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I just finished lesson 40 at 20cpm/5wpm speed.

What is the best progression method to use from here?

Example:
Stay at lesson 40 and work this progression:
21/5
22/5
23/5
24/5
25/5
25/6
25/7...
25/15

Hi

If you did all 40 "lessons" in 12 days from scratch and can get now 90% consistently then you probably have fairly high aptitude
( which may mean that you could have gone a bit faster but then you risk problems if you overestimate your actual aptitude )

You could anyway therefore try brushup's plan :-

https://lcwo.net/forum/1503

The idea is to get to the same value of cpm as wpm instead of Farnsworth spacing . . .


You may want to try listening to lots of "normal" morse too, but as you maybe won't have spent as much time on the "lessons" as other people, so maybe you aren't fed up with them . . .

A consensus here ( a bit of a rarity ) is not to increase the cpm and keep the wpm the same. 30/5 is not much use . . .

Maybe the other way round 20/6 20/7 20/8 but even then the consensus is against it . . .

What speed are you aiming for ??

YMMV

Good luck with it ( sounds like you don't need it really )

Let us know how you get on . .


cb

SURE NOT
it is descibed often on this forum.

With 20/5 you have the same throughput (number of characters) as 9/9.

9/9 is normal spaced Morse code you want to learn.

So go decreasing the twenty and increasing tje 5. Exercice only lesson 40,

till you end up with 9/9

After that go to 10/10 11/11 d12/12

Then it is time to go to the CW bands yo meet other ham radio operators.

55

Thanks Chris and FM.

I tried going to 9/9 and I can't get a single letter--there isn't enough space between letters for my mind--I can't discern the separation between letters, and the 20 cpm rhythm I learned is gone.

I am wondering if I messed myself up trying to start at 20/5.

My long-term goal is 20-25 wpm I suppose, but I'd just like to get on the radio and talk to people in the short term.

Wondering at this point if just starting over at lesson one again at 15/15, or even 20/20 is the best way forward?

Has anyone found that useful?

There seems to be a repeat of the same question over and over. I wonder why. IP addresses might give a clue.

You'll have people telling you to drop Farnsworth and restart at ridiculously low speeds not used by anybody on air.

And there are people who will tell you it was probably a mistake starting at 20/5.

I started at 20/5 and it didn't work for me.

Then I restarted at 20/15, finished the lessons, yet not good at decoding on air.

You want to start as close as possible to your target speed. If you feel ready for 20/20 and enjoy the challenge, go for it. But don't restart from lesson 1. Start at lesson 40. It will be a nightmare at first. Then go back to lesson 39, etc, until you're doing no more than 20% errors. 20% error is manageable. Stay here until you get to 10% errors, then move to next lesson. It will take you less than a month to get there. Your brain will have to get used to a higher speed, but the brain is not linear. Slower doesn't mean easy and faster doesn't mean hard.

I speak 4 languages on top of my native one. I hate it when native speakers slow down when they speak to me, as if I was a complete idiot. Do you get the analogy?

Don't forget Word and Callsign training. These two are more important than lessons. On Linux, I also use QRQ from Fabian and morse classic from Eric S Raymond.

I don't think there is a perfect way. There is no harm in variety so you might try different methods and see how they go. Anyway there is a lot of variety on the bands so getting used to it might be a good idea.

Since you are now used to 20/5, it might be useful to change it gradually before you get to 9/9 (or a bit higher). For example, the steps can be 18/6, 16/7, 14/8, 12/9, 10/10.

Challenging yourself from time to time with speeds higher than 20/5 (both character and effective) might also be interesting.

Thanks for the suggestions, OC & Greg. I'll play around with the various methods you suggested.

I can't really advise what's right for you, but can give you an idea what I did. From looking back at the LCWO records I can say that:

After many false starts, I ended up staring the 40 lessons at 20/12, this was in September 2019. I was mainly using 2-minute long lessons and trying to at least 3 2-minute lessons per day (quite often more).

I made progress - going to the next lesson when I got to 90% correct a few times. By February 2021 (yes that's more than a year and thousands of lessons later) I was at lesson 22 and decided to up the speed a bit to 20/15.

I continued on to lesson 40 using 20/15 - I got to 90% copy on lesson 40 in February 2022 (another year later).

I then started to up the speed to 20/16, 20/17 etc each time waiting until I got back to 90% correct a few times before moving on.

I started to first really get 90% correct at 20/20 in about July 2022.

I have kept practicing and it is now January 2023 and I can get 90%+ quite often at 20/20.

This took 4600+ lessons, with 1000+ of those being on lesson 40 (getting from 20/15 to 20/20) and some 3+ years of practice (almost) every day. I also used the 'word training' at various speeds up to 24 wpm.

So, at least for me, it didn't happen overnight.

Right now I'm continuing with my LCWO practice and listening to contacts on-air (which I am getting better at, thankfully). I'm also trying a bit of sending, which is also getting better.

I'm hoping to have managed to make my first QSO at some point before I reach the 4-year mark in September this year.

Big thanks go to Fabian for developing this resource that has let me learn this, essentially, without any other input, other than LCWO.

G7UUT, at which speed did you feel comfortable enough to go on air? I can copy LCWO random text at 20/18 but on air it sounds gibberish to me.

And, how come you have a G7 callsign?

Well, as I said, I've yet to make my first QSO, but I'm understanding more of what I hear on-air now, so I think I can confirm that aiming for something like 20/20 is certainly a good target.

As far as understanding is concerned, I've also found it useful to listen to suitable QSO-like practice material, have a look at this webapp here: https://seiuchy.macache.com/.

I have a G7 callsign as I'm a (former) 'class B' licencee - we were not allowed to use HF as we hadn't passed the morse test. Obviously all that was changed when the morse requirement was removed.

I should have learned morse code years ago and taken the test, but it didn't happen until now (by which time the test is gone - probably for the best!).

Sorry, I thought you had to surrender the G7 and get an M0 to get on HF. One lad at the local radio club told me he had a G7 and didn't want to surrender it because he only used 2m but clearly he was talking rubbish.

Pretty sure that's not the case. My G7 licence document (the one you download from OFCOM) says 'Amateur Full Radio Licence' (or similar words).

If the 'lad' in quesion had a class B licence 'back in the day' (like me) then he doesn't need to do anything to go on HF. He can check by looking at his licence document from OFCOM, if it says 'Full Licence' (rather than 'Foundation' or 'Intermediate') then he can use HF (and/or any of the other frequencies that are available to amateurs).

Same as G7UUT, I'm a G6 passed my Class B in 1982 ... was away from amateur radio for 35 years, came back as a G6 with a Full licence ... decided I should pull my finger out and learn morse, I have signed up with CWops for a guidance and encouragement ... only been at it for a few months, but really seeing some advancement, I use a trainer to listen to in the car, LCWO and morsecode.world as part of the CWops course .. really enjoying this new aspect of the hobby, just keep at it and good luck --...,...-- Jon

> just keep at it and good luck

Both essential! in my experience of this, at least...

Best of luck to you!