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BA7NOM BD4TDO bg5fik BI9AJK bigstones franeash Gomashiba ji2wnv jimmyM K9TUV kameakio Magtour RunnerMoonlight swenny99 test tomokun wb4osu

I'm only on the second lesson and I find myself hearing the word "diplomat" quite clearly when "u" comes up. Has anyone else had this problem? Is it common? I've tried varying the speed but I still hear it.

The only think you ever want to hear is the letter. Anything else is a distraction. I don't usually hear words, but I do hear "di di dah" rather than "u" (and similarly for many other characters), and it's... unhelpful.

In the past it was a way of learning the code.
to couple the characters to some word of same rithm. A word with the same starting charactr as the code presented.

It HAS advantages, especially because you learn the whole character set at once and not piece wise as in the here presented course. A lot of people have difficulties with random code words, and especially because the last added characters are least exercised.

When you learn the code all at once you start with understandable words immediately.

It would be interesting to know how the fast guys process the code. My guess is that they more or less "see" whole words or groups of words, like most people do when reading written words, instead of "hearing" single letters.

One thing is sure though. At the speed at which people like Fabian DJ1YFK can "read" code, you don't have the time to hear "diplomat" (by the way, your brain is being very diplomatic if it offers you exactly this word, there are many other funny options for the letter "U" which come to my mind :-) ).

Here is an example of the letter "U" at speed 100 WpM (the last letter, "Hello Jay Howard, how are you"... check if you can hear "diplomat"):

http://kaczuszka.fkurz.net/cgi-bin/cw.mp3?s=100&e=100&f=800&t=Hello%20Jay%20Howard%2C%20how%20are%20you%20%20%20%20%5E

Georg,

Those rhitmic aid words were used temporarily during the time that you learn the code at very slow speed. As far as I know especially used in the USA for novice licenses in the past that had to master 5 wpm.

The way you read words must be pretty known to you when I look at your results in the high score list.

I am not very far behind you, my way of exercising: listen only once (no repeats) but with fixed speed. (right now 48 wpm)

It works just like DJ1YFK describes in his website and the way that is described in the ebook of N0HFF (free to download)

Hello Lea,

thank you for pointing me to these resources. :-)

In fact right now I'm not at all sure what the real goal is.

Also I practice at fixed speed, usually with a character speed well above the effective speed (I'm not sure if the latter is a good idea or not).

The difference between you and me is that you can actually "read" the code at your speed (48), whereas I absolutely can't do that. In order to hear a word at speeds of around 50, I still have to listen to it often many many times, and usually have to go stepwise through the letters (or very short groups of them, the complete word only works in case of the famous "four-letter-words", hihi). Sometimes I grasp the ending of a word before I understand the complete word, and sometimes it's a part in the middle or the beginning. So, I really shouldn't be in that highscore at all!

At the moment I'm hoping that after a lot of practice and challenge, my brain will eventually find out what to do by itself, but I'm obviously still far away from that. So, I can only guess how true reading at high speeds might "feel" or function.

Do you agree that when moving on from low to high speeds, it does not make much difference whether in the past you have learned the characters with the rhythmic aid words or whether you haven't? My reasoning is that you would have to drop the rhythm aid anyway, sooner or later, at high speeds.

I'll for sure do some reading at the places you have pointed me to!

Cheers
Georg

Georg,

Thank for your kind message.

It is off topic, but anyway the TS starter got his desired answer, so he will allow us to share some information, I hope so, hence I am going to answer you, right here. May be the public HST group is a better place.

What you do: exercising at too high speed and repeating and repeating is what I did in the past and I found out it is not the right way (unless you will present yourself high in the highscore list), but just as DJ1YFK wrote : You are cheating yourself. There are even easier ways to cheat yourself on this web site, even with zero morse proficiency is is easy possible to claim all words OK.

I deleted my often repeating scores and went back to listening only once.

When you start at a speed that you have at least (first trial) fifteen out of 25 words OK, your speed is OK. Do one (as I do) or more exercises each day, till you make at the average above 20 out of 15 words OK. That is the time to increase your speed.

I increased from fixed 45 to fixed 48, that is just the speed increase (for me) that throws me back to at least 15 words OK, and may be an increase with 3 from 45 to 48 wpm is just somewhat high, because it is shown in my graphs as a dip. That is understandable because the number of correct words fall back form at least 80% to at least 60 %, while the "score value" of the results increase 48/45 is about 7%. I accept that because copying words correct is not the problem but copying the incorrect words. So they must be presented in a sufficient way.

Gd luck es mni tks
PD0LDB

I hear a fax machine having a seizure. :)

// Thanks for the resources, Lea.

I'm just going to do what I can to ignore it; not make a big deal out of it. And keep practicing.

Jay

I DO hear Morse code, and by repeating the way Georg advised, I do NOT hear YOU but YOI

So "diplomat" is not possible anyway.

So notice that even at 100 wpm the code takes longer then talking, and can't be produces with any kind of Morse key.

Hello Lea,

thank you for that, and probably you're completely right. De facto, I still have no idea what is the best way for me to practice.

Maybe it helps if I explain my strategy a bit more.

When hearing a word, I try to pick out something like "syllables" (I put that in quotes, because I also really mean packages of letters like "nd", "ng", "ein", "bei" and other things which are very common in German language). I do so not only at the beginning of the word, but I try to hear as many of these syllables as I can, in one listening try.

