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I'm currently about to move to level 11. I had been having a bit of difficulty on level 10. To be honest it was pretty frustrating as my scores were way down but I decided to stick with it at 25/8 rather than slow it down. However today I was messing around with a morse key and a buzzer trying to key the letters I was familiar with from the cover of some books that were sitting on my desk and also keying my callsign (which resulted in needing to learn an additional 2 characters and a number). I found that I was able to remember the characters from lesson 10 quite easily despite having difficulty identifying them when they were being sent to me on the program.

I then spent some time on here trying the TX Training but neither the touchpad or the mouse were quite as responsive as the actual key (Czech Military Key) I did find that it helped me when I went back to Lesson 10 as I can now consistently score around 98% with the majority of errors being due to having to skip a character. They definitely seem to come much slower than they did so clearly I'm reacting more quickly and the response is becoming automatic (less thinking time).

It got me wondering when the recommended time is to start TX Training or is it simply a case of doing whatever works?

Xmitting involves keying in your own time.
There are two things to remember - what you are saying and what the letters for it are are in morse.


Decoding involves:-
selecting the morse to decode from the noise
getting the timing and working out if the spacing are correct
decoding the char you just heard whilst at the same time hearing/remembering the morse for the next char
remembering what you just decoded to piece it together whilst at the same time . .
making sense out of what you just pieced together OR re interpreting it ( whilst continuing to note the fresh morse which is still arriving)
remembering what it all meant so you can reply, whilst at the same time


Keying is good fun and you might need paddle practice
but
it in no way helps decoding - which is the main bug-bear, so in my view it's mostly a "side track" and a nasty temptation away from the business in hand

Many of the 90% or so who give up managed to become good keyers and know ALL morse AFA keying-in-your-own-time is concerned
i.e. it is not difficult to pick up . .


Four things to bear in mind:-

1/ Keying is (generally reported as being) much easier to learn than decoding.
2/ There is no point in keying faster than you can decode, because you will have to slow down to indicate your receiving speed to the other OP.
3/ It's a different skill set, so keying won't help you much.
4/ It's a tempting side track when you are beginning to run out of steam

Better to start listening to lots of morse files on your phone . .
Try sending car number plates, street names, advertising slogans to yourself as you walk along ( like the Bletchley WRENS did during the war )
Get the XYL, kids, Great Uncle Bulgaria etc to learn too so you can practice BOTH by di-dahing each other over breakfast ( G.U.B. might know it anyway from a past life )

YMMV

enjoy anyway

cb

I too have an iambic key and at lesson 12 wondered if I should be learning that TOO. This looks like good advice. It's tempting, but I'll wait until I can decode reliably.
Thanks to the seasoned comments!

Hi Chris, I find myself trying to convert everything to code in my head, anything with writing in the workshop, tools, labels etc but I guess there's not much point practicing sending when I don't even know all the letters yet never mind being able to decode a message.

That said it did help me become more familiar with the characters I was struggling to distinguish a couple of days ago, I was having difficulty scoring consistently above 90% with quite a few characters in the string being missed altogether. After a few hours spent off and on coding and keying book titles and so on (missing out the letters I didn't know) I was able to consistently score 97%+ on a 2 min run at L10 with the mistake being due to a character being missed rther than being incorrect.

That said I'll avoid keying unless I'm really struggling to detect partricular characters. Decoding does sound much more difficult for the reasons you mention. Receiving/decoding is basically reactive with the problems that come with it, sending I'd be working to my own speed (Up to point) and I'd know what messsage I'm sending before I send it.

Unfortunately I don't have anyone who can practice with me so I'm on my own on this. Never mind though, I never thought it would be easy :-)

Thanks for the advice.

Point is: for keying you should use charactr speed = effective speed (no Farnsworth). For learning to decode you choose to use Farnsworth.

Start keying may be a good opportunity to move away from Farnsworth and use 10/10 speed or so. All this "hear the sound only" and "don't count dots" will all come in time by itself. Important point is to start with a reasonable speed like 8/8 (for the first few weeks) and then 10/10, slowly increasing to 12/12 or what you reasonably can do.

And it is worth giving a straight key a try. You can learn the keying timing simply by letting the computer play morse code and you key the same in parallel.

The advice to key only when you can decode is coming from pre-PC times...

Good luck!

Hi mora 46,

Gerd, he/she has a Czech Military Key, I think this is a straight key.

If you have fun keying,just do it! Use your Czech Military Key.

I did it as Gerd described, playing code from the computer and sent it with my key in parallel.
You can use a cw decoder on the pc to get a feedback if your code is ok. And you can record your sending and than listen to the recording.

Do you have a radio? Normally the amateur radios have a build in keyer.

Above all, have FUN!

Rüdiger
DD5RK

Gerd, I'm not yet familiar with what the differences are between Farnsworth and Koch or what exactly character speed and effective speed means, currently just decoding at 25/8 and don't have anyone who can demonstrate and explain what the various terminology means.

Rudiger, I only have a hand held radio at present so no built in keyer

.

I started sending CW after clearing all the 40 lessons at around 14WPM. I use a straight key, and now also realise that switching over to paddle key has its own learning curve.
The motive for me to start making CW QSOs was to test my learning 'on the air'. It at least gave me a feeling that what I have learnt so far is getting put to use. And that I don't lose interest by waiting for 100% perfection in CW reception.

Hi Mora,

some reading will answer your questions:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_code#Farnsworth_speed

The Art and Skill of Radio-Telegraphy
A Manual For Learning, Using, Mastering And Enjoying
The International Morse Code As A Means Of Communication
William G. Pierpont N0HFF

ZEN AND THE ART OF RADIOTELEGRAPHY
Carlo Consoli, IK0YGJ
Rev. 20101008

The FOC Guide to
Morse Code Proficiency
by Gary Hinson, ZL2iFB Version 1.5 September 2020


The Road to CW
Second Edition
April 26, 2016
de W4ALF – Christian Bravo

You get all of this as .pdf in the Internet.

You have a call sign, so you are radio amateur.
A radio amateur needs a TRX and an antenna. ;-)

73
Rüdiger
DD5RK

Hi Ruedigier, that's great, thank you for the information, it's difficult as a beginner to find information as it's difficult to know what to ask or even search for.

Best Regards :-)