so ive been at this for a while now and I honestly dont know what im doing wrong. Started learning morse back in the spring, got up to about 13wpm pretty comfortably and then just... hit a wall. Every resource I read says to just listen to faster code but when i bump it up to 15 or 16 it all turns to mush and I cant copy anything. Then i drop back down and feel fine again.

A buddy at the club said something about the Farnsworth method where you keep the character speed high but slow the spacing, which I had been doing, but maybe not long enough? My characters are set at 18wpm with 5wpm spacing and i practice maybe 20-30 minutes a day with the LCWO site. Is that enough time or do I need to be doing more sessions? Starting to wonder if some people just have a ceiling and 13wpm is mine lol

For context im trying to get to 20wpm eventually so I can actually have real QSOs without panicking. Right now anything faster than about 12 and i start missing stuff and then i lose the whole sentence trying to catch up.

Oh man I was exactly where you are about two years ago, stuck at 13 for like four months and ready to give up. The thing that finally broke me through was honestly just stopping trying to copy every single character. I know that sounds backwards but hear me out — when you miss a letter just put a dash or a dot on paper and keep going. Do NOT stop your brain to figure out what you missed because that's what kills you, you end up two words behind and then you've lost the thread completely.

The other thing is 20-30 minutes once a day might not be enough for this particular speed plateau. I switched to three shorter sessions, like 10-12 minutes each spread through the day, and something clicked pretty fast after that. Something about how the brain consolidates the patterns when you give it breaks. Also try listening to actual on-air QSOs on 40m or 20m even if you cant copy them, just let the rhythm wash over you for a bit. Your brain starts to absorb the cadence without you even realizing it. Hang in there, 20wpm is totally doable.

yeah the farnsworth thing takes longer than people think to kick in. i was doing the same setup on LCWO and my instructor told me to just leave it alone for a full month without changing anything and trust the process. felt like torture but he was right, somewhere around week 3 it started clicking faster.

also are you writing everything down or just listening? i found that switching to head copy, even badly, helped me more than writing at that speed range. writing kind of slows your brain down when the code starts getting faster. just a thought, might not work for everyone