so ive been a tech for about 8 months now and i want to upgrade to general eventually but honestly the thing that keeps pulling me toward ham radio more than anything is CW. just sounds cool, always has. watched some youtube videos of guys doing 25-30wpm and its like another language.

my question is where do i even start. i downloaded like 3 different apps and they all seem to do things differently and im not sure which approach is the right one. one of them starts you off learning letters super slow like individual dits and dahs, another one just throws words at you. i tried the slow one for a week and felt like i wasnt getting anywhere. is there a method that actually works or does it just depend on the person

also does it matter what speed i start at, someone told me never go below 15wpm for the character speed even if the word speed is slow but i dont really understand what that means

yeah the thing your friend told you about character speed vs word speed is the Koch method basically, or part of it anyway. the idea is you learn each character at a speed that sounds like real CW — like 15 or 18wpm — but then there are long gaps between characters so you have time to think. its called Farnsworth spacing. if you learn characters slow from the start your brain memorizes the pattern of counting dits and dahs instead of just hearing the whole letter as one sound, and then when you try to speed up later you hit this wall and have to basically relearn everything. ask me how i know lol.

i'd honestly just pick one app and stick with it for at least a month before deciding its not working. LCWO dot net is free and does the Koch method, a lot of people have had good results with that. the thing nobody tells you is the first few weeks feel completely pointless and then one day something clicks. just copy by hand at first, pencil and paper, dont worry about sending yet.

im kind of in the same boat as you actually, been at it for about 3 months. what helped me was just listening to stuff even when i couldnt copy it, like having a CW net on in the background while doing dishes or whatever. feels dumb but i think it helped my brain start recognizing the rhythm. also the W1AW code practice transmissions are free and they announce the speed so you can kind of gauge where youre at. i still cant copy much above 10wpm but its getting better slowly i think