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2E0JGT AaronTaitoko alexbel ApolloTyphoon archivist blayne BorisCW brownicha CA3SQH ClydeRadcliffe cnmcn DB4MLA diligence8738 dk6lf DL4LO dl5mle DO7RD domaj11204 EA1IV EA2DUV Edmilsonmariani fbx giobbe GooseTheWise HB9DJQ jl1gji K4GVN K7AMM ka1jxy kb9nuf kc2pk kc3mms KF0TLD KJ5IMT KO6ERD kraigguy KZ4LN lennartsieg LIYIWEI london lu7hge M0hzp M0NFB M0VBY M7FXP mmartin mwagoner N7OVR nk4i Norma OE3MYS PE1FRE persimmonsr pgloesek R2BRA R5FP RLODGE Sciak Scrambles Shaie sign SQ5AMQ sq8j Stinger test Tiptapper wl7fc WY7EE

I've been stuck in the 80%-90% range for about 7 weeks. In the past I increased speed once reaching 100%, or > 90% twice in a row, but at this speed I'm only hitting 90+ every 10 or 20 attempts.

One thing I've considered is jumping to a higher speed for a week, and then dropping back down so that 30/24 seems slow by comparison.

Have I reached my true limit, or is there a way to break through? I'd welcome tips from anyone else who's found themselves in a similar situation.

One thing which is glaringly obvious with CW is that progress is non-linear.I would suspect you have reached a phase of consolidation.

Generally speaking increasing speed after reaching 90% twice in a row is perhaps a bit premature, one should be scoring consistently above 90% and as a result your ICR ("Immediate Character Recognition") may need some work.

I would actually suggest doing the opposite of what you were thinking about, in other words slowing down a bit, maybe to 30/22 and letting things settle down.

On a totally different note, one small tip from my own personal experience is to engage in strength training before your Morse code session (I do push-ups). It has helped me break through some barriers.

Thanks for the tips! I have tried right after doing some pullups or pushups, but found my fine motor control is shaky and I make a lot of typos. Maybe I just need to wait a few minutes longer. I will also try 30/22 after I finish today's attempts (I try to make ten attempts per day, usually with a break in the middle).

I've been stuck at 20/20 wpm for 4 years. Can I swap your plateau with mine?

But, why are you using Farnsworth at speeds >20 wpm? It doesn't make sense.

> But, why are you using Farnsworth at speeds >20 wpm?

I'm not sure I realized I was! Reading about it now... are you saying I have too much space between characters and words? Or that the character speed and effective speed should be equal?

One other thing I have been doing over the years is listening to books I enjoy at 10wpm above my top sending speed.

I started with short stories (R.L. Stevenson and more recently Somerset Maugham, who is one of my favorite authors) and then moved on to novels (Hemingway is very good: nice simple English).

Ebooks2cw is a nice program Fabian wrote for converting Project Gutenberg classics, etc to Morse.

Try listening to "The Old Man and the Sea" at 30/30 or 35/35wpm:

https://ok2cqr.com/hamradio/morse-code/the-old-man-and-the-sea-in-morse

and see how things go.

The goal is just to let the CW flow over you without making an inordinate effort to copy.

Oddly enough, if you are a bit distracted and are doing something with you hands, you will copy better. Go figure, . . .

It has probably something to do with Kahneman's System 1 and System 2.

> The goal is just to let the CW flow over you without making an inordinate effort to copy.

By "copy", do you mean doing this in your head, not writing it down? That seems like a whole other level of difficulty.

I personally think your approach of adding speed makes sense but let me add one more thing. Take a break, a few days off. I find when I hit a wall taking a small hiatus helps me to make those connections in morse better when I return. Add speed to the mix and then slow down like you said. I use word files at high speed and the first word for example is sent at 42 WPM, then 37 WPM, Then 32 WPM and finally 28 WPM revealing the word and then onto the next word. Somtimes I get the word at 42 and sometimes I cannot recognize it until much further down at lower speeds. But over time I have gained speed and break barriers. Best of luck.

> I use word files at high speed

That sounds like a great way to train (and without obsessing over score). I don't see a feature like that here - is there a site or application that does that?

In general I like the idea of mixing strategies - I'm sure it gets the brain to lay down new pathways (kind of like mixing up workouts).

> By "copy", do you mean doing this in your head, not writing it down? That seems like a whole other level of difficulty.

Head copy is really the goal.

Its greatest enemy is the pencil! You have to leave the pencil behind and just listen (obviously, you would write down call signs in QSOs and maybe names, but that's it).

Eventually it happens. It's really quite marvelous when the words start taking shape in your mind for the first time when you listen to code.

Regarding training, there are many schools out there. CWOPS has a lot of very good training material:

https://cwops.org/cw-academy/cw-academy-student-resources/

Their focus is exclusively on head copy from the Intermediate level onwards.

You might want to consider taking their Fundamental or Intermediate courses which are really excellent, although the workload is savage (they say 1 hour/day but it is more like 2:30hrs/day).

The big problem with training a lot with code groups is that you have to write or type them down, then your real limitation is the speed at which you write or type (for me 20wpm).

