Paul Anderson

so ive been at this CW thing for about 4 months now and im stuck somewhere around 8-9wpm and it feels like a wall. when i first started i was using the G4FON trainer and just doing random characters for like 20 minutes a day and honestly the first couple months felt great, went from barely copying anything to being able to pick out words here and there. but now progress feels really slow and i dont know if im doing something wrong or if this is just how it goes.
a buddy of mine who got his Extra back in the 80s says i should be doing Koch method and setting my character speed higher than my overall speed — like 20wpm characters but only 5wpm effective speed or whatever that's called. i tried it for a week and it was honestly really frustrating, felt like i was starting over from scratch. did anyone else find that transition rough
also i keep second guessing whether i should just jump on the air at my current speed and deal with the embarrassment or keep practicing offline until im more solid. i want to eventually do some QRP /p stuff and actually hold real contacts, not just exchange signal reports.

so ive been trying to learn morse code for about 3 months now and im basically stuck at 5wpm. i can copy at that speed pretty reliably but the moment i push it up to even 7 or 8 it all falls apart and i just hear noise. been using the LC app and doing about 20 minutes a day most days. i know people say just push through but that doesnt really explain HOW to push through you know?
my goal is eventually 20wpm so i can actually get on the air and have a real QSO without embarrassing myself. read somewhere about the Farnsworth method but im not totally sure im doing it right. like my letter spacing is set slow but the characters themselves are at 20wpm, is that actually how its supposed to work? feels weird to copy dit-dah-dit at full speed and then wait forever for the next letter
anyway if anyone has gone through this process and actually made it to 20wpm id love to hear what worked for you. getting a little frustrated honestly

yeah i had the same confusion when i started. what helped me was thinking about it this way -- B and D and E and V all sound pretty similar especially through a noisy repeater or over a pile up, so phonetics just removes the ambiguity. Bravo vs Delta vs Echo vs Victor, no confusion. i think the unwritten rule most people follow is: always go phonetic when exchanging callsigns for the first time in a QSO, and then after that youve established contact and the signal is solid you can relax a bit. but honestly on nets, especially formal ones, the net control usually wants phonetics every time you ID. different nets have different customs too which adds to the confusion lol