so i started learning CW back in the spring, got up to about 13wpm using just code groups and some basic words and then just... hit a wall. i cant seem to get any faster no matter what i do. im using the Koch method with the G4FON software and i practice maybe 20-30 minutes a day which i read is supposed to be the right amount, not too much not too little.

the weird thing is some letters i copy fine at 18 or even 20wpm but then something like a C or a Y just completely falls apart and i start losing the whole sentence trying to figure out what it was. does this ever go away on its own or is there something specific i should be doing differently. i really want to get to 20 so i can actually ragchew on 40m without making a fool of myself. been a tech for 2 years and just got my general last month so the bands are finally open to me and i dont want to waste it

yeah the plateau around 12-14 is super common and honestly almost everyone hits it. what helped me break through was switching to copying actual QSOs instead of random code groups. your brain starts to anticipate words and phrases and that makes a huge difference at higher speeds. the LCWO website has some good plain text practice and you can find recordings of real contacts too.

also the thing about losing the whole sentence when you miss a letter -- you gotta train yourself to just let it go and keep moving. i know that sounds easier said than done but if you stop to mentally dig for that missed character you will lose the next 4 words trying. write a dash or a dot or nothing and keep copying. over time you'll get enough context from the surrounding words that the missing one doesnt even matter. took me probably 3 months of actively forcing myself to do this before it became natural.

im kind of in the same boat tbh, been at 15 for like 6 weeks now and its frustrating. one thing that did seem to help me a little was bumping the character speed way up, like to 25wpm, but dropping the overall word speed down so theres more space between letters. farnsworth spacing i think its called. the idea is you train your ear to hear the letters as sounds not as dots and dashes you count. i dont know if its working yet but it feels different somehow, like my brain is processing it differently than before