In earlier decades, the ability to ‘read’ Morse code was necessary to get a full ham licence .  I had no easy way to learn it – I annoyed my family trying to persuade them to help and I gave up.

It is worlds different with the Internet, and I have subscribed to LCWO.net (Learn CW online).  CW means ‘continuous wave’ and is used to refer to Morse, since this is sent by switching a continuous RF carrier on an off, using a Morse key. (The tone you hear in the receiver has not been transmitted – it is generated by the receiver when the carrier is detected.)

LCWO uses the ‘Koch’ method of teaching Morse, and I really like it very much indeed.

It presents Morse characters in a structured way over 40 lessons, starting with the letters K and M (–·– and ––).  Each lesson introduces a new letter, starting with the 3-character letters, i.e. U and R (··–, ·–·), then adding further letters E and S (·, ···), continuing to build up letters with small differences.

You are presented with groups of 5 characters at random from the set you are learning, in a 1-minute sequence.  You are encouraged to keep the character speed at 20 WPM so that you learn the sound of each letter.  You are not supposed to learn the sequence of dots and dashes.  As you receive a group, you can write the letters on paper or type directly into a window on-screen, and then ask the system to check for errors.  I couldn’t write them down quickly enough by hand, but as I’m a touch typist, it was possible for me to type them into the checking window.

At first it was very difficult to recall and type the letters, but you can increase the letter spacing and I found that I could manage with a character speed of 20 WPM but letter spacing of 10 WPM.  Each time you run it, the character sequence is different and I have a feeling that it more frequently presents the letters you get wrong.

For example, I could not distinguish R and K, whilst I had no problem with S and U. R caused my brain to freeze and by the time I’d decided it was an R, and not a K, I’d missed the next group of letters.   E and M are easy, but the shorter letters take less time so need a quicker response when typing.

Progress

I’m going to blog my progress as an experiment which might help future traveller on the same journey.

First Report – 11th September 2024 – on Lesson 6

My first lesson was on 3rd August 2024.  However, I had 2½ weeks away  in August , so I’m charting my progress from 11th September 2024.  At this point, I have spent maybe 30 minutes a day for 6 weeks on it, and I’m on lesson 6, so I’m not a great student.  But some of the letters are now starting to ‘sing’ to me: I don’t have to think, but I’m still hoping to see the letters appearing like writing in my mind’s eye! I’m hoping to have completed the lessons by Christmas and to start increasing my speed.  We’ll see!

12 days later – lesson 9

Now I’m on lesson 9, so that’s 4 days per lesson. With 31 lessons to go, that’s 124 days or 4 months, I’m looking at the end of January 2025 at this rate!  My problem is confusing A and N, R and K. I’ve been practising just these four letters in the hope that I won’t keep hesitating over them, but I find R is a real menace.

Reading the experience of others, it seems that 10 words per minute isn’t a bad speed, and that when you’re writing the letters down, it is quite difficult to get above 15 words per minute, which is 75 characters per minute, so well above 1 character per second.  To go faster, you need to be a touch typist.  If I ever get to 20 wpm, I’ll be super delighted.

Day 21 – 2nd October

I’m on Lesson 10 – Letter L –  thus my progress has slowed.  I have been practising regularly but perhaps not intensively.  My issue seems to be hesitation over letters beginning with ·– of which there are many: A, R, L and P, along with confusion of ·– and –·  So I have decided to stick with this lesson until these become embedded.

Day 30 – 11th October

I’m still on lesson 10, but to be fair I did have 6 days away, so I have had 8 practice days on this lesson.  After my 6 days away, I’d certainly dropped back and had to spend two days practising my ‘bogey’ letters, which helped a lot. I’m starting to enjoy the differences between A, R and L (increasing number of dits after the dit-dah).

I’ve decided to move on to Lesson 11 which is W (·––).  My brain is saying, ‘Oh, that’s unfamiliar!’ so I must be starting to recognise some (but by no means all) of the other characters without conscious thought.

Day 42 – 23rd October – Lesson 12- letter I (··)

I’ve had a long weekend away and it really does make a difference. Although I know all the letters, I sometimes have to think,  which means that I miss the next ones in the sequence. This is the half-way point in the alphabet and I’m going to try to consolidate these before moving on.

