[CW] July 1974 Popular Electronics = How to Break the 10-Words-Per-Minute Code Barrier

[David J. J. Ring, Jr.]

How to Break the 10-Words-Per-Minute Code Barrier
July 1974 Popular Electronics

When you think about it, the speed at which a human being is able to 
accurately copy Morse code is limited by the same kinds of processes 
that limit the speed at which binary data can be sent between electronic 
transceivers (modems). Noise introduced into the signal at both the 
transmitting and receiving ends or in the transmission path connecting 
the two, degrades the ability of the receiver (electronic and human) to 
discern between a "1" and a "0." It can take the form of electrical or 
audio interference and distortion. Phase noise in the electronic realm 
is sort of the equivalent of an irregular sending human hand that cannot 
maintain equal dwell times for dits and dahs, thus making the 
recognition of characters error-prone. The operational speed of 
circuitry on an electronic assembly can also limit the speed at which 
Morse code can be copied similar to how a particular person's gray 
matter can limit his comprehension speed. One Navy lieutenant in the 
article stated, "There may be a certain type of individual who can copy 
fast code and a certain type who can't." Of course upon reading that 
line I immediately thought of the joke declaring, "There are 10 types of 
people in this world: Those who understand binary and those who do not." 
To apply that here, the title could equivalently be interpreted as, "How 
to Break the 2-Words-Per-Minute Code Barrier."

How to Break the 10-Words-Per-Minute Code Barrier
10-word-per-minuted-morse-code-popular-electronics-july-1974_small.jpg
By Richard Humphrey

Lucky is the radio amateur who doesn't "plateau out" somewhere around 
ten words-per-minute when he's learning code. There may be a fortunate 
few who march right up to 20 or 30 wpm without a break, but most of us 
make it to 10 wpm literally in a matter of days, then struggle for many 
months to get up to 15 wpm solid copy so we can be sure of hacking 13 
wpm when we go up for our General. Once definitely past the 10 wpm 
"hump," progress is seldom a problem.

Hams aren't the only ones bothered by the CW plateau. The Navy, Army, 
Coast Guard, and Air Force all have their difficulties in getting their 
radio-operator trainees off the 10 wpm dime. When asked if the Army had 
a problem, Colonel A.J. Sullivan in Washington said:

"Yes we do. Approximately 60% of trainees reach a hump somewhere between 
10 and 13 words-a-minute. Our goal is to raise them to 15," he said, 
"and often we're able to get them to go as high as 25 and 30 
words-a-minute." Col. Sullivan went on to explain how the Army did it. 
"The first way is to have the student and instructor analyze error 
patterns and then determine remedial patterns to correct them in the 
student.

"The second way," he continued, "is to analyze individual rhythm 
patterns and make recommendations to improve these. The third thing is 
to try and get these students to copy 'behind' one or two characters so 
that they might be able to comprehend a whole word instead of a letter 
at a time."

A spokesman for the U.S. Navy, Lt. Tim Mennuti, echoed Col. Sullivan. 
"It takes three weeks to peak out," he said, "at which point the average 
person has reached 12 to 14 words-per-minute." Mennuti added, "The 
problem is that over 14 words-per-minute there are no breaks between 
letters." It appears the Navy considers the "hump" serious since we 
understand the training program is undergoing considerable revision.

Everyone interviewed agreed on one of two positions: either (a) the 
plateau was caused by reaching a speed where you had to stop copying 
letters and start copying words or (b) the "letter-to-word" transition 
was a coincidence and the reason for the "hump" had to be found 
elsewhere. The Navy seems to favor the latter view. "Apparently," said 
Mennuti, "there's some psychology connected with this thing that we 
didn't have before. What we're finding out," he explained, "is there may 
be a certain type of individual who can copy fast code and a certain 
type who can't."

