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brianshaw009 Decker JJ5RAT lomoalbert Magtour MTFUJI1 N8YQM pochi PU2TYL reberu1100T skmttty Tapsnap test ttty WT5O ykom3

After watching a youtube video from a ham operator recommending a character speed of 30 wpm, and as for the effective... I don't remember. Im right now floating between 30 and 35, and at about 4 effective. I cant click my thumbs any faster on my smartphone, and the clacking of my keys when im at the keyboard is too loud over the audio. When I try to say the character in my head without hands on a keyboard or a smartphone in my face, I am drawing blanks. Advise?

Can you actually make out the morse for each character at 30wpm ????

You may find changing the audio frequency, even a small amount helps you quite a bit, becasue your ears audio sensitivity may well change over even a few hz . . .

If you can hear it properly, then making out the character in your head is just a matter of more practice.

Be very careful about typing in as you listen.
You can end up with just a direct ear-to-keyboard link.

I think 20 wpm and above is fast enough for you to hear the whole character as one unit, rather than individual dots and dashes.

Try a few short sessions a day rather than one long session at first.

Put some morse on an mp3 player.

Practice translating licence plates and shop sign as you walk around.

Good luck

Don't give up

Don't take any notice of people who picked up 25wpm effective in two weeks

Don't keep measuring your speed

Just listen to lots (and lots ) of morse at a slow enough effective speed

I agree with cb-Chris. Lots of listening practice. Practice, practice and MORE practice!

I have the same issue. I'm in lesson 27, after 4 months 20/3 wpm. Working with morsemachine I'm over 5 (in the begining much lower) efective. I hope one day when I'll finish with the lessons to be able to recognise whole words

With morsemachine i am able to get 30/7 after some practicing.
With the lessons i can get 18 wpm, and 15 effective. But in that case i have to repeat the lessons a few times. After a few signs i lose track of them.

You can start on learning whole words right now fora nice change . . . made from letters you already mastered.


Make yourself some .mp3 files using ebook2cw

I had to tweak the rise time because of my ears can't cope with sudden loud noise
and
I have a number of files of different audio frequencies
because
my ears don't have a very flat response.

YMMV

Excellent idea cb - Chris

cb-Chris:

Not sure what you mean by - Be very careful about typing in as you listen.
You can end up with just a direct ear-to-keyboard link.

I'm just getting started - what other options are there?

The ideal idea is to read morse directly into language, as you hear it.

In fact quite a few people report just hearing the words themselves and becoming almost oblivious to any morse being present

You should be aware though, that if you aren't a fast typist, you may end up learning a link between the code character and a key on the keyboard.


Of course typing is important for transcribing messages xmitted above a certain wpm
and
if you want to type directly into this website for automatic speed/accuracy checking
BUT
my advice FWIW is that you really want to aim to read code in your head rather than say, typing down the text of a whole "over" and then reading it back to yourself.




Some people pick up morse at 25wpm in a week or two, and won't need any help from me.


MANY others spend months practising, find progress has slowed and then give up.

I think only a few main factors slow people down ( here are five, in no particular order of importance )

1/ hearing performance - choose an audio frequency at which you can hear code without straining to listen - a few Hz each way can make a difference

2/ trying to speed up too quickly
- you probably aren't going to get to 25wpm in a fortnight
- you don't need to keep spending time testing how fast you are going . . .

3/ trying to learn two things at once and managing neither - eg. learning to type and to decode

4/ bad earphones or buds with the wrong size seal

5/ word/letter/spelling issues



repeat repeat is good is good

don't try speeding at until you are ok with almost all the characters
( some will mess you up for ages ( maybe b and 6 for example ) )




You could read the relevant sections in these two tomes - if you havn't already


http://www.qsl.net/ik0ygj/enu/ZART_r20101008m.pdf

http://www.n9bor.us/images/pdf/n0hff_3.pdf

My typing speed is not very fast so I have fallen into:
cb-Chris:

Not sure what you mean by - Be very careful about typing in as you listen.
You can end up with just a direct ear-to-keyboard link.

I am on lesson 6. I have the keyer on the radio set to 15 wpm and my keying is very good and is between 15 wpm and 18 wpm with a few errors. I have been thinking of boosting my radio keyer to 20 wpm so that my code sound like the lessons. Would that be a good way to learn to associate the sound with the letter?

Comments?
Ideas?

I'm rather against attempts to speed up all the time.

Some people are very quick at picking up morse, some not so quick ( eg me )

Personally, I'm not so sure that learning keying helps you to read code, but keying needs learning as well, so go as fast as allows you to make progress.

IMNSHO an mp3 player and some morse files would be the best decoding next step . . .

Clarification. I am using The Ham Whisperer http://www.hamwhisperer.com/p/morse-code-course.html and lcwo at the same time so that I can do both slow and fast code. I am up to lesson 6 in The Ham Whisperer. I have talked to a number of amateur radio operators in the clubs that I am in and they told me that many people cannot slow down from 25 wpm because they do not recognize code at 5 to 15 wpm. With me it is a question of literacy to be able to handle from 5 to 25 wpm.

I am now saying the letter as I type when I am practicing on lcwo.

Well

this is because they learned almost all of the common words, Q-code, and abbreviations as (effectively) single characters - same way as we all read and hear whole words.


YMMV FWIW
I doubt that anyone who normally uses 25 wpm will have difficultes ( other than falling asleep ) with 10 wpm
but
if you spent 20 years at 35wpm it might sound a bit odd and rather annoying . . .

What they mean is that they're have to work at it like the rest of us rather than just hearing whole words. That is to say . . .

other people will tell you they don't notice the morse anymore and just hear the content as if it was being spoken.

Slow right down and it's like saying:-

"h" "e" "l" "l" "o"

- you now have five characters to copy and remember

and

then you have to combine them for the word . .

Lots of effort.


If I was you . . .

I would just learn all the code as quickly as you can
Go for speeding up afterwards, which actually will happen without so much effort . . .

Good luck with it anyway.

Enjoy

cb

Hi Chris, than how could I avoid
cb-Chris:

Not sure what you mean by - Be very careful about typing in as you listen.
You can end up with just a direct ear-to-keyboard link.

What if I make my notes on paper and than type it back to check? Is that beter/safer?

Probably you won't have this problem . . .

You can make sure you haven't by just listening and not writing anything . . .

The idea is that when you hear the code for a letter
( later probably a whole word, q-code, abbreviation etc )
the meaning aasociated with the morse just pops into your mind.



If you are not so good typing its probably better to just listen,
else if you can type OK you don't need any help from me
but
I'm trying to stop some poor people from spending ages learning away just to find they need a keyboard all the time . . .

The drop out rate for learning morse is rather high I think . . .

enjoy anyway

cb