so ive been at this for a while now and honestly starting to feel like 13wpm is just my ceiling and thats a little depressing to think about. started learning morse back in the spring, got to 5wpm pretty quick with just the basic alphabet stuff, then pushed up to around 10-12 using the Koch method on lcwo.net which i really liked. but now im just... stuck. i can copy most letters fine when im relaxed at home but anything faster than 13 and my brain just freezes up and i start missing characters and then i panic and miss more and it snowballs.

i practice maybe 20-30 minutes a day which i know some people say isnt enough but its what i have. im doing random 5-letter groups mostly which some people told me to do but im not sure if thats actually the right approach at this stage or if i should be doing plain english text instead. also not sure if i should be copying on paper or just trying to do it in my head. ive seen arguments both ways.

anyone gone through this and actually made it to 20wpm? feels really far away right now. im not in a rush just dont want to be stuck at 13 forever lol

oh man i remember that exact feeling, 13 was my wall for like four months. what finally broke it for me was switching away from random letter groups and just listening to actual english text at a speed that was slightly uncomfortable — like 15wpm with maybe 20wpm character speed using farnsworth spacing. the idea is your brain learns the sound of whole words instead of spelling out letters one at a time. once i stopped trying to think "dit dah dit" and just started hearing "R" as one sound things clicked a lot faster.

also the copying on paper vs in your head thing — honestly i think copying in your head is the goal but paper is fine as a crutch while you're building up. the problem with paper is you tend to lag behind and then panic when you fall behind, whereas if youre just mentally copying you stay in the moment a bit better. just my experience anyway. keep at it, 20wpm is absolutely not some magical unreachable thing, it just takes longer than everyone expects

the farnsworth method helped me a ton, what the other guy said. also just — have you tried actually getting on the air yet? even just listening to qso's on 40m or 20m? i know it sounds scary but honestly just tuning around and trying to copy real signals even if you only get like half of it does something different for your brain than software practice. theres some QRS nets too specifically for slower speed practice, i forget the frequencies off the top of my head but theyre out there. sometimes practicing with software forever can only get you so far