K2EJT's tips for CW Beginners 

CW classes, who knew? Just started SWLing after a brief 40+ years away from HF, operating mostly CW. A tip and a warning. The characters need to become subconscious, meaning you don't hear --- - ---, you hear "K". Then you'll begin to hear common whole words and be able to predict common phrases real time. The warning? It NEVER goes away. You'll catch yourself tapping morse with a finger while thinking about something or watching TV. At least I do. Copying last night on 40m, my limit ~15 wpm, way less than when I operated, but know it'll come back quickly. Good luck!

Thanks for an informative video. When I first got on the air, it was on the Novice Band at 5 WPM and other Amateurs were very patient in helping us progress. Then we had to travel to the Federal Building in Detroit and up to the tenth floor to the FCC Office. The Morse Code would blare out on a loudspeaker and we had to copy a perfect minute out of five minutes at 13 WPM. Hands were trembling and hearts were pounding for those 5 minutes. And then we had the General!

Great job on this. Thanks for the being such a good ambassador for CW. It keeps me working at this.

I've been a member of LICW about 3 weeks and I love the format. I came in with pre experience 60 yrs ago and could copy about 5 WPM. After about a week I started POTA hunting. I can't copy everything but I can copy enough. Next week I'm going to start Intermediate 1 while I continue BC 2. That's the beauty of LICW. I still need work on numbers and pro-signs, bur I can continue to improve in other areas. And, yes, I practice about an hour everyday.

This was a wonderfully informative video, Evan -- thank you for making it. Lots of really practical advice; not a bunch of theoretical stuff, but actual useful advice for learning CW.

Excellent video! Lots of good information for beginners and intermediate CW students alike. I am a LICW member although I have been absent the past few months. Looking forward to resuming classes again soon. Thanks for posting!

Thanks for video Evan. I got back into CW during Covid and have really got into POTA/WFF I went through the CW ops intermediate, however I am still struggling with head copy and instant character/word recognition - Its a work in progress for sure, but like you, I am 95% CW and listen daily.

As brilliant and as useful as always-Thankyou 😊

Great example of Elmering, Evan! I'm not the greatest CW op, so I'm no expert in the subject, but every bit of advice you gave sounds good to me. Especially "no gimmicks". I learned CW at 5 WPM way back in the day when that was required to get a Technicial Plus ticket (remember those?). I didn't use it much for a while, but once I got back into ham radio (and more specifically QRP) about 15 years ago, I did improve my skills a bit where I could do a 13 WPM QSO with some pain. I never did get real comfortable with it. I've recently renewed my interested in CW and QRP and have been just jumping in, trying to make a couple of POTA CW QSOs every day from my home station. I've also been watching a lot of RU-vid videos of POTA activations like yours and others while I work. Just having it on in the background does really help, I believe. The plethora of learning tools available to the new CW op is insane compared to back when I first learned. Back then you had the Gordon West cassette practice tapes, ARRL code practice, or getting on the air. Getting on the air still does remain the best way of leveling up, as you said, but at least there are a ton of resources available for the new learning to get them to the point where they can take the plunge on that first CW QSO. 73 DE NT7S

Fantastic video. Keep up the great work.

Thank you Evan for the video. I picked up some very useful information and have applied for membership of the LICW. Nick.

And I should add that those of us who passed the FCC 13 WPM receiving test would then be called up to the front one at a time and have to send 13 WPM on their straight key. It was quite a rite of passage in those days.

Many years experience have proven that the best way to master CW is to practice all the letters, numbers, and important prosigns and callsigns until you can copy well at 5 WPM; then, GET ON THE AIR AND START HAVING QSOs.

Thats' my speed in CW. Very rarely do I find a Ham going slow enough for me to translate and write more than 2 letter groups. I love translating code though.

This is a great video. Excellent advice. My own journey shows me that the best way to learn Morse or any foreign language is to spend AS MUCH TIME AS POSSIBLE listening to it, while trying to guess them. Quantity of time is the key. The Morse Mania for Android and other apps are good. Like this gentleman says, Morse Code Ninja on RU-vid is great. There are Morse code podcasts. Practicing sending reinforces your learning.

This is great - thank you! I'm ALMOST ready to make my first POTA contact. :)

Thanks!

I was a member and was trying to learn CW when they started changing everything and going over to the carosel system and I was not able to finish. I am still wanting to learn CW, but I don't know if I did the lifetime membership or not (I believe I did), but Ii also don't know which callsign it was under as my callsign was changed at the same time I joined LICW. I can't find anywhere on the website where I can look up my membership.

Hi Evan, any suggestions when you hit a plateau, meaning I recognize immediately about half of the letters, but when I move on to add two more, I just get bogged down and seem to forget some I knew? Should I just keep working on the ones I know for a longer period of time before adding any new letter? Thank you

Evan just joined the LICW, no nothing about CW (I think I spelled it right?). What class should I start with? I do have a straight key and won an QRL Lab OCX-mini, 20 meters at a club raffle last week. Need to get going.

Did you stop using your Vibrakeyer?

I see that 705! How are you liking it?

cw academy teaches BK as a prosign...

Great video Evan! Lots of sage advise in this one. I hope anyone who is interested in CW will give LICW a try. It works!! 73, Patrick KF4LMZ