[Elecraft] Farnsworth Method

[Ron D'Eau Claire]

Ha, ha! Excellent point Tom. 

I never learned to hear "words". I ran my speed up to 35 WPM, copying on a
mechanical typewriter, and decided it wasn't fun going any faster. To this
day, copying in my head while puttering around the shack, I still copy
letters, not words, so that's why I didn't add think about the third step. 

And, I submit, hearing "words" is a relatively recent phenomena for most
operators since, until recently, copying CW meant accurately copying each
character onto paper was needed for message handling. The characters might
be plain text, numbers or code groups.

I made the transition from paper or mill copy as you describe: by not
copying every letter but only the key stuff. Pretty soon I wasn't writing
anything at all and just listening. 

But it's still letter-by-letter for me. 

Ron AC7AC



-----Original Message-----
From: Tom McCulloch [mailto:thom2 at att.net] 
Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2008 5:24 PM
To: Ron D'Eau Claire; Elecraft e-mail list
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] Farnsworth Method


Hi Ron,
 I absolutely agree with your comments and observations.  If I might 
respectfully add a third step might be to "hear words".  I think once we can

copy a qso in heads we are well on our way to increasing our copy speed.

A beginner would do well not to right down every letter.  Common things like

"RST" and "QTH" are a good place to start and then move on from there.

Nice thread, tnx
Tom

WB2QDG