Then you hit a plateau which is not your Morse copy plateau but your typing or note-taking plateau.

Typing speed shouldn't be an issue - I can type well over 100wpm (everybody in my family can - must be genetic?).

I would say the two main things tripping me up are:

1) I miss a character, but realize what it was a couple of characters later, and try to go back and fix it, but at the expense of losing several more characters. I just have to force myself to push that character out of my head and move on.

2) I space out in the middle of a word, and it takes several characters to orient myself and resume. Being well-rested (and having just lifted weights or something) seems to make this less likely to occur.

I will check out the courses (but even finding 15 minutes per day can be challenging). For me one motivation to do "head copy" would be to sit in the dark and listen to a replay of CW sent from the "Titanic" in its final hours.

A 100 WPM typing is incredible. I can type, lost some speed over the years, around 50-55 WPM and I find trying to keep up with 5 character sets at higher speeds really challenging. So I concentrate on word speed, sentence comphrehension.

So I too am of the mind set the more tools the better when it comes to CW. I use many, but the one I use that starts out a word at a faster speed then slows, called interval training, is a free app called CW Ditto. This app has built in training for 3 to 7 letter words, abbreviations, phrases, call signs, code groups, common QSO's, DIT challenges, sentences using the top 1500 words, 1000's of words , adjustable speeds, spacing and a ton more. I find the interval training very helpful, and I hope it helps you.

Yes being well rested and a fresh sharp mind I find to be key, and like I said in my earlier post taking a break when I hit a wall helps me as well. Best of luck and let me know if you try Ditto CW and if interval training helps. Take care.

> You might want to consider taking their Fundamental or Intermediate courses which are really excellent, although the workload is savage (they say 1 hour/day but it is more like 2:30hrs/day).

ID is dead on! I joined LCWO to refresh my morse and am doing the CWOPS Intermediate course right now. Between the course load and the additional assignments the CW Academy advisor sends us at home (every second day or so), I'm spending an average of 2:30h/day at it.

I unblocked two months to focus on this as I really want to get up and running with morse.

If you can only find 15mns a day to practice, it's not possible.

The benefits however are huge (I'm right in the middle now). I do head copy now and I have upped my speed by 5wpm in 4 weeks (from 15 to 20 wpm).

Thanks Piotr for the additional feedback - sounds really valuable (and intense!).

Also Frank I tried downloading CW Ditto, but the one I found appears to be an Android app? Right now I'm pretty much limited to Windows, iPhone, and browser...

Sorry about that, yes I just checked and it is Android only.

Learning curve for CW really is weird. In my last 10 runs, half were > 90%, so I guess my brain has reluctantly dedicated a few more neurons to the task.

One of the main things still tripping me up is when I have the misfortune of getting a combination such as "SEHIH", and I just keyboard-smash some combination of E/I/S/H hoping to get at least a few right. Perhaps I'll restrict the character set and see if that helps...

"Head copy" is like one of these things everybody speaks but few have experienced. If you can do that, good, but is it necessary? How many professional CW operators did head copy in the 1920s, 30s, 40s?

The instructional video of the British and US Army show military operators at 15 to 25 wpm and that was it, because they all used straight keys and 25-30 wpm is the floor for a straight key. You don't need head copy for 25 wpm. The key is accuracy. One thing is doing 30-40 wpm on random tests online, another thing is trying to make sense of a QSO online. I can copy up to 30wpm on LCWO but I struggle to copy even 15 wmp ragchews on the air.

> oc - M0***: The instructional video of the British and US Army show military operators

Just found a bunch of these on YouTube I hadn't seen before!

Head copy might not be necessary for everyone but I love to do it. In fact it is my favorite to be able to copy different topics, news, stories, history. I probably work at this more unevenly than sending for sure, but I just like it. I enjoy hearing a rag chew on HF and just listening in. It matters what your long term goals are with CW. Initially it was just to copy and learn the basics and then it evolved into what it is now for me. I make contacts, and enjoy it but just listening into dits and dahs to varying stuff is cool. I do not take all of this to seriously and am just having fun with it. It's a great challenging hobby that can drive my wife nuts on occasion...lol :-)

To do head copy, you need to copy at >35 wpm, which is great, but it also negates most of straight key ragchews at 15 to 25 wpm. You literally can't do head copy at less than 25 wpm, it would be too boring. I bet most of these "fists" still write down something. I am not knocking head copy down. If you can do it, good, but the idea that if you can't do head copy you can't do morse is fallacious.

I would agree, that head copy at slower speed is boring but necessary to get your speed up to eventually hit those higher speeds. But there was a time when 20 WPM sounded so fast and unattainable. What is also necessary is building your vocabulary in morse so you can actually recognise the word when you hear it again. But I am not saying head copy is necessary, it most certainly is not to enjoy CW and be a good operater. As for speed, the more complex the subject matter, the harder it is to head copy at higher speeds. Kudos to anyone using a straight key as I only use an iambic paddle which forms everything for me, making my life easier but I enjoy hearing a straight or bug on the air.