[Elecraft] CW

[Frederick Dwight]

N6IET has some good insights.  For sure some methods of learning code are more efficient than others.
For example, sending letters at a high speed, but leaving more space, or not memorizing the letters 
from a chart.  HOWEVER many of us did everything wrong and still progressed to high speeds in spite
of these transgressions.  For example, about 69 years ago a neighbor kid and I strung wires between
our houses.  We made up our own code, some common letters had many dots and dashes and other
seldom used letters had only a dot or two.  We also memorized the chart.  However we became
moderately successful in this strange code.  Perhaps 5 years later we entered the Boy Scouts and once
again memorized the Morse code and passed the tests.  For a short time we could converse in either
code, but he never moved on to ham radio.  I was the school sponsor of a HS radio club, and one field
day we did not have enough operating positions, so no problem, some of us just climbed up into a few
nearby hills and had QSOs with each other and our hacked flashlights at perhaps 12 WPM.  Most of
the kids had no problem adapting to the light signals and most had zero experience with light.  Several
times in my 65 year ham career I started learning to read American Morse (the landline code) on a
sounder, which was easy, but never followed through with this, but even without practice I can still read the sounder
at least at 18 WPM with “our” Continental Morse code.  The brain is an amazing organ and capable of much
more than we often realize.  However there are no real shortcuts, so hundreds of hours of operation
is required for moderate speeds, and many hundreds or perhaps thousands of hours are required
to become proficient at “HIGH speeds”, which I will call over 45 WPM. Some folks will not be successful
at speeds more than about 35WPM, but these speeds were seldom required, even when I operated 
as a shipboard CW op, and also as a land based coastal CW op where most traffic was at 20 WPM or
less, and seldom over 25WPM.  Rick  KL7CW  

Sent from Mail for Windows 10