so ive been at this CW thing for about four months now and im kind of stuck. started with the Koch method using LCWO and got up to copying most letters pretty reliably at 5wpm, but every time i try to push the speed up even a little it just turns into a wall of noise in my head. like i can almost hear the letters but then i miss one and then im two words behind and it all falls apart.

been doing maybe 20-30 minutes a day which i read is better than cramming. not sure if im just being impatient or if there's something i should be doing differently. a few guys at the club said to just jump straight to 15 or 20 and let my brain catch up but that sounds kind of terrifying honestly. is that actually how people do it? or do you grind it out slowly and build up? i really want to get to 20wpm eventually, maybe do some QRP CW stuff on the air. any advice from people who've actually been through this would be great

the jump method actually works, at least it did for me. i was stuck around 8wpm for months doing the same thing you're doing — grinding slowly and always being able to "almost" copy everything. somebody on here told me to set LCWO to 20wpm character speed with a low effective speed (like Farnsworth method) so the individual letters come fast but there's space between them. your brain learns to recognize the sound of each letter as a unit instead of counting dits and dahs. that was the thing that finally broke me loose.

the other thing honestly is just getting on the air before you feel ready. i started listening to W1AW code practice broadcasts and just trying to copy what i could without stressing about the rest. after a while your brain starts filling in gaps based on context, which is basically what real CW operating is anyway. you're never going to copy 100% and thats fine, working pile-ups at 20wpm nobody copies everything. dont wait until youre "ready" because that day never really comes lol

I went through this exact same wall around 7wpm and it was frustrating as heck. What ended up helping me was just doing a ton of head copy instead of writing everything down. When you write you're always falling behind and then you panic. Try listening to slower QSOs on websdr and just following along without a pencil, even if you only catch half the words. after a few weeks of that something kind of clicked for me and the letters started just... arriving, if that makes sense. hard to explain.

also the W1AW slow speed practice on 40m is really good, they announce the speed before each session so you can find your level. 20wpm is totally doable, took me about 18 months total but i wasnt super consistent about it either so you might get there faster