80.2 1
22 7 87.5 96.7 92.1 1
23 5 86.7 99.2 95.8 1
24 9 78.4 97.4 91.4 1
25 18 76.7 97.7 89 2
26 8 0.5 97 71.3 1
27 7 83.4 94.7 91 1
28 7 86.7 96.7 91.2 1
29 6 83.4 95 90.5 9
30 10 85 95 90.6 2
31 8 85.9 100 92.7 2
32 15 81.7 95.9 89.1 9
33 12 83.4 94.6 89.4 6
34 9 85 98.4 91.5 4
35 9 87.5 98.4 91.7 4
36 9 85 95.7 91.3 2
37 11 83.4 97.3 90.6 17
38 6 90 98.4 92.7 1
39 7 86.3 100 92.3 4
40 17 80 93.4 87.7 2

After the first lessons I consequently worked always the complete sequence: starting with 1 minute, increasing by 1 minute once I reached 90%, until I complted 5 minutes. Most of the lessons I worked at a speed off 22/12. Last year I had started another attempt at a non-Koch course, that worked at speeds of 5-8 wpm. I found out, that that was too slow to "get into the rhythm". Another thing that helped a lot: Before each lesson I did a "Warm up" using the morse machine, cranked up to 32 wpm. Single letters at that speed were not difficult, and after that lessons with 22/12 seemed comfortably slow.

Thanks. It's interesting to see that both of you have been getting through lessons in a short time; usually less than 10 days, and often in only a day, while I take a month or more, and sometimes much more....

It'd be interesting to know just how quickly folks get through the Koch lessons. Wouldn't need a user-by-user league table, just a bit of data reduction, and if the dataset's large enough there'd probably be no point in re-calculating it more than once or twice a week. A table with a row for each lesson showing the number of users who've ever attempted that lesson, the maximum and average number of attempts, and maybe the average score, would perhaps let folks figure out whether they're doing OK, or whether they're so far behind the curve that they might as well give up...

It'd be an idea to exclude "test" and "dj1yfk" (and other testers) though. ;)

The site is, at present, telling me:

You are currently on lesson 11. 1111 Attempts.

Lesson Attempts Accuracy Time spent
min. max. avg (days)
2 155 57.8 100 88.1 153
3 202 40 100 76.8 154
4 66 52.5 94.2 75.6 42
5 133 37.5 90.6 66.4 42
6 182 50.7 91.2 68 30
7 129 48.6 92 67.7 25
8 50 58.5 91.5 76.3 32
9 112 57 93.4 72.9 28
10 64 47.7 90.7 67 14
11 18 55.4 74.7 64.3 2

lzlep

Wolf is wrong that he says that everybody can learn it because he can. It is certainly not a high picture of yourself when you say that everybody can perform what you can do.

But we at LCWO are all watching you, because we know that you are not easy going and we encourage you to go on and never fail. We will be proud on you. I am sure that I feel this the right way.
And I am sure you will reach your goal, our goal.

I have been a member for 2 years now, and I am still learning, being on lesson 29. I only practice for a short time (too short) each day, maybe 4-6 times a week. Some lessons have been only 7 days, but others 80 days (letters f,l,z) and even lesson 28 (5,h,s) over 100 days. I have moved to the next lesson now, and hope that 5 & h will eventually "come" to me easily.

I think the number of days spent is much less interesting than the cumulative time spent actually listening to morse. I can guess that each attempt of mine probably accounts for a minute or so, but that's not all the time I've spent listening, because I often need an attempt or two which go un-recorded, just to get my ear in, and I sometimes end a session with an attempt which just goes completely to pieces and so doesn't get recorded either. Going by that, lessons 4, 8 and 10 each took something like an hour of actual listening, while 5, 7 and 9 were nearer two hours, and lesson 6 nearer three. I guess lesson 11 will probably be one of the longer ones...

