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Thread: How NOT to hear and replay dots and dashes?

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AuthorText


Posted: 2011-03-26 00:22
I'm stuck. I'm having trouble getting straight from hearing a character to the actual character. I keep replaying the rhythm, the dots and dashes, and only then getting the character. By then I'll have missed at least the next character, and more likely the next three or four.

I've tried slowing the character speed down as low as 18, and speeding it up as far as 30, but it doesn't seem to make any difference.

If I slow the word speed down I just get even more time to replay the dots and dashes. If I increase the word speed then I can't write or type fast enough.

Any ideas?
[deleted]

Posted: 2011-03-26 10:48
Hi Rick,

First diagnosis of your problem based on the data you published
here.

Brains can be better or worse in remembering consciously.

You are probably very good in doing that consciously. But this brain proces is time consuming and energy consuming, so remembering consciously is slow and tiring.


The conscious proces gets worse in using time when performend more than a few minutes, and especially when the number of items you have to distinguish increases.

I conclude that is what is happening in your mind. It is excercising the wrong mind proces.

You have to force your mind to work another way around. The same way that people learning touch typing, their fingers fully automatically touching the right keyboard keys, while thinking on other things.

They start learning with 2 characters, and thinking which finger to use but the mind switches pretty fast to the unconscious mode, of pressing the right key without thinking. A bad conscious memory proces helps very much in learning the proces faster. People very good in conscious remembering have more often problems in obtaining the required subconcious mode.

In your case you have to force your mind yo work that unconscious way.

A method may be to make only 1 exercise of 2 minutes , but more times ( 8 times) a day, with a spacing of 2 hours.

After a while, when =every= exercise is above 90% you change to 4 times a day with 2 consecutive exercises of 2 minutes, and so on untill you make 8 exercises one time a day each of them over 90%.

Thats is the moment you have to proceed to the next lesson, and to repeat this algoritme with one additional character.




Posted: 2011-03-28 13:40
Thanks. That makes sense. I have difficulty learning other such skills too; touch-typing and playing musical instruments being two examples. I'll see what happens with the different approach.


Posted: 2011-04-20 20:35
Having spent almost four weeks on lesson 3 (MKUR), and having observed that my average seldom gets better than 75%, and that the overall trend seemed to be towards worse rather than better scores, I decided today, as an experiment, to re-try the earlier lessons. Lesson 1 (MK) was easy enough; 6 attempts in a row all with less than 3 errors. Lesson 2 (MKU), however, needs more work; I just scraped past 90% at the sixth attempt. I guess it's time to work some more on lesson 2 before trying lesson 3 again...


Posted: 2011-05-11 09:04
Still back on lesson 2. I've managed to get to the point (after another 55 attempts spread un-evenly over 20 days) where I could copy one minute at better than 90% most of the time, but I noticed my errors were almost always towards the end. Sure enough, when I tried two-minute exercises my accuracy fell to 80% or less, and the last three days each day's been worse than the day before.

At my present rate of progress I guess I might eventually learn the code this way, but it looks like it'll take me ten years...
[deleted]

Posted: 2011-05-11 11:47
You cannot multiply the time you need for learning 3 characters and end up with 11 years. Attaining morse proficiency is certainly not a linear process with invested time.

Becoming tired with lower results is not bad, because just as with muscles: They adapt to the requirements they could not met and were required to deliver in the recent past. But don't overstress, then you end up crippled.
[deleted]

Posted: 2011-05-11 16:36
All dots and dashes have disappeared for some reason.

Below about 70wpm or so, the letters s and h were a problem for me now s and h are two of the easiest letters to copy.

Every call and word is now copied by reflex and my fingers seem to just find the right keys.

I have noticed though that there are times where I get the call completely wrong but it doesn't happen too often. Generally simple calls too.
Could it be that working with Morse Machine at high speeds daily for 5 minutes or so is helping??



Posted: 2011-05-11 22:49
Explanations of the Koch method I've read elsewhere suggest that you can make a rough estimate of the total time based on the time taken to learn a few characters, but it probably means actual live exercise time rather than days since the start, and I'll concede the point that the first three characters probably aren't a good sample...

