Between April and early June, I was mainly using the IZ2UUF smartphone app which doesn’t record progress.  In order to push myself, I reverted to LCWO in mid June, as this does keep a record.

At the end of March I was scoring about 60 % accuracy at 17 wpm random letters on LCWO. After reverting to LCWO in mid-June, then by mid-July my accuracy improved to typically 70 % with an occasional burst of 75 %.  By the end of August, it had improved to around 75 % with the occasional burst of 80 % , after increasing the test length to 3 minutes, which, I think, is helping me to feel the letters, rather than think about them.  I think this may be what people mean by ‘head copy’.

At that point, I had some holiday, leaving me a long way from my target of 90 % before going on ‘boot camp’ in October – feel that I’m approaching the limit of my typing speed and accuracy.

Essex CW Boot Camp – 24 October 2026

So when I attended the Boot Camp, my typical accuracy was 80 % at 17 wpm. Whilst this was steady progress for me personally, I was the dunce of the class, because I just can’t recall characters quickly enough. So it was a great experience to meet other enthusiasts, but sadly, and through no fault of the people running the course, I made very little progress.

I’m aware that I need 90 % accuracy at 20 wpm to meet the standards of typical basic operators, and that my sending needs a lot of work too.

The Boot Camp made me realise that for a standard QSO, I need to be as familiar with digits and common symbols as with letters, because these are used in call signs which are the most basic part of a QSO.

Age is not on my side, but I will try to do at least 30 minutes practice a day.  I only recognise maybe half of characters without conscious thought – my goal needs to be recognition of practically all characters, which needs a lot more work.

A lot of my problems arise from confusing characters that are inverses of each other, such as U and D or W and G. I have researched ideas to get over this hurdle, but ultimately only practice will help. I am now reverting to LCWO and practising mixed characters. Not surprisingly, my accuracy has plummeted.

Onward and upward!