[CW] Computer Programs to Learn CW

Tue Oct 12 18:02:52 EDT 2004

Hello "Men and Women of the Telegraph Key"...

I like N7DC's approach to learning and teaching code.  It has the benefit of 
allowing the students to copy something meaningful - like words.  This is 
very encoraging to them.

I've used a different approach to overcome some of the problems with 
"guessing" the code.

I've introduced the "ZERO" as the first letter, then the 9, 8, colon (:), 
7 - each letter is "longer" than the following letter - which ends the "hey, 
it starts with a DASH, so it must be the letter that has a dash for starting 
element."

One thing that baffles me is a fellow from ZERO land is teaching code by 
memory aids - not even by ear - this doesn't work.  You'll pass the 5 wpm 
test, but you won't know code.

One (and perhaps the only) effective way of really making sure you can copy 
code is to copy mixed number, punctuation and letter FIVE character groups. 
There is no guessing when you get this kind of copy correct.

FCC about 10 years ago "relaxed" the 20 wpm / 16 code groups per minute test 
for 2nd class commercial radiotelegraph license - giving the Extra hams 
credit for passing their ham test, and also eliminating the sending 
requirement for the tests.  This resulted in commercial operators who could 
barely copy 10 wpm.

73

DR

----- Original Message -----
From: <N7DC at cs.com>
To: ""Jay Eimer"" <ad5pe at familynet.net>; <cw at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Thursday, October 07, 2004 7:51 AM
Subject: RE: [CW] Computer Programs to Learn CW

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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