so ive been licensed for about 8 months now (general class) and i keep seeing people talk about CW on here and it honestly sounds really cool but i have no idea where to begin. like i dont even know the alphabet in morse yet. i downloaded some app a while back but it just felt like memorizing random dots and dashes and i gave up after like two weeks

is there a method that actually works or is it just one of those things where you grind it out until it clicks? i heard someone mention the koch method but i dont really understand how thats different from just learning the letters one at a time. also how long did it take most of you to actually be able to copy anything on the air

Koch method is the way to go honestly, it changed everything for me. the whole idea is you learn the characters at full speed from day one, like 20wpm or whatever, instead of starting slow and then having to retrain your brain later. you only add a new character once you can copy the ones you already know at like 90% accuracy. it feels painfully slow at first because youre sitting there with just K and M for what feels like forever but it really does work.

LCWO dot net is the site most people use, its free and you can just jump in. i also used the Morse Toad app for a while when i was commuting, not the most polished thing but it does Koch properly. the big mistake i made early on was trying to count dits and dahs in my head -- you gotta train yourself to hear the rhythm and sound of each letter as a whole sound, not break it down. took me probably 3 or 4 months of practicing maybe 20 minutes a day before i could actually sit down and copy a slow QSO on 40 meters without completely falling apart

yeah im kind of in the same boat as you actually, been at it for a couple months now. what helped me was just putting on the W1AW code practice transmissions in the background while i was doing other stuff, not even really trying to copy it just getting used to hearing it. probably doesnt speed things up scientifically or whatever but it made it feel less foreign

also someone told me to learn the sounds as words or phrases instead of thinking dot dash dot = R or whatever. like R sounds like "around" if you say the syllables with the rhythm. theres a list of those somewhere online i found it once but cant remember where now