so i got my technician license a few months ago and ive been reading that a lot of the old timers still use CW and honestly it seems really cool but i have no idea where to start. like do i just memorize the dots and dashes from a chart or is there a better way? i tried printing out one of those alphabet charts and staring at it but i dont think thats actually teaching me anything useful. someone at my club mentioned something called the Koch method but i dont really understand what that means. is there like a good app or website or something? i have a lot of free time in the mornings before work so i could probably practice for 20-30 minutes a day. just dont want to waste time doing it the wrong way if that makes sense

yeah dont bother with the dot dash charts, thats honestly the worst way to learn and youll end up having to unlearn it later. the thing you want is to hear the characters as sounds not think of them as patterns on paper. the Koch method is basically where you start with just 2 characters at full speed, like 20wpm, and you practice until you can copy them reliably before adding another character. it sounds counterintuitive to practice fast when youre a beginner but it forces your brain to recognize the sound instead of counting dots and dashes.

for resources, LCWO.net is free and specifically built around the Koch method, its a little clunky looking but it works really well. theres also a thing called Morse Mania if you have a phone. the key is consistency, even 15 minutes every single day beats doing an hour once a week by a lot. i think it took me maybe 3 or 4 months of daily practice to get comfortable enough to make actual QSOs on the air and those first contacts are pretty rewarding even if youre slow

im in basically the same boat as you so take this with a grain of salt but i started using the Just Learn Morse Code software on my laptop and its been pretty decent. also theres a youtube channel i found that plays characters at different speeds which helped me get used to hearing them. still cant copy much above maybe 5wpm but its only been like 6 weeks so. what radio do you have btw, im curious if youve tried listening to any actual CW on the bands yet because even just having it on in the background while youre doing other stuff supposedly helps