so ive been at this CW thing for about 4 months now and im kind of stuck around 10-12 wpm and honestly starting to wonder if im doing something wrong or if its just supposed to take this long. when i first started with the Koch method it felt like good progress but now its like hitting a wall every time i try to push past 12.

my current routine is just running the G4FON trainer for about 20-30 minutes a day, copying random characters to a text file. i dont do much on air yet because honestly im embarrassed to call CQ when im this slow, feels like id be wasting everybodys time. anyway just curious how long it took other people to get from beginner speeds up to like 20wpm where you can actually have a real qso without the other station having to wait forever for you

the wall around 10-12 is super common, almost everybody hits it. what helped me break through was switching from copying individual characters to trying to recognize whole words at a glance, like your brain stops hearing dah-dit-dit and starts hearing the whole word "land" as one sound. took me maybe another 3 months of daily practice to get comfortable at 20 but i was only doing like 15-20 min a day so your mileage may vary.

also dont be scared to get on the air, honestly most operators are really patient with slower stations and the CW Ops guys run practice nets specifically for people learning, theres one called CWT i think but also just look up beginner CW nets in your region. getting on air is what really accelerated my speed more than any trainer software, something about the pressure of a real qso makes your brain lock in differently

took me about 8 months total to feel solid at 20, but i wasnt super consistent with practice so probably couldve done it faster. one thing nobody told me early on -- sending matters as much as copying. i spent all my time on receive and my fist was terrible which actually made copying harder too somehow, like it all connects. get a straight key or a paddle and just send along with the trainer audio, it really does help