so ive been a tech for about 8 months and lately ive been thinking about upgrading to general but also just... morse code seems cool and i kind of want to learn it even though its not required anymore. the thing is i have no idea how people actually go about learning it. like do you just memorize the dots and dashes on paper or is there some other way people do it. i tried looking it up and theres like a million different apps and websites and i cant figure out which ones are actually worth using vs just garbage. also is there a certain speed you should start at or does that matter. sorry if this is a dumb question im just totally lost on where to begin

not a dumb question at all, this is actually one of those things where the advice you get really matters because theres a wrong way to learn that'll slow you down a lot. the big thing everyone will tell you is dont learn by memorizing the dot-dash patterns visually, like dont sit there going dit-dah-dah for W or whatever. you want to learn the sound of each letter as a whole unit, the way it actually sounds at speed. the Koch method is what most people recommend now, theres a free program called LCWO dot net that does it pretty well, you start with just two characters and only add more once you can copy those reliably. the other thing is keep the character speed high even when youre starting, like 20wpm character speed with a slow overall speed, that way you never develop the habit of counting dits and dahs. i learned the wrong way years ago and had to basically relearn from scratch so trust me on that one. just do like 15 minutes a day consistently and it comes faster than you'd think

yeah LCWO is what i used, also theres an app called Morse Mania that some people like for phones if you want something to mess around with during lunch or whatever. honestly the hardest part for me wasnt learning the letters it was getting my brain to stop hesitating when i hear something. like i could do fine with flashcards but then id hear actual code on the air and just freeze up. ham morse code practice recordings on youtube helped me a lot with that, just putting on something in the background while i did other stuff. W1AW also does code practice transmissions on HF at like different speeds which is cool once you get far enough along