[CW] Morse Training

Tue Jul 20 14:24:43 EDT 2010

 I was also first exposed to CW in the Army, but it was only indirectly.  It was in Asmara Ethiopia in 1964 and 5 where our American group had a club station off base.  One of my friends liked to stop in there on our way to or from town and he would start up the Drake and give me a running commentary on what he was doing  -- this guy is on a ship out in the Mediterranean, this one is in Spain.  It just sounded songlike of a trilling tongue to me.  
I learned code much later.  In the 1980s I was sitting most of the time doing nothing much in a church, a bit like as a monk, but if you read it as a church jail, that would be about half right.  Oh, I was free enough, it is just that there was nowhere else to be.  Anyway, I somehow acquired a PC-Jr. When you start those without a DOS disk in them they just come up in BASIC.  So I was learning BASIC, having known some FORTRAN and ASSEMBLY from school and needed some kind of object to model against.  So I decided to make a program to teach CW and that would be what to model with.  Probably I actually learned CW while making the program,  but then put it to practice by using the program. At the same time I found a Heathkit Novice training course that I also studied.  It was about a month after I started building the program that I went looking for some HAMS to get licensed, a bunch of KPH guys, and passed the tests and the 5 WPM.  I used the program and kept modifying the program until I was up to 25 WPM.  When I did the extra test I had already done the 20 long before and someone mentioned, gee, and he doesn't even need to take the test, as if that was all there is to extra.  Someplace along the line I figured out how to make the program key my Drake and it worked just great, but after a few qso's I decided that was no fun and went back to straight key.  I still prefer straight key over anything else. You do have to write what you hear, at least to get the salient features down before you forget, but I really prefer to get all down a word at a time, but above 30 or so my fingers do not keep up with that.  It is easier for me to use paper than to use the computer screen--the code is linked to the pencil more than the keyboard for me, I guess.  Local packet was fun when the right guys were involved (long ago), but PSK31 seems the same to me as keying with the program so I again went back to the straight key.    So, here is my point:  You can concentrate on one thing, as many of you have, and get to your end, but you do not have to make it a big work project.  You can learn more than one thing at a time while just plain having fun with your time and exercise your mind in the process.    I approach physical training the same way.  I do not go down to the gym and lift weights, but I do not drive to work either.  I just do things that I want to do that are in the path to do.  I do not go out and jog along the lake, but walk to the store and carry stuff back.  Some stores are farther than others.  It is the same with learning a thing.
Bill Isakson
AC6QV
WD2XSH/44

-----Original Message-----
From: John Westerlage <john at n5dwi.com>
To: CW at mailman.qth.net
Sent: Mon, Jul 19, 2010 10:50 am
Subject: [CW] Morse Training

I'm curious about some of the advice about learning Morse.

I no longer remember exactly how I learned Morse, or how long it took, since I've been using it daily since 1956.  But I do remember that it was a kind of hit or miss type thing - no formal training.  And one day I just realized that I was head copying.

Nowadays, some of the newer online or pc-based trainers have help files advising not to practice for more than 5-15 minutes at a time.  To me, that sounds like WAY too little.  They also advise not to practice when too tired, too frustrated, too sick, or too whatever.

But I wonder about the old commercial Morse training schools in the heyday of Railroad or American Morse telegraphers and the military training in International Morse.  

What kind of time schedule did these training regimes maintain?  Was it eight hours per day?  How many breaks, and how long were the breaks?  How many days or weeks did the training last?  What was the attrition (dropout) rate?

It just doesn't seem feasible for a commercial or military school to pamper students the way these modern trainers advocate. 

I sometimes, now that I'm retired, put in a 10 hour day on the air, and never get tired of Morse.

I'd sure like to be able to accurately tell these new guys how it happened in the "old days."  Any thoughts?

john, n5dwi

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