so ive been licensed for about 8 months now (general) and i keep seeing people talk about cw and it sounds cool but i genuinely have no idea where to start. like i downloaded some app a while back and it just showed me a chart of all the letters and i tried to memorize them but that didnt really go anywhere. is that even the right way to do it or am i missing something obvious

i dont have any pressure to learn it, no test or anything, just kind of curious if its actually worth putting time into and how long it realistically takes before you can do anything useful with it. most stuff i read online is either really vague or assumes you already know the basics

the chart memorization thing is basically the worst way to start, you'll just end up counting dots and dashes in your head which slows you down forever. the method that worked for me and honestly most people i know is Koch method — you start with just two characters at full speed, like 20wpm, and you only add new ones when you can copy the current set reliably. sounds counterintuitive to start fast but it forces your brain to hear the sound as a whole character instead of decoding it piece by piece.

LCWO dot net is free and does this pretty well, also Just Learn Morse Code is a desktop app some guys swear by. the other thing i'd say is dont try to do an hour a day when you're starting out, like 15 minutes consistently beats an hour once a week by a lot. it took me maybe 4 or 5 months of pretty casual practice before i could actually pull calls and exchanges out of the air, so it's not instant but it's not years either

yeah im kind of in the same boat as you actually, been messing around with it on and off for a few weeks. i've been using the morse toad app on my phone which is decent for drilling individual characters but i honestly dunno if im building bad habits or not. someone in my local club told me about that lcwo site too so maybe ill actually sit down and try that properly