so ive been wanting to learn CW for a while now and i finally have some free time to actually sit down and try it. the problem is i dont really know where to start. theres like a million different apps and methods and youtube videos and honestly its kind of overwhelming. i tried just memorizing the dots and dashes on a chart and that did NOT work lol, my brain just cant retain it that way

someone at the club meeting mentioned the Koch method but i dont fully understand how that works. and then theres LCWO which i tried for like 20 minutes and got confused pretty quick. is there a specific order people recommend learning the letters in or does it matter? also how long did it take you before you could actually copy something on the air, even just a callsign or something simple

im not trying to get to 20wpm or anything crazy i just want to be able to have slow QSOs eventually. any advice from people who actually went through this would be helpful

Koch method is honestly the way to go, stick with it even when it feels like nothing is clicking. the whole idea is you start with just 2 characters but you hear them at full speed right away, like 20wpm, instead of slow beeps that sound nothing like what youll actually hear on the air. your brain learns the sound not the pattern. LCWO is fine for Koch, just set it up properly and give it more than 20 minutes lol — it took me probably 3 weeks before i stopped feeling completely lost

the other thing nobody tells you is that daily practice matters way more than doing a long session once a week. even 10-15 minutes every single day will get you further than an hour on the weekend. i used the Morse Trainer app when i was commuting and that helped a lot just for keeping the characters fresh. for actually copying callsigns and stuff, honestly just start tuning around 40m around the QRP calling frequencies and listen even if you cant copy it yet, your ear starts to adjust after a while

just started down this road myself a few months ago so take this for what its worth. i tried the chart method too and yeah total waste of time for me. what actually helped was just finding a few YouTube channels where guys send practice text slowly and i just listened while doing dishes or whatever, not even trying hard to copy, just letting it wash over me. felt stupid but something about it helped the sounds stick

also there's an app called Morse It or something like that, or maybe Morse Mania, i cant remember the exact name but it was free and had a little game format which kept me more engaged than staring at LCWO. im still pretty slow but i can copy my own callsign now without thinking about it which felt huge when it finally happened