Learning the code - my experience
When learning morse code, rythm and "sound images" are most important. You do not learn the characters as "Dots and Dashes", but as mental "sound images". Throw away your code charts, they will only slow you down. Of course, the rythm and feel of a character changes with the speed of the transmission, and at some point it becomes all garbage. Where, depends on where you are in the learning process. I'd say, for me, when I was training for my 60 cpm code test, I had real trouble with 40 cpm and slower, 80 cpm was OK, 100 cpm real hard, and 120 AND 25 cpm were complete garbage. 25 cpm had no rythm, just long whining tones, and 120 cpm was just rattling beeps. Now it's more like 75 cpm is getting hard to read and 250 is rattling. 25 cpm is now almost impossible to read. I have to translate the long wailing tones to code for each dot and dash. So if you call me on the air with 25 cpm, I probably wont answer. Not because I'm arrogant, but simply because it's too slow for me to understand. It sounds to me as if you are tuning your antenna. Just the same as if you call me with a speed of 250 cpm, then I hear just rattling.
I was using MorseCat, when I was learning the code, set at a speed of 70 cpm all the time. Never slower. Started with 5 characters, listened to them one by one and wrote them down. When I felt I knew them I started with generated code groups containg only these characters, and copied for 6 minutes at a time until I had then 99% correct all the time. I then advanced with a few new characters. This went on for 6 weeks, 30 minutes every second day. I could of course have done it faster, but then again, why hurry. If I was to learn the code today, I would have used G4FON's Koch Method CW Trainer, it is very good, in my opinion much better than Morsecat, and works well in Windows. Read about it on the Morse Code Software page.
Graphics by PA3ALMAt the end I also started copying plain text. This is VERY important, as the rythm of the words is quite a bit different with plain text, compared to code groups. In addition you start anticipating the next character, as your brain starts guessing what the complete word is. If the brain guesses wrong, you fall flat on your face and loose the last part of the word, and probably the next two ! So trying not to let the brain wander off and start guessing, is an important part of learning proper reception of plain text. I find myself training with plain text reversed or text in some language I can't read or understand a single word of. Plain text reversed has more or less the same rythm and feel as the non-reversed text, but is very difficult to understand until the complete word is copied. I made a piece of software that reverses text from a file or the keyboard. Download it here: Jumbler.zip. Try it when you feel proficient with plain text. You will sweat a bit in the beginning, at least I did.
Some example code. First some code groups of five characters, then the text you just read above. The files are midi generated by Morse Midi, available on the software page.
25 Cpm code - Way to slow, cant get a feel of the rythm. This is not efficient code.
60 Cpm code - As I see it, the lowest recommendable speed.
80 Cpm code - You'll find many amateurs running around this speed.
100 Cpm code - This is probably the average speed on the air
120 Cpm code - Many run this speed, especially americans and russians, but far from everyone.
180 Cpm code - Rattling for the experts and high speeders.
Morse Code Software