so ive been at this for about three months now and im just... stuck. i can copy at maybe 5wpm if the sender is being really clean and consistent but the moment someone speeds up even a little i lose the thread and then i panic and lose even more. its frustrating because i feel like i practice every day but im not really getting faster.

right now im using the Koch method on an app and i do maybe 20-30 minutes a day. i started with just K and M like you're supposed to and worked my way up to all the letters but numbers and punctuation are still kind of shaky. the thing is i feel like i can recognize the characters fine when i really focus but 5wpm feels like its the ceiling and i cant break through it.

has anyone gone from this level up to like 15 or 20wpm and if so what actually made the difference? im not trying to get on CW right away just want to be able to eventually have a real QSO without it being a disaster

oh man i remember being exactly where you are, felt like 5wpm was just permanently where i lived. the thing that finally cracked it open for me was switching to character speed training, like using Farnsworth timing where the individual characters are sent at maybe 15 or even 20wpm but the spacing between them is stretched way out so your overall copy speed is still slow enough to follow. the idea is your brain starts learning the sound of each letter as a whole chunk instead of counting individual dits and dahs which is what probably has you stuck right now.

once you start hearing K as that dah-dit-dah sound instead of thinking "long short long" youll notice things start clicking faster. also honestly just listening to actual on-air QSOs even if you cant copy them yet, just have it on in the background while youre doing something else. it sounds weird but it helped me get used to real sending rhythms instead of the super clean machine-generated stuff. took me about another four months to get comfortable around 15wpm so dont be too hard on yourself, three months in you're right on track really

yeah the Farnsworth thing the other guy mentioned is legit, that was big for me too. one thing i'll add that nobody told me until way later -- try actually getting on the air sooner than you think you're ready. i waited forever because i didnt want to embarass myself and when i finally did my first CW QSO at like 8wpm the other guy was super patient and it was way less scary than i built it up to be. the CW community is generally pretty good about slow operators especially if you send QRS at the start. also just sending with a straight key or paddle yourself even if youre just practicing helps more than only copying i think, something about having to produce the code makes you internalize it differently