so ive been thinking about finally learning CW and i have no idea where to even start. i downloaded a couple apps but honestly i dont know if im doing it right or just memorizing the wrong things. like should i be learning the dots and dashes visually or just learning it by ear from the start? i've heard people say you should never write out the dits and dahs but then i see all these charts everywhere so i'm confused

also how long did it take most people here to get to where they could actually have a QSO. im not in a huge rush but i want to know if this is a months long thing or more like a year thing. any methods that actually worked for you would be great

the biggest mistake most people make is exactly what you're describing - learning the patterns visually. like memorizing that A is dit-dah on a chart. your brain will just never be fast enough that way because you end up translating instead of just hearing a letter. the Koch method is what most people swear by and honestly it worked for me. you start with just two characters at full speed, like 20wpm, and you don't add another character until you can copy those two at like 90% accuracy. it sounds slow and frustrating at first but it trains your brain to recognize the sound as a whole thing rather than counting dots and dashes

for resources, LCWO dot net is free and its basically built around the Koch method. i used that combined with just listening to actual QSOs on the air even before i could copy anything. there's also the Morse Code Ninja stuff on youtube which is pretty good for building up word recognition later on. as for time, i mean it really varies but i'd say most people can hold a basic slow QSO after maybe 3-4 months of practicing consistently like 15-20 minutes a day. some people faster some people it takes longer, no shame either way

yeah im in the same boat as you basically, started about 6 weeks ago. what i found helped me a lot was just running the same lesson over and over on LCWO until it felt almost boring before moving on. i kept wanting to rush ahead and every time i did i'd fall apart when characters came fast

one thing nobody told me is that if you take a few days off you really do lose some of it so i try to at least do a short session every day even if its just 10 minutes while im eating breakfast or whatever. still nowhere near making a real contact but i can copy most letters now which felt impossible a month ago so theres that