Day 51 – 1st November – Lesson 13 – Stop (·–·–·–)

I’ve now submitted 300 attempts and my average score is over 90 %, but I don’t submit attempts that are clear failures – such as when I get completely lost. In actual fact, I reckon I’ve done at least twice that many listenings that I have discarded.  I’m moving on to lesson 14 (letter J) today. I feel that I am getting better at rapid recall, and occasionally I know a letter without consciously thinking ‘what was that?’.  It’s quite a strange feeling when the letter just appears.

Day 60 – 10th November – Lessons 14 J (·–––) and 15 Z (––··)

Really struggling! I’m running at a letter speed of 20 wpm with an effective word speed of 9 wpm but I’ve put in an additional word spacing of 0.1.  The extra word spacing has helped to improve my accuracy greatly, because it gives me a little more recall time when necessary.  Still an average of 4 days per lesson, with 26 to go!

Day 68 – 18th November – Lesson 16 =(–···–)

Now over 360 attempts and I’m plugging on with the next character, the = sign, sounding very different from anything else. Not half-way yet.  I’m really trying to listen behind each sound – my main problem has become slow recall of some obstinate sounds.

Day 78 – 28th November – Lessons 17 (F··–·), 18 (O–––), 19 Y(–.––)

Over the last 10 days I’ve added around 80 attempts and 3 new letters. It isn’t getting easier because more letters are being thrown at me and so there is more opportunity for confusion: for example F and U are quite similar.  However, I no longer need to think about some of the early letters, so they must me gradually sinking in.

Day 92 – 12th December – Lesson 20  ,(––··––)

I’m back after a week away from home.  I spent several sessions practising the eight characters giving me most trouble to ensure I could distinguish them at 20 wpm, but I’m still not perfect on them.  Since first starting, I have now registered 566 attempts, but as I’ve said previously, this excludes attempts that I failed to complete.

Day 100 – 20th December – Still on Lesson 20 , (––··––)

It’s Day 100 and although the only real significance of this is an artefact of our choice of numerical base, it’s still worth a note.  I haven’t made progress. I think this is partly because I have been busy with other tasks so have only registered 30 attempts since day 92.  Problems occur when I have to think about a character causing me to  miss the following ones. I have come to the conclusion that sessions lasting less than half-an-hour don’t help me to get better at all. I probably could manage the next letter, V, as it seems simple and distinct. but I’m reluctant to move on until I’ve really firmed up this first half.

Day 109 – 29 December – Lessons 21/ 22  Letters V (···–) and G (––·)

This is essentially my end of year report. I’ve just now moved to letter G, which is still very unfamiliar, after finding V fairly easy.   I’ve now submitted 625 attempts, and I have now slowed down to 5 days per character, although that includes several days off during December.   I’m still finding = difficult, even though I started it 40 days ago.  However, I can at last hear the three dots in the middle of that character, so hopefully it will now be easier, as lesson 23 is the digit 5, which is five (rapid) dots.

At this rate of progress, I’m looking at completing the lessons by the end of March – that means I will have taken twice as long as I thought when I started in early August. However, my effective speed should be around 8 wpm, which would be fairly reasonable.

Day 118 – 7 January 2025 – Lesson 23  Digit 5 (·····)

I moved onto lesson 23 – Digit 5 – on 30 December, 9 days ago, because I’d found V, in particular, easy.  But I then had a couple of days off at New Year, mainly because I had a bad cold.  This has set me back.  My problem is hesitation – not instantly recognising certain characters – rather than confusing some characters, so I guess it is recall speed that I’ve got to improve. I’ll plug on, but it seems a long road ahead.

I’ve made some enquiries about sending practice.  My big problem is that most of my evenings are taken up with bell-ringing practice. These practice nights have been settled for decades and are immutable.  I take Monday evenings off to attend my local radio society, but they’re not doing much practical work at present.

Day 128 – 17 Jan 2025 – Lessons 24 & 25:  / (–··–·) and Q (––·–)

I’ve spent most of the past ten days practising ‘code groups’ with the last ten characters as I was finding these more complex patterns difficult to recall quickly.  This means my learning rate has dropped to 5 days per character.  Next we start plugging away with the other digits. At the present rate, that’s another 75 days – still on track for the end of March.

