so ive been doing morse practice for about 3 months now and im stuck somewhere around 8-9wpm and honestly it feels like a wall. when i started i was moving pretty fast, like went from zero to 5wpm in maybe 2-3 weeks and then got to 8 fairly quickly after that but now its like my brain just stops being able to process anything above that speed and i start missing letters and then i panic and miss more letters and it just snowballs.

im using the lcwo website mostly, doing the koch method, and i practice maybe 20-30 minutes a day. someone told me i should be copying at higher speeds even if i miss a lot and just let my brain adjust over time? but that feels really frustrating because im sitting there copying maybe 30% of a transmission and feeling like a complete idiot. is that actually how this works or is there a better approach. also does anyone have a sense of realistic timeframes here, like how long before i can actually have a QSO at 13 or so wpm which feels like where most of the activity is on 40m cw

the wall you're hitting around 8-9 wpm is completely normal and almost everyone goes through it. what's happening is your brain is still trying to process individual dits and dahs rather than hearing the whole character as a sound. the fix is exactly what that person told you — bump your character speed way up, like 20wpm character speed but slow the word spacing down (farnsworth method). lcwo can do this. it forces your brain to stop counting and start recognizing.

as for timeframes, honestly it varies so much i hate giving numbers. i know guys who got to 20wpm in 6 months of serious daily practice and others who took 2-3 years of casual work. the daily consistency matters way more than how long each session is. 20 minutes every single day beats 2 hours on weekends. and get on the air even before you feel ready — there are slow speed nets specifically for this, the LICW has some good ones, and just hearing real QSOs even if you only catch half of it does something to your motivation that practice software cant really replicate.

yeah i was in pretty much the exact same spot like a year ago. what helped me honestly was just accepting that i was going to miss stuff and stopping caring so much about 100% copy. once i let go of that it got easier weirdly. also started listening to CW while doing other stuff, like just having it on in the background while doing dishes or whatever, not actively trying to copy just letting it wash over me. dont know if thats scientifically the right approach but i feel like it helped my ear get used to the rythm of it.

im up to about 15wpm now and have had a few actual QSOs which felt amazing. still slow but people are generally patient on the cw portions of the bands if you send QRS they'll usually slow down