so ive been at this for about 8 months now and im stuck. like really stuck. i started learning CW back in the spring, got myself comfortable around 5wpm using the Koch method on the lcwo website, and honestly felt pretty good about myself for a while. could copy most of the alphabet, numbers were coming along, all that.

but somewhere around 12-13wpm i just hit this wall and i cant seem to punch through it. i try to go faster and my brain just turns to mush. i end up trying to sound out the letters instead of just hearing them as whole sounds and then i miss the next character entirely. its this frustrating loop where the faster i push it the worse i get and then i back off and feel like im going backwards.

i know people say just listen to faster code even if you cant copy it all. i know about the farnsworth method. ive read all the articles. im just curious what actually clicked for you personally if youve been through this. was there some specific thing you did differently or some resource or just one day it magically started working? because right now it doesnt feel like it will ever get better and id love to hear from someone whos been in this exact spot.

oh man this is basically my life story from a few years back. i got stuck at almost exactly the same place, around 12wpm, for probably four or five months and i was ready to give up on CW entirely.

what finally broke it for me was two things. first i stopped trying to increase speed on random code groups and just started listening to actual QSOs. like real on-air contacts, grabbed some recordings from the internet of CW ragchews and contest exchanges and just put them on in the background while i was doing other stuff around the house. not even sitting down trying to copy every character, just having it playing. something about hearing it used in context with the rhythm of real operators made it click differently in my brain than practice files did.

second thing was i forced myself to only write down words or callsigns when i got them whole, not try to catch every single letter. because when youre chasing individual letters you fall behind and then youre playing catchup the whole time. once i let go of trying to get 100% copy it paradoxically got easier to actually get more of it. sounds backwards but it works.

stick with it. the plateau is real and almost everyone hits it around there. it does break eventually.

yeah the plateau around 12-13 is super common, been there too. one thing nobody told me that actually helped -- just get on the air even if you think youre not ready. find a slow net or one of the QRS nets specifically for people learning CW. copying someone sending live is completely different from practice files and it forces your brain to adapt in ways that drills just dont.

also i switched from trying to copy everything to just copying callsigns and signal reports at first during actual QSOs and that took a ton of pressure off. the rest comes with time honestly.