[Elecraft] K3 CW text decoder

[Vic, K2VCO]

When I first got my ticket (56 short years ago) I struggled with the 
code. I even flunked my 13 wpm General test the first time. That was 
because I was 'hearing' individual letters instead of larger units.

I got interested in traffic handling and had to write down what I was 
hearing. After awhile I started hearing little groups of letters and 
then words. It was necessary, because otherwise I couldn't write fast 
enough!

I guess it took about a year (but of course I was a teenager). Now I can 
copy about 55 in my head. There is a second 'hump' around 60 wpm that I 
never tried to get over. It represents a different way of hearing the 
code, just like hearing words is different from hearing letters.


On 7/23/12 11:48 AM, Stephen Roberts wrote:
> Hey...I resemble that remark!
>
> Ok...well I'm one of those poor recruits that happened to score well in the cw aptitude test although I had absolutely no prior knowledge of the code. After 6 months at CT school in Pensecola, I was merrily copying away with...yes...wait for it...a typewriter. NO way I could even come close to copying in my head. As Guy said, copying 5 letter code groups was the primary gig and it was all just a mechanical reaction to a letter sound. After leaving the Navy, I never pursued cw or becoming a ham. It was not until recently (about 5 months ago) that I got my ticket and plunged back into re-learning CW and although I remembered most of the letters, it was not as easy as I imagined it would be, especially since I had no experience sending and had no idea what a QSO sounded like . Well, I'm up to about 25 WPM at this point and very gradually getting to recognize words. I think I'm still a long way from copying in my head 100%, but I'm hoping that after about a year, I should be in
  g
>   ood shape. I've been averaging about 4 QSO's a day (I haven't tried the mike on my K2 yet) and wish I could do more, but I ain't retired YET and still have to chase the almighty dollar around.
>
> So all of you "I can copy in my head at 60 WPM"...how long did it take you to learn how to do that?
>
> 73
> Steve


-- 
Vic, K2VCO
Fresno CA
http://www.qsl.net/k2vco/