so ive been at this for about 8 months now and im kind of stuck. started learning morse back in the spring, got up to around 5wpm pretty comfortably using the koch method on LCWO, and then just... plateaued. i can copy individual characters fine if you slow way down but the moment someone sends at like 12-13wpm i just fall apart and start missing everything.

i know the common advice is just listen more and dont write everything down, head copy and all that. ive been trying. but i feel like im not making progress the way i did in the beginning when i was just learning the characters. back then every session felt like improvement. now i practice 20-30 minutes a day and its hard to tell if im getting better at all.

anyone else go through this wall? what actually got you through it? i keep reading that 15wpm is like the hardest plateau but man i cant even get to 15 yet lol. using a straight key for now, wondering if switching to a paddle and iambic would help or if that doesnt matter for receiving

yeah that plateau is real and honestly kind of brutal when youre in the middle of it. what worked for me was bumping the character speed way up - like uncomfortably high, 20 or even 25wpm character speed - but keeping the word spacing slow enough that i could still follow. farnsworth timing basically. the idea is your brain stops trying to count dits and dahs and starts recognizing the sound of the whole character as one thing. took me maybe 6 weeks of doing it that way before stuff started clicking.

also honestly just getting on the air helped more than any software. even just listening to the qrss stuff or tuning around 40m in the evenings and trying to copy whatever you can. real qsos sound different from generated practice and your brain adjusts. dont worry about copying 100%, even getting call signs and signal reports is progress. keep at it, it does eventually break open

the paddle vs straight key thing - i dont think it matters much for receiving speed honestly, thats more about your ear than your hand. but fwiw i made the switch to paddles around 10wpm and it did make sending feel less tiring so maybe that freed up mental energy or something, hard to say.

i use the morse code ninja videos on youtube a lot, he has word lists at different speeds and they really helped me. also just throwing on some W1AW code practice when im doing other stuff, even half paying attention seems to help over time