so ive been at this for a while now and i just cant seem to push past about 13wpm. started back in the spring at 5wpm and made pretty good progress up until maybe 8 or 9 weeks ago and now its like i hit a wall. i can copy at 13 pretty comfortably if the sending is clean but anything faster and i start to fall apart after like the first minute or two.

my practice routine is just doing the LCWO lessons every morning for maybe 20-30 minutes and sometimes i listen to W1AW code practice on 40m at night when the band cooperates. been using the Koch method the whole time. i know 20wpm is supposedly where it starts to feel more like listening to a language instead of decoding individual letters but im not sure how to actually get there from here.

has anyone else been stuck at this kind of plateau and what did you do to get through it? wondering if i need to change something about how im practicing or just grind through it.

yeah the 13-15wpm wall is super common, i went through the exact same thing a couple years back. what helped me was forcing myself to listen at speeds i couldnt actually copy yet — like i bumped LCWO up to 18wpm even though i was only getting maybe 60% of it. the idea is your brain starts learning the rhythm of the whole character instead of counting dits and dahs. took maybe 3 weeks before things started clicking again.

also one thing nobody told me early on — if youre still writing every single letter down while you practice, try stopping that. just listen and let it go if you miss something. copying by hand keeps you focused on the wrong thing at higher speeds. its uncomfortable at first but it made a bigger difference for me than anything else.

I'm kind of in the same boat honestly, around 14wpm right now so watching this thread. One thing my Elmer told me was to try listening to actual QSOs on the air instead of practice recordings because real operators send a little differently than the computer generated stuff and it forces your brain to adapt. Haven't tried it consistently enough to say if it works but thought i'd mention it.