so ive been a tech for about a year and a half now and keep seeing people talk about CW and how great it is and part of me wants to try it but i have absolutely no idea where to start. like i dont even know the alphabet in morse. do people just memorize the dots and dashes from a chart or is there some other way to do it? i tried printing out one of those charts and staring at it for a while but that doesnt seem right. also how long does it realistically take before you can actually have a QSO with someone, not like a super fast one just a slow one. im not in a huge rush just curious what the actual learning path looks like

the chart thing doesnt work, or at least it didnt for me and most people ive talked to. the trick is you want to learn the sound of each letter not what it looks like written down. look up the Koch method, theres a free program called LCWO dot net that a lot of people use and it teaches you two characters at a time and you dont move on until you can copy them at like 90% accuracy. the thing people get wrong is they start too slow and end up learning to count dots and dashes which you have to unlearn later. keep the character speed up, like 20wpm character speed even if the overall words per minute is slow, thats called Farnsworth timing. took me maybe 3 or 4 months of like 15-20 minutes a day to feel comfortable enough to get on the air at 5 or 6 wpm. first QSO was terrifying but the other guy was patient, most CW operators remember what it was like starting out

yeah im kind of in the same boat as you actually, been using the morse toad app on my phone during my commute. its not perfect but its something. havent tried a real QSO yet tbh, still fumbling through the letters half the time. the just learn the sounds thing that everyone says is real though, when i try to think dots and dashes i lose it completely