so i got my technician license a few months ago and ive been reading that a lot of people really recommend learning CW even though its not required anymore. i tried downloading one of those apps a while back but honestly i just tapped out after like a week because i had no idea if i was doing it right or making any progress at all. like i could sort of recognize E and T but everything else just sounded like noise to me.

is there a specific method people actually use to learn this from scratch? i keep seeing references to something called the Koch method but i dont really understand how that works compared to just memorizing the dit dah patterns on a chart. also how long does it realistically take before you can actually copy anything on the air, not looking for a magic number just a rough idea because right now it feels kind of hopeless

the Koch method is honestly the way to go and i wish someone had told me that when i started instead of wasting months on character charts. basically the idea is you learn at full speed from day one, like 20 wpm or whatever your target is, but you only work on two characters at a time until you can copy them reliably, then you add a third and so on. the whole point is your brain learns to recognize the sound as a whole instead of counting dits and dahs which will absolutely wreck you later when speeds go up.

LCWO.net is free and does exactly this, its a website not an app and i found it way better than anything on my phone. give it like 15 minutes a day consistently, that seems to work better than hour long sessions once a week. took me maybe 3 or 4 months before i could pull calls out of a pileup, but i was doing it every single day. the first time something just pops out of the noise and you actually got it, that feeling makes the whole thing worth it

yeah im kind of in the same boat, been at it for about two months now using that LCWO site the other guy mentioned. i get stuck around the letter R for some reason, my brain just refuses to hold onto it. anyway just wanted to say you're not alone because i also felt like quitting multiple times lol. someone on here told me just keep going past the frustrating part and it sort of clicks eventually, havent fully experienced that yet but im still trying