so ive been doing CW practice for about 4 months now and i started from zero, got up to 5wpm pretty quick with the Koch method and the G4FON software. felt great at first. but now im sitting somewhere around 7-8wpm and i just cant seem to push past it no matter how much i drill. im spending maybe 30-40 minutes a day on it which i thought was enough but maybe not?

the weird thing is when i copy random 5-letter groups i do okay but the second someone sends actual words or a QSO exchange my brain just locks up. like i KNOW the characters individually but stringing them together into meaning is a whole different animal. i read somewhere that you have to train your ear to hear whole words not individual letters but i dont really know how to practice that specifically.

anyone been through this wall and come out the other side? would love to know what actually worked for you and roughly how long it took. im not in a huge rush but it would be nice to actually get on the air for some real CW QSOs before i lose motivation entirely

yeah that plateau around 7-8 wpm is super common, almost everyone hits it. the 5-letter group thing is actually kind of a trap in my opinion — it teaches your brain to wait for the next character instead of building words. what really helped me was switching to receiving actual text, like short sentences or even just common ham abbreviations, so your brain starts to chunk things together.

the other thing nobody tells you is that you should bump your character speed way up even if you slow the word spacing down. farnsworth timing basically — run the characters at like 15 or 18wpm but stretch the gaps between letters and words so you have time to think. that way your brain never gets used to the slow dits and dahs that you'll have to unlearn later anyway. i went from 8 to about 14 within a couple months just doing that change, then the rest came slower but it came.

also just copy copy copy without writing everything down sometimes. its scary but trying to get meaning without pencil in hand forces your brain to actually process the words instead of just transcribing letters.

im kinda in the same boat honestly, been at it since spring and i stall out every few wpm. one thing that helped me a little was just listening to W1AW practice bulletins even when i cant copy everything — just having it on in the background while im doing something else around the shack. not sure if thats actually doing anything scientifically but it feels like my ear is getting more comfortable with the rhythm of real CW at least. good luck, its a slog but people say it clicks eventually