[CW] Computer Programs to Learn CW

[N7DC at cs.com]

I agree with most of this, but I have taught code to literally hundreds of Scouts, and others over the past 40 years and use a slightly different procedure.  You already may know the code, but you need to start learing the characters faster and thus would benefit from the same methodology.

First, learn the characters that are more important to the language.  If you take almost any book written in English, and counted the number of times each letter appears you would find that "E" comes out number one.  In other words, there are a lot more Es than say Zs in that book.  I took that information and made up groups with which to teach.

For instance, E T A I O N S are the letters most used in English.  Thus, set up the computer to go one letter at a time, at the speed you want to copy, with 5 or 7 wpm spaces between letters.  I teach E several blips, the add T.  Once the student has that down, I add A.  Now I have not only 3 letters, but enough to make up a word or so (AT EAT TEA) and can throw some of the complete words in to see how the student does with the spacing between words.   Then I add I to the mix.  Continue to learn by randomizing those characters.  When its down 100 percent, add O to the Mix.  Come up with some more words as you go (OAT-OATS-TONE-TON-NOT-TAN etc.)  Then add N and S one at a time.  Use all those characters to send words. 

 At this point, you have two choices:  You can go to the next group and add one more letter at a time, to the mix.  Or you may decided to simply increase your copy speed by increasing the speed of the letters (also it will shorten the space a bit)  You could conceivably go right on up the speed scale and learn those 7 letters at whatever your target speed is.   

Add the next group of letters:  I use- D G H K M R for the next group, and then J L P U V and finally the last group of letters is Q W X Y Z.  

As to the punctuation, I throw one or two of those in with each group.  ? / in with group one maybe, then (.) and (......) the error signal, in with group 2, then the comma (,) and the -(dash and then the  ( ( ) (yes the  (( itself)).  Once you have all those letters in the mix, you of course are copying the whole shebang at whatever your target speed might be.  As you approach 18-22 wpm, you pretty much wont have an extended space.  I dont know if this program will allow extended spaces at those speeds or not, but you dont need them at this point.

Of course the whole idea here is to learn the code as sounds, not as dits and dahs, which is literally one of the worse ways to try to learn it.  I learned code in Scouts, with a wig-wag flag, then with dits and dahs and a flashlight key.  Belive me, it made it harder to switch to sound.  After all, you learned to speak English (or whatever your initial language was) by hearing it, not reading it.  I actually can read some Arabic, but cannot understand or say the words audiably.

Most of all, have fun learning.  Once you have the characters (or even some) down, simply read passing highway signs, the newspaper headlines or other items, in code - as rapidly as you can.

This works.  I had one Boy Scout meet with me and my hand key, and he learned, and passed, the code in one 30 minute session.  Exceptional? Yes, Unusual? Yes.  Impossible?  No.  At the National Scout Jamboree, at Ft A P Hill Va. in 1985, I had something like 12 boys, and one adult, not only pass the code but learn and pass the entire Novice test in ONE WEEK.
You just gotta wanna.

Danny





"Jay Eimer" <ad5pe at familynet.net> wrote:

>I concur.  Download the free G4FON program.  It's slowest character
>speed is 15WPM.  Set the inter=word space to 7 or 9wpm, and give it a
>try.  If you have problems, turn all but a couple of the characters off.
>Then turn them on one or two at a time when you reach 90% copy.  When
>you are 90% with the full character set, bump the speed up by shortening
>the inter-word space until 15WPM really is 15WPM.
>
>When you get there, start over - but with 20WPM characters, and add the
>spaces back to bring it down to 15 overall.
>
>Jay
>AD5PE
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: cw-bounces at mailman.qth.net [mailto:cw-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On
>Behalf Of GERry
>Sent: Tuesday, October 05, 2004 19:14
>To: Gary Smith; cw at mailman.qth.net
>Subject: Re: [CW] Computer Programs to Learn CW
>
>
>> What are everyone's recommendations about the best
>> software package to use to pick up code speed from 7
>> to 15+ wpm?
>
>I recommend you use the Koch Method (discussed by Finley) to jump right
>to your target speed.  Download Ray Goff's very fine (and free!)
>Koch-Method training program from www.qsl.net/g4fon
>
>73 de W3GERry
>
>
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