Day 142 – 31 Jan 2025 – Lessons 26 & 27:  9(––––·) and 2 (··–––)

We’re really getting into the long characters with these digits. I’ve had several days away on other things, so progress is slow. My accuracy is not improving and with more digits and some long letters to follow, I must get my head down again.

Day 148 – 6th February 2025 – Lessons 28 to 30: H, 3 & 8

Lesson 30 – only 10 more to go! But my rate has dropped to 5 days per lesson and I’m trying to avoid the temptation to rush through the last 10 characters, because I can still finish by the end of March.  I’ve had a total of 778 attempts including both the lessons and the character groups.  That’s five attempts per day on average. I’ve used the character groups to help firm up the distinctions between some characters that I hesitate over.  Looking back, it’s interesting to note that some characters that gave me trouble are now as clear as a bell, although some that were clear have become muddy.  For example, S was quite clear, but now I’m onto H, distinguishing S, H and 5 (···,····,·····) needs more effort.

Day 157 – 15th February 2025 – Lesson 31: B (–···)

I’ve had a total of 814 attempts so far and I’m really struggling with the digits – I’ve done 5, 9, 2, 3 and 8, so that’s half of them. I know the distinctions between them but I often have to think about what I’ve just heard. Interestingly, I’ve become reasonably good at distinguishing S, H and 5.  My problem is still speed of recall since moving back from the code groups to all 31 characters. With three letters, 5 digits and one symbol left, the end is in sight. I’m glad because I’m getting a bit disheartened regarding my speed of recall.  All I can do is to practice every day: I do think I’m putting the time in.

To keep up my rate of progress, hopefully I will have tackled ? and 4 by the next report. I’ve had a few long sessions today and I think I’m making progress again.

I note that the old Post Office Morse test didn’t include any symbols, and that letters and digits were tested separately.  However, since call signs are a mixture of letters and digits, that was a bit of a let-off.

Day 168 – 26th February 2025 – Lesson 32: ? (··––··)

I’m up to a total of 700 attempts on lessons  and 151 on code groups. I haven’t been doing as many attempts per day due to other demands, but my accuracy is improving and I’m ready to start Lesson 33 (digit 4) today. It will be a tall order to finish the lessons by the end of March.

Day 177 – 7th March 2025 – Lesson 33 – 35: 4 (····–),  7(––···), C (–·–·)

Perhaps I’ve stepped on a bit too far in 9 days but 7 and C are familiar to hams anyway.  There are 2 letters (D and X) and three digits (0, 1 and 6) to go and 24 days to the end of the month, so I could finish all the lessons by then, although I will be away for a few days. I’ll need to intensify my practice, as speed of recall is once again an issue, especially some of the punctuation characters.

Day 189 – 19th March 2025 – Lesson 36-37: 1 (·––––),  D (–··)

I’ve been away for a long weekend, which has limited my progress, plus getting a new Anytone Hand-held (mentioned elsewhere) has been a distraction. My speed of recall has worsened with being away, but with three more characters left, I can hopefully cover them in the 12 days remaining this month.

Day 196 – 26th March 2025 – Lessons 38-40: 6(–····), 0(–––––) ,
X(–··–)

Yippee! I’ve reached the last of the 40 lessons and now need to improve my speed and accuracy.  I can manage all characters sent at 20 wpm  with a character spacing giving 8 wpm plus an extra 0.1 word spacing. The characters I learnt earlier on, especially those with special uses, now ‘speak’ to me – in other words, I just know them.  I’ve spent the last few sessions using the custom code groups feature to rehearse similar characters, especially B, H, X, =, ? and the digits, as I’m still hesitating or getting them confused.

End of March 2025 My Goal is Reached !!

So I have reached my goal of learning the first 40 characters.  I shall now gradually increase the effective word rate – I’d like to reach the old Post Office test rate of 12 wpm, and then start sending practice.

I’m told that one reaches barriers at certain points and that these can require a lot of persistence to breach.  This has been my experience with change-ringing, which has taken years of persistence. I just hope that my brain hasn’t become too inflexible.