so ive been wanting to learn morse code for a while now, mostly because i see all these guys on 40m just rattling away and i have no idea whats happening. i passed my general a few months back and someone at the club mentioned i should try cw but i dont even know where to begin honestly.

like do people still use tapes or is there an app for this now? i tried just looking up the alphabet chart and memorizing dots and dashes but that felt wrong somehow, a guy at the hamfest told me thats the worst way to do it but didnt really explain what the right way was. is there like a standard method people use or does everyone just figure out their own thing

also how long does it realistically take before you can actually copy something on the air, i dont need to be fast just want to be able to follow a basic qso eventually

yeah the chart method is pretty much universally considered the wrong approach, youre basically training your brain to do math instead of just hearing the sound and recognizing the letter. the guy at the hamfest was right even if he wasnt helpful about it.

most people these days swear by the Koch method, theres a free program called LCWO dot net that walks you through it and its honestly pretty solid. the idea is you start with just two characters at full speed like 20wpm, get comfortable with those, then add one character at a time. sounds counterintuitive to start fast but it prevents you from counting dots and dashes in your head which is the bad habit you want to avoid from day one.

there's also an app called Morse Toad and another one called Ham Morse, both decent for mobile practice. i used LCWO and just did 15 minutes every single day and could copy basic qso stuff in maybe 3 or 4 months, maybe less if youre more consistent than i was. the real turning point for me was just tuning into W1AW code practice on hf, even when i could only get like every third word it helped a lot just hearing real on air stuff

im literally in the same boat as you right now lol. started using that LCWO site about six weeks ago and its actually going better than i expected. im on like character 15 of the Koch sequence now which still surprises me.

one thing that helped me was just not skipping days even if its only 10 minutes, consistency seems way more important than how long each session is. also dont get discouraged when you plateau because i hit a wall around week 3 and almost quit but pushed through and it clicked after a few more days. good luck with it