so ive been at this for about 4 months now and im stuck somewhere around 10-12 wpm depending on the day and how much coffee ive had lol. started with the Koch method using LCWO and it was great at first, like the progress was really noticeable week to week, but now it feels like im just spinning my wheels. i can copy most letters fine when theyre sent slowly but the moment someone bumps it up even a little i start falling behind and then i panic and lose the whole thing.

my main practice routine right now is just doing the LCWO word trainer for maybe 20-30 minutes a day, sometimes i hop on 40m and try to copy whatever i can hear but honestly most of what i find is either too fast or in a pile-up which is not exactly beginner friendly. i know people say just do it every day and youll get there but i guess i was hoping someone could tell me if there was a specific thing that helped them break through that plateau. did you change methods, practice longer, find a specific resource? also curious how long it actually took people to get to 20wpm because i see some guys saying a few months and others saying years and that range is a little discouraging

that plateau around 10-12 is super common and honestly almost everyone hits it. what helped me was switching to listening to actual QSOs instead of machine-generated code — theres something about real operators that trains your brain differently, like the rhythm is slightly off in a human way and once you can handle that the clean machine stuff feels easier. i used to tune around 20m in the evenings and just copy what i could, not worrying about getting 100% just trying to grab callsigns or common words.

also and this is the one thing i wish someone had told me earlier — if you havent tried Farnsworth timing, give it a shot. sending characters at 20wpm but with extra space between them so the overall speed is like 10-12wpm. your brain learns the character sounds at the faster rate and then as you close the gaps it comes together. took me about 8 months total to get comfortably to 20 but i wasnt practicing every single day either, probably 4-5 days a week average. dont get discouraged, that plateau really does break eventually.

im kind of in the same boat as you so cant offer much advice but wanted to say the Just Learn Morse Code software has a Farnsworth mode that worked better for me than LCWO did, just a different interface that clicked better. also heard good things about the CW Academy but there might be a waitlist. hang in there i guess, we'll both get there eventually