Strangely, two things which might be expected to have had an effect on 
an almost auditory process such as learning CW seem not to have affected 
it at all: the increasing use of audio-visual aids in teaching and the 
tremendous impact of television on those who have been coming into the 
military. The generation which has been studying code for the past 
several years are, say the experts, "picture" oriented rather than 
"word" oriented. One might expect that hams and others cramming code 
today would be having more trouble. But Col. Sullivan says the percent 
of those hitting the "hump" hasn't changed "in the last 20 years."

Psychologists and authorities in the business of teaching brought up the 
point when they were interviewed that getting past the 10 wpm plateau 
wasn't a "learning" problem but a "fluency" problem. Obviously, they 
said, if you can copy and send ten words-a-minute, you know the code. 
The point was also made that gaining fluency in code might be similar to 
gaining fluency in a foreign language. If you learn a foreign language 
by "reading" it - in high school or college, for instance - you will 
usually have tremendous difficulty in speaking (or understanding) the 
language fluently. You will find that you translate from the foreign 
tongue into your own language, absorb the information, form an answer, 
in your own language, translate the answer into the foreign language, 
and then say it. To gain any fluency whatsoever you must think in the 
foreign language.

But how do you "think in code?"

Here, the experts and authorities as well as military instructors and 
radio amateurs are more-or-less in agreement. Number one on everyone's 
bugaboo list: don't sit down and learn the code before you start 
listening to it! Many hams fall into this bottomless pit. The CW trainee 
in the military has usually been sitting there for three hours with the 
cans on his head listening to taped copy before someone tells him what 
it is he's doing. Even so, six out of ten plateau out somewhere around 
10 wpm, according to the Army. The attrition rate among radio amateurs 
must be tremendous. One instructor put the problem this way:

"When you find yourself hearing dah-dit-dah-dit and saying 'Aha, that's 
a C' and then writing it down, you're in big trouble. It's got to be 
instantaneous," he said. "You hear it, you write it. No translating!"

The way you transcribe CW may also have a direct bearing on the 10 wpm 
hump. Without exception, everybody agrees that the best way is to use a 
typewriter. For two reasons. First, the mental attitude you have when 
you learn to touch type is quite similar to what it should be in 
learning code. You're not translating. You learn by rote that the right 
forefinger goes there and the left forefinger goes here for this letter 
or that letter. You're not falling into the bad habit of reading a 
letter, looking for it on the keyboard, then hitting it.

Second, copying by hand in capitals will limit your speed to around 15 
wpm. Long-hand script will only take you to 25 wpm or so. The only thing 
limiting your code speed when using touch typing is your typing speed. A 
40-wpm typing speed in only fair. A 40-wpm speed in copying code is very 
good. (It's undoubtedly no coincidence that of the Air Force's 630 hour 
CW course, 435 hours are devoted to "touch typing and transcribing 
International Morse code with a typewriter.")

The various tapes and records on the market to teach you the code 
undoubtedly have some value. The unanimous comment from radio amateurs 
is that they'll memorize each tape or record after a few playings and 
once this has happened the recording is useless. Tapes work out fine for 
the military because they can afford thousands-of-hours of it so there's 
little chance of copy memorization. Hams usually aren't so affluent.

What to do if you "studied" the code before you began listening to it? 
You can try the Army's recommendation of "copying behind" to try to 
progress from letter copying to word copying. Or you can try the method 
used by a former Navy Chief Radio Electrician.

"My hump was around nine-a-minute," he says. "It made me mad. I just 
kept at it. I copied until my eyes fell out. I even copied Russian and 
Spanish code, though I didn't understand it. Later, aboard ship, they 
tested me on taped copy and I made 9 words-a-minute.

To many would-be hams, all this insistence on an "antiquated" form of 
communications is ridiculous. With FM, SSB, facsimile, and other things 
to come in the future, they may be right. But CW is still the simplest 
form of long-range communications. Because when you are using CW, you 
can cut through QRM with modest power, a minimum number of components 
with simple antenna, and troubleshooting and repairs can be made with 
almost no training. CW is a unique ease of the Old Gray Mare being just 
as good as she "used to be."
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