This is something I stumbled across that seems to make a real difference for me. It may not help others, and it even may be somewhat counter-productive at higher speeds.  I am a visual learner, have no real good ear for anything and currently can copy CW comfortably at 10-12wpm sustained, although I can copy the characters at a Farnsworth speed of 25wpm.  I am a VERY fast reader, so this "trick" may work for others who are strong readers but not great at turning audible CW into head copy or even on pen/paper/keyboard.  Also, my memory is awful so that doesn't help me with head copy either.

The "trick": When I hear the code, instead of thinking about the letter, I visualize the letter appearing on a blank white sheet of paper in front of me.  Almost like an old-fashioned typewriter slapping the letter onto the page, for those of us who remember such archaic technology.   For a few of us, the better analogy might even be "ticker tape".  And in a sense what I'm doing is visualizing the ticker tape in my head, since I don't (obviously) try to keep the whole QSO text visualized in my mind, but rather sentence by sentence, like a ticker tape that you hold in your hands: the stuff from a few minutes ago "disappears" and you're just "seeing" the section of mental "tape" that you hold between your hands.

So if the QSO is something like:

FB JIM UR RST 57N 57N HR IN NYC NYC then that's what I keep visualized on my imaginary tickertape/typewriter/whiteboard.  And exactly in those kinds of big giant bold letters (makes it easier to recall, for some reason).  On paper I'll jot down 57N during a pause, because I don't know about you, but I'm constantly forgetting what the report was by the time the QSO is over and I have to enter it into the log, unless I was copying everything by hand from the beginning.

if there's a BK then I "erase" the tickertape and visualize the next section.  Rinse/wash/repeat.

Rationale:  I think the thing that stumps a lot of people, and is certainly an issue for me, is that in learning CW we are limited by the speed our brain processes the audible information.  Now, if you have "instant character recognition", which of course is the goal, you process EXTREMELY fast because it's essentially your unconscious (high speed) brain doing the heavy lifting, and not the conscious  (low speed) brain.  Still, what I've struggled with is I hear the code, and regardless of whether it's by instant recognition or not (90% instant for me now, although I have a few characters I struggle with),  is that in trying to head copy I then think (conscious mind=slow), either about the letter itself  in order to write it down, or I'm trying to decipher the whole word and I'm thinking about what that word means. This of course takes time, and that's the enemy because there's more letters coming while you're thinking about the one you just received. It seems to me, that by visualizing the words on my imaginary tickertape/page, I get to bypass that whole thinking process.  I don't have to "think" about the text/message or its meaning, because it's right there in front of me and I am automatically comprehending it.  For example, when I read a book, I virtually never see the letters/page in front of me.  Instead, I visualize the scene or think about the idea.  Reading the text is wholly unconscious and automatic, like breathing.  That's why for me reading a book is like watching a movie.  So I suspect I am tapping into that skill or part of my brain, but instead of turning written words into images, I'm turning audible CW into an image, just like when I read, and those "reading muscles" are super-strong, making it relatively easy to "see" the CW and "know" what it means without having to think about it.  That's why my caveat that for someone who isn't a heavy reader, this may not work so well.  Of course, there's always more than one way to skin a cat. 

I don't know how this will hold up at high speeds, because 25-30+wpm is such a distant goal for me.  I could see where my mental tickertape, instead of printing letters prints whole words and you get the same effect, though.  


73
Jim, KQ9I