Stick with it Brother, i learnt CW when i was 15 years old, some 42 years ago and i am still in love with this mode ! I like your homemade 'sideswiper' style key ...... Good luck on becoming a 'code' warrior and Best 73 from France.
Putikeeg is geek-it-uP in reverse! I have the same key. Differt color. Get you a set of feeler guages to help you with your adjustment. Best bang for the buck. I put a block of steel under mine too! Great quality for the $. 73 de KF4LBG Larry in North Florida 😊
I've definitely been trying to find a good way to do that. I realized I was trying to push myself and taking on too many letters before getting the others really really good, thinking of I'll eventually pick them out.. So I've went back a little to regroup.
Very nice. You are doing it the correct way by listening to the sound that each character makes. As you noticed, you can tell immediately when error is made in your call. Shortly you'll be copying in your head. My advice is to stay away from printed morse code. Morse is for the ears not the eyes. Enjoy your journey.. Fernando N2FQ/6
Thanks. Yea I found that out about printed right from the start.. I play music by ear so the music of cw is setting quicker for me that way. As soon as I added paper I immediately went into trying to count dits and dahs in my head.. I can see also when I add a bunch of new characters in the listening.. I may not recognize a bunch of it together right off, but will immediately recognize a familiar tone/character. even if I'm slow to say it's a L or P or a S or H for example. I'll get there. Only been right over at a week even though it feels longer lol
When you get good enough, fast enough you will stop hearing individual characters and develop a library of whole words that you recognize just like hearing someone speak.
That's what I'm hoping for.. I had a really good day yesterday after spending some time with the key.. I went over all the letters I know trying to find my rhythm practicing my call sign, name and add if I was listening to my random koch app.. Then later I went to my listening sessions and was picking the letters out much faster in my head... Listening to cw on the rig last night though (arrl practice code) it was really hard to distinguish anything but a lot of unfamiliar letters and numbers.. But one day I'll get there. One day.
One draw back i see that may however hinder me, is I have to insert spacing between characters or my brain just won't keep up or decode them quick enough. I'll be 3 or 4 letters behind.. But I plan on shortening that distance gradually as I go and learn more characters
Thanks for the tip on the key. Im looking for my first key and this might be it. Im using a couple apps on my phone and an old gordon west cd to learn cw. After a while the m's and i's sound like a's and n's for me.
My R's, S's and U's I have the hardest time with so far.. But I'm sure with time I'll get it.. But yea I was super surprised how good that key looks and is put together. Like I say I can't compare with those high dollar ones but for me starting out it's a great compromise.and I looked at cheaper ones too. That one looked sturdier than those.. looks cool on my desk and it functions. Lol
I had that key... I didn't like that the paddles were spaced too far apart... There's another key of almost exactly the same design and price, the the paddles are closer together. Makes it easier on the hands.
