so ive been a tech for about a year now and i keep hearing people talk about CW and how great it is and i kind of want to learn morse code but i have no idea where to begin. like do you just memorize the whole alphabet first or do you start sending right away or what. i downloaded like three different apps and they all seem to do it differently and now im more confused than when i started.

i heard about something called the Koch method? someone at my club mentioned it but didnt really explain it. is that the best way or is it just one of those things where everyone has their own opinion. also how long does it realistically take before you can actually do anything useful with it on the air, like even a simple QSO. just looking for some direction i guess

yeah the Koch method is probably what most people recommend these days, the idea is you start with just two characters at full speed - like 20wpm - and you dont move on until you can copy them reliably, then you add one character at a time. the key thing is you never slow it down to a speed you cant actually use, because if you learn at 5wpm you basically have to unlearn it later to go faster, which is a pain.

LCWO dot net is the website i used, its free and its specifically built around Koch training. just make sure you set the character speed high even if the effective speed is slow at first, thats the whole Farnsworth thing where the letters sound right but theres extra space between them so you have time to think. took me probably three or four months of doing like 20 minutes a day before i felt confident enough to try a real QSO and even then it was rough, but you get there. dont try to memorize the dots and dashes on paper, just let your brain hear the sounds and eventually it clicks

im pretty much in the same boat as you so take this with a grain of salt but i started using an app called Morse Mania and its been pretty good for just drilling letters. also theres a ham radio youtuber who did a whole series on learning CW from scratch, cant remember the channel name off the top of my head but if you search around youll probably find it. i think the main thing everybody keeps telling me is just do it every day even if its only for ten minutes, consistency matters more than long sessions apparently