so ive been at this whole morse code thing for about a year now and i started with the Koch method back when i got my ticket, got up to around 13wpm pretty comfortably but now i just cannot seem to break through to anything faster. like i can copy at 13 in my head no problem, decent accuracy, but the moment i push it to 15 or above it all falls apart and i start trying to count dits and dahs again which i know is exactly what you're NOT supposed to do.

my usual practice is about 20-30 minutes a day with either the LCWO website or just G4FON on my laptop. i also try to listen to actual QSOs on 40m in the evenings but honestly most of what i hear is way faster than i can follow and it gets discouraging. someone at my club mentioned the whole thing about listening at 20wpm with extra spacing (farnsworth method i think?) but i havent really tried that consistently. anyone been through this same plateau and what actually worked for you? im starting to wonder if im just not wired for this lol

oh man i was EXACTLY here about two years ago, sat at 12-13wpm for like four or five months and thought i'd never get past it. what finally broke the plateau for me was forcing myself off the computer practice and just getting on the air even when i felt completely unprepared. i started calling CQ on 40m at like 10pm when it's quieter and just told myself if someone came back faster than i could copy, so be it. the real QSO pressure somehow rewired my brain faster than any program did.

also yes do the farnsworth thing, seriously. set your character speed to 18 or even 20wpm but put the word spacing way out so you have time to think between characters. your brain starts recognizing the sounds as whole characters instead of individual elements. took me maybe three weeks of consistent work before i noticed a real difference. dont give up, 20wpm is absolutely reachable and once you crack through the plateau it goes faster than you expect.

the farnsworth method is what everyone recommends and honestly it works but you gotta stick with it for more than a week or two before judging it. i was impatient and kept switching between methods which probably set me back.

one thing nobody told me that helped a lot was just copying random 5-letter groups instead of actual words, because when you're copying real words your brain tries to predict the next letter and you start getting ahead of yourself and making mistakes. random groups force you to actually hear every single character. i still do this when im warming up before getting on the air.