I just wish it didn't seem like I was going backwards so often.
[deleted]

Posted: 2011-05-11 23:13
Yes, according to what you can watch in graphs from your companion students, its true for the proceeding thtough the lessons.

However a lot of people have ceilings, sometimes 10 wpm, and again at higher speeds. At abt 50 wpm strange things are going to happen because the brain starts switching to frequency domain decoding instead of time domain decoding.

Probably that is an explanation of the ceiling of 50 wpm that is a well known one.

You have to decide for yourself, make a good estimate and ask yourself the question wether going on or stopping asap because when you stop and you do that later in time, more time is wasted.




[deleted]

Posted: 2011-05-12 01:22
FatherAbsinthe:
"frequency domain decoding".


THANKYOU!

Finally an explanation as to what in the hell is going on.

Craig, AH8DX



Posted: 2011-05-12 13:54
I tall depends on how fast the typical morse QSO is. My guess is it'd be good to get to 20wpm, and there's not much point if I can't get to at least 12wpm. Yesterday evening I managed a couple of lesson 2 two-minute exercises with better than 98% accuracy. Today, with exactly the same settings, the best of my attempts has been less than 88%, and each attempt has been worse than the one before. If I could figure out the reason for the difference...
[deleted]

Posted: 2011-05-12 16:33
When you are sufficient proceeded in lessons you can start in words training (choice in left column of this web site) and choose as language CW abbreviations.

They are very short, 2 or 3 characters and generally when you are proficient at 12 wpm you will not have any problem copying them at 20 wpm.

All hams that use a straight key work 12 up to 20 wpm, average 15 and essential data such as call, name and qth are repeated wide spaced, so take it easy.


Posted: 2011-05-12 19:43
I half-suspect the small random variations in the actual speed of the lessons might have something to do with it. I should note what actual speed the checker reports. A pity the actual speeds aren't recorded in the results table, really. I did notice, on the last two exercises, that one I did well on reported a speed just under 12wpm, and one I did badly on reported a speed nearer 13wpm. However, the one with the slower speed also had more short groups, and the one with the faster speed had more long groups, so difficulties could be due to speed or group length or both...


Posted: 2011-05-15 08:56
Frequency domain decoding. Interesting theory really.

As a reply to the original question I had exactly the same problem, replaying characters quickly in my mind. It really created some kind of brick wall which was very difficult to break. Try not to think, just copy the code. Thinking time is something you want to get rid of.

One thing might help. Try using morsemachine maybe like 15 minutes with the higher speed while singing some easy song in your head. I know, sounds funny but don't interrupt "singing" when you hear the character. It keeps your conscious mind busy and won't let you replay or count anything in your mind.

Also setting the character speed at the same level with effective speed greatly reduces thinking time and also helps you to learn the right rhythm.

After finishing all the Koch lessons at 20/10wpm I was still totally unable to copy random groups at 20/20 wpm level. So what I did, I simply put down the speed at 12/12wpm and started rising it up when I got more than 90% correct. I know, some people say you shouldn't do this but it worked for me. It took only two weeks to reach the level of 19/19 wpm and probably I will continue with this method as far as I can get.

[deleted]

Posted: 2011-05-15 15:30
Mika,

You are on your way, congrats.

Look at 2 things and think abt them:

1. You want to be proficient in code groups, that is nearly the same as callsigns.
You play them back in your mind.
Nice for contesters, don't bother them with rag chewing in plain text.

2. You want to copy plain text by head. In that case you do NOT replay groups in your head.

So decide what you want and decide to exercise with WORDS or with CODE.

When you specialise in one of them don't be disappointed when your speed in the other one is 50 to 70%



Posted: 2011-05-15 16:16
Yes, I see your point. I do different kind of exercises like repeating 500 most common words without writing anything down. Random groups are just for speeding up things and accuracy. Anyway, I have seen improvement in both callsign copying and recognizing words on the fly. Not really sure what happens in my head but maybe I am on the right track. :D

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