so ive been licensed for about 8 months now, technician class, and i keep seeing people talk about CW on the forums and it sounds really cool but every time i try to learn morse code i just kind of give up after like a week because i cant figure out if im doing it the right way or just wasting my time

i tried one of those apps where you tap along to letters but i dont know if thats actually how you're supposed to learn or if im building bad habits or whatever. also saw something about the Koch method but i dont really understand what that means exactly, like do you learn all the letters first or just two at a time? im confused about the whole thing honestly

does anyone have a good starting point, something that actually worked for them? i have maybe 20-30 minutes a day i could practice

okay so the Koch method is basically where you start with just two characters, learn those until you can copy them reliably at full speed (like 20wpm or whatever your target is), then add one more character at a time. the key thing people mess up is they learn at really slow speeds thinking itll be easier and then they have to relearn everything later because they memorized the timing wrong. you want to hear the letters as sounds not count the dits and dahs.

honestly the best free resource i used was lcwo.net, its a little ugly looking but it does the Koch method properly and you can track your progress. just do lesson 1 until you hit something like 90% accuracy before moving on. 20-30 min a day is actually fine, more than that and your brain kind of stops absorbing it anyway. the frustrating part is the first couple weeks feel like nothing is happening and then suddenly it clicks, just gotta push through that part

just gonna say i tried learning three different times before it actually stuck lol so dont feel bad about giving up, i think most people do at least once. what finally worked for me was just listening to actual QSOs on the air even before i could copy anything, like just having 40m on in the background while i was doing other stuff. your brain starts picking up the rhythm without you even realizing it. also there's an app called Morse Mania that i liked better than some of the others, felt less like homework somehow