so ive been a tech for about 8 months now and i keep hearing people talk about cw and how its worth learning even though its not required anymore. i downloaded a few apps and tried to just memorize the dots and dashes on paper but honestly it isnt sticking at all. like i can look at a chart and go "ok E is one dot" but then when i actually try to listen to anything i just hear noise. am i doing this completely wrong? is there a method that actually works or is it one of those things where you just grind it out forever until it clicks

also not sure if it matters but i mostly want to use it for HF eventually, not super worried about speed right away just want to be able to actually decode something in my head without writing every letter down

yeah you're definitely approaching it the wrong way if you're starting with the visual chart - that's probably the biggest mistake beginners make. the dots and dashes are kind of a trap honestly, your brain ends up trying to count instead of just hearing the sound as a character. what actually works is learning the Koch method, which is how most people who stick with it end up going. you start with just two characters, K and M i think, and you only add a new one when you can copy the current set at like 90% accuracy. the key thing is you do it at full speed from day one, like 20 wpm or whatever your target is, just with long gaps between characters so you have time to think. LCWO dot net is what i used, its free and works pretty well for this. it took me probably 3 months of doing maybe 15-20 minutes a day before i could actually sit down and copy a slow QSO without completely falling apart

the head copy thing comes with time, dont stress about it early on. honestly just write stuff down until suddenly one day you realize you stopped writing as much

im in basically the same boat as you, been at it for like 6 weeks now. i use an app called Morse Mania and also been doing LCWO. what helped me was just listening to actual code in the background sometimes even when im not actively studying, like while driving or whatever. not sure if thats scientifically the right way to do it but it feels like my brain started recognizing some letters faster after that. still a long way from actually making a contact though lol