Then, I wait for a few seconds and let my mind arrange these syllables to something useful (I have to do so, because they often "float around", not in the correct order - this is difficult to explain, but it works optically and auditory at the same time, they "fall into place"). If it doesn't work, I try again.

After one or more tries I will have a pretty good idea what the word probably is. Then comes the real "training" part: I listen to it again and again, and after each listening, I let my mind "get used to the feeling" of the word. Again, this is difficult to explain. What I try to achieve is a relaxed feeling of contentment, somewhat like it feels when you have taken place in a comfortable arm chair. Or, it's like what a dog does when he sniffs at something which is new to him (stupid example, hihi).

As soon as I have that feeling, I hit return and submit the word, no matter if it's really correct or not.

I have noticed that after a few days at a given speed, I get this contentment faster and faster. When I start to get it really soon, I increase speed once more in order to challenge my mind some more, again.

With this strategy, and especially with the help of this site, I have learned to "copy" a lot faster than I had initially hoped (I have once tried to learn CW many years ago, without this site and any good programs, got frustrated and had given up very soon (before I had even learned the 26 standard letters).

My only goal had been (and actually still is), to be able to listen to CW communications as an additional "cluster" for working ssb, i.e. something which will give me additional hints on where propagation goes to (but, I'm beginning to love CW, it's FUN!). Now, after roughly 3 months, I still often have to listen 2 or 3 times, but I am able to copy call-signs on air at a speed of around 50 or 60, which is a lot more than I had ever hoped. :-)

Since I still have the impression that I'm making progress every day, I will try to continue some more with the way I am doing it right now (and hope that, hopefully sooner than later, also at speed 50, I will be able to hear a 15 letter word on first try). But should I notice that I run into a dead end, I will surely take your advice and go on practicing like you advise. Please forgive me for being stupid and wanting to do it my way, I'm always very stubborn. :-)

(Sorry for the off-topic, Jay!)

P.S. Many thanks Lea, the places you pointed me to are really helpful. At this site,

https://sites.google.com/site/tomw4bqf/copyingcwover70wpm

Tom gives me hope that I don't have to ruin my wrist joints any more than they already are (from playing musical instruments) - and also the idea to use a tool which displays written text while listening to really fast ("too fast") CW makes a lot of sense to me.

Hi Greg,

that's enormous! I very much like Jay's comparison with the fax machine! :-)

At 100/100, I have awful difficulties separating each character from the next, let alone figure out what it is. Absolutely no chance for me, at that speed!

Greg
Because the URL presented the transmitted sentence with a u on the end, it should appear in the MP3.
When the final dash disappeared , probably an additional space on the end will correct that.

Georg,
contesters like exercising copying calls, those hams are best of with the use of rufzxp.net and Morserunner.

Interesting to read about your experiences. What I learned from this forum is that some method with good results for some people doesn't work for other people. So some quit Koch because they experienced no progress, and learned another way; others stick with Koch "moving with the pace of continents", a majority just stops after a few lessons, They want to learn the code but will it all for free without spending time and effort.

Koch did scientific research, I took a glance at his thesis, and I am afraid the results he claimed are not reproducable. A phenomenon well known in my country with recently discovered cheating in this scientific field of Psychology.

Hello Lea,

so that's what the trailing spaces are good for. I had removed them so that one could see the "u" at the end, but obviously better should have listened to my inner feelings which told me "don't do it!". :-)

Maybe you or Greg can please check if it's correct now, for me it's really way too fast to tell.

What is really the crucial point in Koch's method? Is it the statement, "don't use Farnsworth, and use effective speed = character speed right away"? Or, is it the idea not to learn all characters at once, i.e., learn character-wise?

If it's the latter, then I have definitely taken advantages from the Koch approach (I learned in packages of three new characters each time, but throwing away the "older" characters at the beginning of each new round to avoid "moving with the pace of continents" - a wonderful expression by the way!).

If, on the other hand, Koch means to avoid Farnsworth, then I haven't even used Koch at all, in the beginning (I started with the G4FON software at a speed which is here at LCWO something like 35/6 or 35/5, maybe even less effective speed).

Or is there something hidden in Koch's thesis, which I have completely overlooked by only reading second-hand abstracts?

By the way, just like you do, I find contesting rather boring. :-)

Cheers
Georg

Georg

You can read the original article from Luwig Koch it is written in German language in Zeitschrift fuer die angewalte Psychhologie und Charakterkunde
Band 50 Heft 1 u. 2 Februar 1936

Yes the link you presented with added spaces shows a U now not an I, but I have to nodd very fast, getting a head ache from that.

In order to improve my income and to handle the increasing load of traffic, I had to increase my speed, this website is very helpfull. Encrypted data contains also punctuation that is essential, so I am exercising with higher speeds punctuation.

Because I have to detect light (Aldis laser lamp) signals, it turns out that I can copy much higher speed when I watch the light source while nodding NO with my head. At very high noddingspeeds this induces a severe head ache, so I stop right now.

Hello Greg,

thanks for the reference to the Koch article!

Nodding makes sense to me for optically transmitted code. But what advantages do you get from nodding when listening to that mp3 file?

73s
Georg

Actually "listening" for me is copying the signal of a LED, because I am only interested in copy of light signals.