[Elecraft] increasing CW speed

[Mike Markowski]

Doug and all,

I use a lesser variant of this for a few minutes just prior to getting 
on the air.  My fastest comfortable speed is about 23 wpm, so I'll 
"send" (transmitter off) at 28 to 30 wpm to practice and get used to the 
sounds at that speed.  Then when I drop down to my normal speed it's 
nice & easy.  I've had a few 25 wpm qsos this way & did fine, though I 
have to admit the steam was rising from my head afterwards!

Personally I've found helpful the combination of listening to 
too-fast-for-me code gets my head ready, and then - contrary to what 
most have recently said - I just bump the wpm up by 1 or 2 wpm every now 
and then.  Sure it's slow progress but I'm not in a hurry, so the 
gradual and comfortable increase is fine by me.  It would've been 
interesting to track my progress by date over the past 3 or so years 
being a ham to see if the increases are linear, logarithmic, or what - 
or if I've transitioned from the saturation to active regions.  :-) 
Though I often feel saturated!

73,
Mike  ab3ap

DOUGLAS ZWIEBEL wrote:
> HI all:
> 
> This is what worked for me...
> 
> Listen to CW at a speed that is impossibly too fast for you.  If you
> are currently at 20 wpm, try listening to 60 or 70 wpm.  If you copy
> 15wpm, try 45 wpm or 40wpm to start.
...
> de Doug KR2Q
> 
> PS...I am really rusty on "the phone" though.