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Alexa avlightsome BI1SUD BI3XGJ CN87 drogue dsm ike3 K6DLpaddle KF0GHC ko4cwy kotarou KP4UN MarcTBP mnus22 nj2dx ofe skefkd VA7VW VE6ACF ve7svc zapel

Hi all,

Just back on the site over the last few days to try and improve my skills a bit - up to 20/20 code groups these days, started off here on 15/12 around lesson 14.

Yesterday I was doing really well - I was listening to music & copying cw at the same time and was >90% copy for 2 minutes. I was in a relaxed frame of mind and it just came easily.

This morning a few things went wrong, but I decided to practise anyway - and started finding old problems coming back, is it B or 6, J or a 1? And just losing track generally.

I was irritable to begin with & got more irritable as my mistakes mounted.

Eventually I got a 97% copy, but that was only for 1 minute - but I'm satisfied and wont practise again today.

I'm just wondering, in your experience - on a day like today, is it better not to practise too much and come back when you're more relaxed, or is it important to practise even when you're having a bad day?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

Hi David,

While I love this website and the service Fabian gives us all, there's a big risk for its users to become overly concerned with the results-as-a-numbers-game, and how we wind up feeling, minute by minute, day by day, by what those numbers appear to be telling us about our progress towards our goals.

I really don't think the numbers are actually all that useful, unless you're looking at them infrequently and somewhat skeptically. Just as I never fret over the day to day ebb and flow of the stock market, I don't really care if my CW stats here confirm that I'm having a good day or a bad day -- I simply keep plugging along with a strategy that works for me.

Generally, I practice a lot with MorseMachine as a warm up, then move on to lessons, then take a break. I try to repeat that cycle 3-4 times a day if I can, maybe putting in 20-30 minutes a day on the site. Then, I spend a good amount of time (usually 1-2hrs a day if I can get the time from family) on the air in actual QSOs of my own if I can get them, or just copying interesting QSOs of others, since it's night and day different copying real exchanges, with its unavoidable QRN/QRM/QSB/QLF :) versus machine generated.

So, definitely take my feedback with a grain of salt since your WPM is already significantly greater than mine, but I thought I'd respond since no one else has said anything. Best of luck to you and anyone else reading this.

73,
Marc K2XQ

Your feedback is excellent - we all have to approach this in the way that works best for each of us.

My goal is to be able to do solid copy at 25WPM - and basically, if I'm not getting that consistently, I know I'm not there yet. I set that arbitrary goal as it's the old radiotelegraph standard.

What really interests me is my difference in performance on good days versus bad days - yesterday I came in after a walk and got approx 97% copy - today I struggled to 92%

I feel with enough work, eventually it'll be easy, but it takes a lot of hard work and frustration to reach that level I guess.

If I could figure out how to put my mind into that relaxed, receptive mode each time - learning would be a lot easier :)

I've started listening to real QSO's - they're a lot more interesting than code groups - and even if I reach my solid 25WPM copy here, there's a world of difference between that and trying to copy CW over HF with QRN, QRM, peoples straight key styles and all the other fun.

Thanks for your thoughts Marc, hope to work you on the air some day!

Cheers & 73
Dave

i love this site, and every one of you who is learning and improving on morsecode. only you give my rig a value! i hate microphones.