[CW] Newby to code (again)

[Bob Young]

Thanks everyone for the encouragement, I am determined this time and have plenty of free time (retirement will do that) to practice. I did try setting it at 20 WPM last night with the actually word rate at 12 and I was able to copy fairly well although at that speed I have trouble between  U and W sometimes. I've had the thing set at 15 WPM with the effective rate usually at 13 per minute. It is difficult to write the characters especially with my lousy writing but I find the smaller I write the faster I can write. I've been out of the country now for a year (plans are up in the air) and have no transmitter here but have heard there are places to have online QSO's but that's a little down the road for me anyway at this point.

Bob
kb1okl
________________________________
From: Joe Pontek Sr <v31jp1957 at gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, December 21, 2020 1:40 PM
To: Bob Young <bobyoung53 at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: [CW] Newby to code (again)


Good day, Bob.

Welcome back to CW. Another group to look into is the SKCC,
Straight Key Century Club. Even though centered on mechanical
keys, straight keys, side swipers and bugs, there are many CW
newbies and CW retreads there.

I have been active for 63+ years and on CW the whole time.
I am currently stuck in a ground floor apartment, so I am looking
into going mobile CW again and maybe using a jumper from my
pickup into the apartment for working from in here.

I have taught CW classes over the years and have gone from he
old way of slow, 5 WPM, to start and now start at 20 WPM. Then
you learn the letters by sound and not counting dots & dashes.
Throw down the pencil or pen. Learn to head copy. The only FCC
test I failed was my Extra 20 WPM the first time because I could
not write fast enough. I copied the test solid, but I had been head
copying for so long, I was not writing anything but notes. Now days,
except for formal traffic, no need to write it all down.

I was up to 60 WPM copy when last running mobile. You cannot write
while driving. B^)

Back to chores.

73, Joe, K8JP/K5

On 12/21/2020 11:28 AM, Bob Young wrote:
Hi all,

This is my first post to this reflector even though I've been subscribed for a long time now. I tried many years ago once and failed to learn code. I did it with a popular program that has you type the letter into your keyboard. I got close to about twenty letters and became confused and discouraged, this was the Koch method. I recently started over again with the G4FON (Koch) method of writing down the characters rather than typing them in, so far this seems to be a lot better way for me and writing them down just seems to make me retain them in my memory a lot better and it's actually enjoyable, I hated type the letters in. I'm starting at 15 WPM with the effective rate either 11 or 13 WPM and am up to my 12th letter and I seem to have reached it quicker than before although I do think I retained some memory unconsciously. So anyway, reading something a few weeks ago here got me interested again and I'm not stopping this time.

Bob Young
kb1okl

--
Regards, Joe, K8JP/V31JP, Ronnie, Martin & Sidney Pontek
175 Diamond Loch Rd., Apt. 5
Gilmer, TX 75644-9374
U.S.A.

903-204-2318 (My TX cellular)

Member FOC-1743 Feb 2001, QCWA-LM21894, OOTC-4607, A1OP, SKCC-3171T, NAQCC-5798, Flying Pig-2819, FISTS-7625CC951, A1C-2299, SOC 1075, CFO, 10-10 22977, PG1915841, CW Rag chewers #21,
Facebook: Joe Pontek
Skype: v31joepalooka
LotW
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