so ive been licensed for about 8 months now (tech then upgraded to general pretty quick) and i keep hearing people talk about cw and how great it is for dx and weak signal stuff. i want to learn but honestly have no idea where to even start. like do you just memorize the dots and dashes on paper or is there some better way to do it

i downloaded a couple apps but they all seem kind of different in how they teach it and i dont know which approach is actually gonna stick. someone at my local club mentioned the koch method but didnt really explain it. also not sure what speed i should be trying to learn at, ive seen people say dont start too slow but then other people say start slow so you actually hear the letters. kind of confused honestly

any advice would help, just want to know what actually worked for real people not just what sounds good in theory

Koch method is the way to go, at least thats what worked for me and a lot of people i know. the basic idea is you start with just two characters at full speed — like 20wpm — and you just listen until you can copy them reliably, then you add a third, then a fourth and so on. the whole point is your brain learns the sound of each letter as a whole thing rather than counting dits and dahs which will absolutely wreck you later when you try to go faster.

for software i used lcwo.net which is free and browser based, does Koch straight out of the box. just set the character speed to like 20wpm and the overall speed lower at first (farnsworth spacing they call it) so you have time to think between characters. i spent probably 20 minutes a day for a few months and got to where i could actually pull calls out of a pileup. it takes longer than people think but dont get discouraged when E and T and S all start sounding the same at first, that goes away

also just listening to actual qso's on the air even when you cant copy much yet helps more than people give it credit for

im kind of in the same boat as you so take this with a grain of salt but i've been using an app called Morse Mania on my phone and its actually been pretty decent for just getting started. i do it on my lunch break mostly. only been at it three weeks so i cant say if itll get me to actually making contacts but at least im starting to recognize a few letters without thinking too hard about it which feels like progress

the one thing i noticed is if i skip a day or two i feel like i forget stuff pretty fast so consistent short sessions seems better than doing an hour once a week or whatever