so ive been trying to learn morse code for about 3 months now and im basically stuck at 5wpm. i can copy at that speed pretty reliably but the moment i push it up to even 7 or 8 it all falls apart and i just hear noise. been using the LC app and doing about 20 minutes a day most days. i know people say just push through but that doesnt really explain HOW to push through you know?

my goal is eventually 20wpm so i can actually get on the air and have a real QSO without embarrassing myself. read somewhere about the Farnsworth method but im not totally sure im doing it right. like my letter spacing is set slow but the characters themselves are at 20wpm, is that actually how its supposed to work? feels weird to copy dit-dah-dit at full speed and then wait forever for the next letter

anyway if anyone has gone through this process and actually made it to 20wpm id love to hear what worked for you. getting a little frustrated honestly

yeah the Farnsworth thing is exactly right, you've got the concept. the idea is your brain learns the sound of each character as a whole chunk instead of counting dits and dahs, which is what trips most people up when they try to go faster. if you learn R as dit-dah-dit you'll always be counting and you hit a wall around 8-10wpm. if you learn it as a sound, like the rhythm of it, then speed becomes more possible.

what really helped me was doing head copy on actual QSOs, not just practice software. i used to just tune around 40m in the evenings and try to copy callsigns even if i missed everything else. after a few weeks i got faster just from hearing real code at real speeds. also the Koch method if you havent tried it, start with 2 characters at like 15 or 20wpm until you can copy them perfectly, then add one character at a time. its slow going at first but it pays off. took me almost a year to get comfortable at 20 but i was only practicing maybe 15 mins a day so your mileage may vary

im kind of in the same boat as you so take this with a grain of salt but one thing that helped me a bit was just listening to high speed code even when i cant copy it at all. like just having it on in the background while im doing dishes or whatever. not sure if theres actual science behind it but it stopped feeling like alien noise after a while and i started recognizing a few common words like CQ and 73 without even trying. also LCWO dot net has a great word training mode if you havent tried that yet, copying common words is way more motivating than random letters for me at least