so ive been a tech for about 8 months now and i keep reading about CW and it sounds really cool but i have no idea where to start. like do people just memorize all the dots and dashes on paper or is there some better way. i tried looking it up and theres a million different apps and websites and i dont know which ones are actually worth using vs just garbage. also is it realistic to learn enough to actually use on air in like a few months or am i setting myself up to be frustrated. i dont have any musical background if that matters

okay so the big thing everyone will tell you and its actually true is dont learn it visually, like dont memorize dots and dashes on paper. your brain will try to count them and youll be stuck forever. the way that actually works is learning each letter as a sound pattern, like the letter K sounds like dah-dit-dah and you just kind of internalize it. look up the Koch method, theres a free program called LCWO dot net that does exactly this. you start with just two letters at like 20wpm and dont move on until you can copy them reliably. sounds weird but it works way better than starting slow and trying to speed up later. took me maybe 4 or 5 months of like 15 minutes a day before i felt okay getting on air, and my first QSO was a mess but the other guy was patient. just dont give up around the 3 letter mark cause thats where most people quit

im kind of in the same boat as you actually, been using an app called Morse Mania on my phone and its pretty decent for drilling the letters. also theres a guy on youtube who does slow code videos which helped me early on. honestly the hardest part for me wasnt learning the letters it was copying in my head without writing everything down, i still struggle with that. no idea if i have the musical thing either and it doesnt seem to matter much so far