so ive been licensed for about 8 months now (tech then upgraded to general pretty quick) and everyone keeps telling me i should learn CW but honestly i have no idea where to begin. like do you just memorize all the letters first and then try to use it, or is there some method where you learn it differently. i tried just looking up a chart and staring at it for a while but nothing is sticking and it feels kinda pointless doing it that way

also not sure if this matters but im not really a musical person if that has anything to do with it. someone mentioned something called the Koch method i think? and also something about not learning it too slow which confused me. any direction would help, im not in a huge rush but would like to actually be able to use it someday

yeah the chart staring thing doesnt work, dont waste more time on that. the Koch method is legit and its basically what most people recommend now -- you start with just 2 characters but you learn them at full speed like 20wpm from day one, and then you keep adding characters as you get comfortable. the whole point is your brain learns the sound as a unit instead of counting dots and dashes which is a trap a lot of new people fall into

LCWO dot net is the site most folks use, its free and its set up for Koch training. just make the account and start with lesson 1. the other thing id say is do it every day even if its only 10 minutes, consistency beats long cramming sessions by a lot. took me maybe 4 or 5 months of daily practice to feel comfortable enough to actually get on the air with it and even then it was rough at first. also look up the app Morse Toad or just the regular Morse It app, good for practicing on your phone when youre waiting around somewhere

im kind of in the same boat as you actually, been working on it for a few weeks. one thing that helped me was just assigning each letter a word or sound in my head instead of thinking about it as dots and dashes at all. like K sounds like a cowboy saying okay or whatever, theres whole lists of these online. not sure its the official way but its working for me so far

the not being musical thing shouldnt matter from what i can tell, its more about rhythm i think than actual music ability