so ive been a tech for about a year and a half now and i keep hearing people talk about cw on the air and honestly it sounds really cool but i have zero idea where to start. like do you just memorize all the letters first? do you listen to it slow? ive tried a couple apps but they just throw random letters at you and i get frustrated after like 10 minutes and give up.

i guess my question is what actually worked for you when you were learning from scratch. im not trying to be contest grade or anything i just want to be able to have a basic qso someday. is there like a method that actually sticks or is it just grinding it out until it clicks

okay so the thing that finally made it click for me after two failed attempts was the Koch method, specifically using a program called lcwo.net — its free and you basically start with just two characters at full speed, like 20wpm, and you only add a new character when you hit a certain accuracy threshold. sounds weird but it forces your brain to hear the sound as a whole letter instead of counting dots and dashes.

the counting dots thing is the trap that kills everyone. if you learn it slow enough to count, you will count forever and it becomes a crutch. i know that sounds harsh but i wasted like three months doing it the wrong way before someone here actually told me that. also honestly just 10-15 minutes a day is way more effective than an hour once a week, your brain needs the repetition over time not all at once. give lcwo like a solid two weeks before you judge it

yeah im kind of in the same boat as you actually, been at it for maybe six weeks now. what helped me was also just listening to really slow qsos on the CW portions of 40m late at night, even when i couldnt copy most of it. something about hearing real contacts instead of computer generated stuff made it feel more worth the effort i guess. also there's an app called Morse Mania that i found a bit less aggravating than some others, it kind of eases you in. still slow going but i feel like im making progress finally