so ive been licensed for about 8 months now (technician) and i keep reading that learning CW is worth it even though its not required anymore. i tried downloading a couple apps and just... gave up after like a week because i felt like i wasnt retaining anything. i could recognize maybe 5 letters consistently and everything else just sounded like noise.

is there like a method that actually works or is it just one of those things where you grind it out forever before it clicks? i saw something about the Koch method but i dont really understand how it works or if its better than just learning the alphabet first and then trying to put it together. also does the speed you learn at matter, like should i start really slow or is there a reason people say to learn at a higher speed from the beginning

any advice appreciated, i have maybe 20-30 min a day i can realistically put into this

the Koch method is honestly the way to go and i wish someone had told me that before i spent months doing it the wrong way. basically you start with just 2 characters at full speed (like 20wpm) and you dont move on until you can copy those at 90% accuracy, then you add one more character at a time. the key thing is learning at a speed where you cant consciously count the dits and dahs -- you have to hear the whole character as a sound, not decode it piece by piece.

LCWO.net is free and pretty much built around this method, thats where most people seem to start now. 20-30 min a day is actually plenty, probably better than trying to do an hour and burning yourself out. the other thing nobody tells you is that you'll hit a wall around 15-20 characters in and it just feels impossible for a week or two and then suddenly it starts clicking. just dont quit during that part

im kind of in the same boat actually so following this thread. i downloaded morse mania and also just been listening to slow code practice on the arrl website. its rough. some days i feel like im getting it and other days i cant copy a single letter correctly

one thing that did help me a little was associating each letter with a word that sounds like the rhythm, like E is just one dit so thats easy but something like F i kept confusing until i found one of those mnemonic charts. not sure if thats the right way to do it or if im just slowing myself down by doing that