My problem is being a very bad loser :-) I don't like the feeling of completely losing track and binning the exercise. I read that it's better not to use the 5 character groups, as that makes it harder to copy real QSO's later, but when you lose track of a session with random word length you have no way of inputting the later stuff if you get going again.

I'm going to 5 character groups for 1 min, then 2 mins, then 3 mins, then random length for 1 min, 2 min, 3 min, then move on to the next lesson. Hopefully, that way, I never lose track completely.

I don't seem to be able to write faster then 15 wpm, even when I do know the letters. Do others write in lower case, or capitals?

Forget about not using the 5 charactergroup. That is because the word (group)spacing is not natural.

Koch is not the way to learn distinguishing between character and word spaces, which are both wrong.

Learn that with machine generated plain text afterwards.

Word spaces are very important when you listen to
code, especially with head copy (without typing and writing)

At 20/10 the characterspacing is 6 dits instead of standard 3 and the groupspacing is 14 instead of standard 7.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iR6JbvKOwss
where DF6MU demonstrates a bad fist on a "professional" (the pricing surely is) key Kent KT-1
which is hardly or not possible to copy by head copy.

The guy should never got a commercial license in the past with such a fist.

Start exercising sending NOT before you know how Morse code exactly has to sound. That is hence NOT before you completed this wrong spacing course.

Go with what works for you, but have an ear on the final goal. Fixed-length groups are easier to recover from, and shorter groups are easier to record. I've tried to make things just difficult enough to stretch my ability.


I use lower-case because I can write that more quickly, but sometimes at the expense of legibility, and consequently more reported errors than were actually present. I measured my writing speed using non-joined-up letters, trying both upper- and lower-case. I then stepped back by a few wpm from the fastest I could manage. Experiment until you find something that works for you.

Cheers, Rick. I'm now trying 1 min with 5-letter groups, then 2 mins with 5-letter groups, then 1 min with random groups, then 2 mins with random groups. I change up when I get to 90% IF I feel I was really in control. 20/15 wpm all the way to lesson 46!

I sometimes do quite well, then have 10 - 15 secs or so when I can't recognise anything at all :-) I just sit there, waiting for my brain to get back in gear, marking down the missed groups as they pass!

Anyway, less typing and more (lunchtime) practicing.

I tried the "stay on lesson N until..." approach. The catch is to find the correct "until" level. If you set that bar too high you'll get stuck on one lesson for long enough to become discouraged.

After being away from CW for abt 30yrs I agree with IZEP I need listening time. So kicked the time up to 5 min. to just listen & "head copy" until the sounds cause the letters to pop. Then I'll set it back to 1min. for test. That seems to be working for me.

I also have the same problem as MOSTQ cannot write very fast at 72 yrs of age. However I think more speed will come as familarity returns and I apply the same approach here as I did in my boxing days. You get knocked down you get back up swinging. You're not a loser unless you stay down.

Don't let it keep you down. Keep fighting & you will get your "fist" raised sooner or later. I just got my FCC Tech license last Nov. So- where there's life there's hope- if you just keep swinging. They say who ever wants it most will win & I really want to master CW. How abt you?

I think you may have some wisdom worth stealing there! Thanks.

Sometimes I seem to have loads of time (the letter is obvious), sometimes I'm really struggling to keep up (after a letter that made no sense to me - even though there's only 3 options at the moment!), sometimes it's completely blank . . .

I thought 'swinging' wasn't in fashion any more ;-)

My life is up and down, kinda like a sine wave, and so is mostly everything else.

If you look at any straight line to long, you will definately see a curve, or very least a chord.

The key to sucess is just not to stop:-)

There are definitely "up-days" and "down-days". Yesterday was an "up-day"; started at 73% and ended at 82%. Today's a "down-day"; started at 76% and now down to 64%. Sometimes it is better to stop for a break...

64 characters sent, 39 read correctly, 1 character read incorrectly, 24 characters missed. Final score 61.6%. Definitely too tired to make progress. Another "down" day, I guess. Just wish "down" days weren't out-numbering "up" days by three to one...