"...works but is limited in speed". I agree there, but I'm not at that point yet, and I'm trying to fill the vacuum, so to speak: saying the letter in my mind cause problems, but I have save it somehow, and until the true intuitive, subconscious mind gets hold of it, visualization is the best thing I can come up with for now...

"...not try to recognize even words, just the letters. " That's interesting, because the gurus say that identifying the words is the goal. I've already lamented elsewhere that that's a problem, because I need to hear the letters quickly but the words slowly at this moment in my learning. Again, I think the "joined up writing" - "cursive CW", if you will, takes time, and it is a cruel paradox that one needs to identify letters in quick succession first, in order to identify words in the first place, before one can identify the word as a single entity, by which time one doesn't need to read one letter at a time.

"...just let them go and listen for the next letter that you recognize without strain": I only WISH I could do that. I stall out and have to wait for the beginning of the next word, or word following. By that time, important information has been lost.

"...I think the old rule about practicing faster than you can copy is wrong": thank you, I totally agree. I've tried doing it, and I never seem make any progress, I just get stressed and frustrated. It's also very dependent my state of mental alertness, which varies a lot. For me, coupled with the idea of visualizing letters, if I hear letters form words, and see it at the same time, I can couple the senses together, and it starts to happen in my head, where it needs to be. I rotate through random letter groups, my own randomized alphabet files (with each letter repeated to begin a practice session, then down to once), "100 common words", and a broad dictionary of words from my phone player (Wolphi "CW Trainer" Morse Trainer). If I stick to one method for too long, it ceases to be helpful. But playing much faster than I can copy is pointless. I do try to push the speed though, and move up at about 80% capture.

I'm 66, and this is really hard; I wish I'd learned when I was younger :-(

j.

   I tried doing something that I think is similar to the "trick" of visualizing but found it got in the way. I learned code originally by writing it down. That works but is limited in speed and I found if I couldn't write I couldn't read the code. I thought typing would help but found it really didn't. I tried visualizing the letters as I heard them but found it also slowed me for some reason. I can't quite explain what I eventually did but I decided just to listen to the code and recognize what I could. Not try to recognize even words, just the letters. They began to pop into my head and I began to be able to read words. My ideal was to be able to read code the way I listened to voices, just hear the letters and words. I realized I had been straining and trying to remember letters I missed. Can't do that, just let them go and listen for the next letter that you recognize without strain. I think the old rule about practicing faster than you can copy is wrong. Practice at a speed you can copy without much effort and go on to a faster speed. Again, hard to explain, its mostly an attitude.
   I learned code when I was about twelve. I could send like a whiz but had trouble copying. No practice material available. It has taken me all these years to recognize and try to correct the errors.

On 4/27/2022 11:04 AM, N4JO wrote:

Thanks for posting this, Dave: I absolutely concur with this observation about interpretation of audible information. In fact, it was a revelation for me, which I posted about recently on another forum, when I realized that I was getting tied up in knots /saying the name/ of incoming letters in my mind. I started /visualizing /them instead, and within minutes was doing a better job. Apparently the parallel use of my brain's "audio circuits" was making it difficult. Unfortunately I can't yet keep the image of enough letters ("ticker-tape") to form words, but it may simply be that I need more practice. It certainly takes me a couple of moments to remember to switch between "mind's ear" and "mind's eye", but when I can do it, the improvement in capture efficiency comes fast.

Jim says: "I'm */thinking /*about what that word means." EXACTLY! - except for me it's about the letters even before the words come! I think that it is, paradoxically, from years of engineering, wherein I'm accustomed to analyzing all data that enters my head /as it does so/, and cross-relating it to everything else I think I know in order to determine if  it's valid or useful or not. For CW, one has to "simply" copy in the letters/words, make a sentence in your mind, and /only then /interpret it. That is /hard/!

Jim's article is the best description I've EVER read of my challenge with CW (if I also add a dose of ADHD into the picture), and I'm deliriously glad I'm not alone. Based on his success, I'm going to focus on polishing my visual capture skill, because I think that's going to work for me better than any other method. Of course, I still need to complete 100% instant recognition - I'm maybe close to 90% like he was.

I've reformatted the text of Jim's article into a regular adaptive wrap below, so it'll be less vertical, and hopefully easier to read...

julian, n4jo.

===

On 4/19/2022 6:38 PM, D.J.J. Ring, Jr. wrote:

*Head copy "trick"*
From: Jim KQ9I <mailto:[email protected]?subject=Re:%20Head%20copy%20%22trick%22>

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

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