so ive been a tech for about 8 months now and i keep reading about how CW is this whole other world and people seem to really love it. i upgraded to general last month partly so i could actually use the HF bands but i still have no idea where to even start with morse. like do people still learn the dit dah chart by memorizing each letter or is there a better way now

i downloaded one app that just showed me a table of all the characters and i sat there trying to memorize it like flashcards for a few days and it wasnt really sticking. someone at my club mentioned something called the koch method? i looked it up a little but im not totally sure i understand how its supposed to work in practice. is that what most people use or is there something else thats worked better for you

also not sure what speed to start at, some stuff i read says go slow so you can hear each dit and dah clearly but other stuff says start fast so you learn the sound of the whole letter not the individual parts. honestly pretty confused. any advice appreciated

yeah forget the chart method, thats basically the worst way to do it if you actually want to use it on the air someday. your brain ends up counting dits and dahs instead of just hearing the letter as a sound and you'll have to unlearn that habit later which is a pain.

Koch method is what most people swear by these days and i think its genuinely the best approach. the idea is you start with just two characters at full speed, like 20wpm or whatever your target is, and you only move on to adding a new character once you can copy those two at something like 90% accuracy. so youre always training your ears at real speed from day one. LCWO dot net is the go-to website for this, its free and you can track your progress and everything. theres also the Morse Trainer app which a lot of people like on their phone for practice on the go.

the other thing i'll say is dont skip actually trying to send too, even early on. grab a straight key or even just tap on a table and try to form the letters. it reinforces the sounds in a different way. i learned mostly by listening but when i started sending it clicked a lot faster than i expected

im kind of in the same boat as you actually, been working through LCWO for a couple months now. its slow going honestly but i can hear maybe 15 characters pretty reliably now which feels like progress i guess. the Koch method thing does work if you're patient with it but i'll warn you there were times i just wanted to quit because it feels like nothing is happening for a while and then suddenly something clicks

one thing that helped me was just tuning around 40 meters in the evenings and listening even when i couldnt copy anything. after a while you start recognizing the rhythm of it even if you cant decode it yet. also the Just Learn Morse Code software is another free option if you want something on a desktop