so ive been a tech for about a year and a half and i keep reading about CW and people seem to love it, and i guess i got curious enough to actually want to try learning it. but i have no idea where to start. like do people still use those cassette tape methods or whatever or is there apps now. i tried googling but i got overwhelmed with like a hundred different opinions and nobody agrees on anything.

i dont have a key yet or anything, just wondering if i should learn the code first before buying gear or does it not matter. also how long did it take you guys realistically, not the "i learned it in two weeks" stories, actual average person timeline

honest answer — it takes most people a few months of consistent daily practice to get to around 5 wpm where you can actually make a slow QSO, and then getting to 10-15 where things start feeling comfortable is more like 6 months to a year depending on how much you put in. some guys get there faster but i think the two week claims are either exaggerating or they had prior exposure.

for actually learning the characters the Koch method is probably the most recommended approach right now and LCWO.net is free and uses that method, you learn two characters at full speed and add more as you get them. the idea is your brain learns it as sound patterns not dit-dah counting which matters a lot later. theres also the Morse Trainer app which is decent for mobile practice. honestly dont overthink the key situation yet, just get the characters in your head first, you can tap on your leg or a desk to practice sending and it still helps. the main thing everyone says and its true is daily practice even just 10-15 minutes beats doing a long session once a week by a lot.

yeah i went through this same thing about eight months ago. i ended up using an app called Morse-It and also just listened to a lot of slow CW on the bands even before i could copy anything, just to get used to the sound of it i guess. probably didnt hurt. the main thing that tripped me up was i was counting dits and dahs for way too long instead of just hearing the letters as sounds and that slowed me down for a while.

still working on getting my speed up but im making contacts so thats something