Learning Morse Code
I learned the Norman keyboard layout and switched to Doom Emacs a few years ago. I made notes of my progress in a blog post. I lost that blog post*, but I remember it being a valuable exercise and I thought I'd do it again while learning morse code.
I'm using the Koch method with the software Just Learn Morse Code.
Character speed of 20 WPM and overall speed of 20 WPM.
Session length of 5 minutes.
Here's the baseline that I'm starting from on 2024-03-18. Prior to this, I spent only a couple of hours playing around with phone apps and other methods of learning Morse code.
| Letters | Accuracy |
|---|---|
| km | 99% |
| rs | 83% |
| au | 46% |
| pt | 40% |
From here on, it's strictly the Koch method with the Just Learn Morse Code software.
| Time | Letters | Accuracy | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-03-20T23:50:00 | 3 | 88% | |
| 2025-03-21T00:00:00 | 3 | 92% | |
| 2025-03-21T00:05:00 | 4 | 60% | |
| 2025-03-21T00:10:00 | 4 | 77% | |
| 2025-03-21T00:20:00 | 4 | 68% | |
| 2025-03-21T17:10:00 | 4 | 69% | |
| 2025-03-21T17:20:00 | 4 | 73% | I felt like this one was going to be < 50%! |
| 2025-03-21T17:25:00 | 4 | 74% | Same... I feel like I'm getting worse. But the numbers keep going up. |
| 2025-03-21T17:35:00 | 4 | 76% | |
| 2025-03-21T17:45:00 | 4 | 76% | Even with the previous two notes... this one felt atrocious! |
| 2025-03-22T22:55:00 | 4 | 83% | |
| 2025-03-22T23:00:00 | 4 | 82% | |
| 2025-03-22T23:05:00 | 4 | 82% | |
| 2025-03-22T23:10:00 | 4 | 80% | |
| 2025-03-22T23:15:00 | 4 | 74% | |
| 2025-03-22T23:15:00 | 4 | 77% | |
| 2025-03-23T15:25:00 | 4 | 86% | |
| 2025-03-23T15:30:00 | 4 | 87% | Note: I'm taking a 1-2 minute break between each round |
| 2025-03-23T15:40:00 | 4 | 85% | but I'm rounding everything to 5 minute intervals. |
| 2025-03-23T15:45:00 | 4 | 79% | |
| 2025-03-23T15:55:00 | 4 | 82% | |
| 2025-03-23T16:00:00 | 4 | 81% | I'm getting better at grouping the letters. I'll wait until I hear a 2- or 3-letter combo before typing. I'm also getting better at recovering from fumbles/distractions. |
| 2025-03-24T17:15:00 | 4 | 92% | |
| 2025-03-24T17:20:00 | 5 | 63% | 100 minutes to hit 90% on the 4th letter. |
| 2025-03-24T17:25:00 | 5 | 67% | |
| 2025-03-24T17:30:00 | 5 | 62% | |
| 2025-03-24T17:35:00 | 5 | 65% | |
| 2025-03-24T17:35:00 | 5 | 70% | Thought this one would be terrible. Tried hitting a key for everything I heard. Before this, I would only hit keys where I was pretty sure they were correct... |
| 2025-03-26T03:35:00 | 5 | 63% | ...A lot of letters I left blank. I wonder how the algorithm works. I don't want to be gaming it. I think I'll go back to only hitting keys when I'm confident. |
| 2025-03-26T03:40:00 | 5 | 75% | |
| 2025-03-26T03:45:00 | 5 | 67% | |
| 2025-03-26T03:50:00 | 5 | 71% | |
| 2025-03-26T04:00:00 | 5 | 75% | |
| 2025-03-26T04:05:00 | 5 | 72% | |
| 2025-03-26T15:40:00 | 5 | 70% | |
| 2025-03-26T15:45:00 | 5 | 72% | |
| 2025-03-26T15:50:00 | 5 | 72% | |
| 2025-03-26T15:55:00 | 5 | 73% | |
| 2025-03-26T16:00:00 | 5 | 73% | |
| 2025-03-26T16:10:00 | 5 | 75% | |
| 2025-03-27T16:40:00 | 5 | 76% | |
| 2025-03-27T16:45:00 | 5 | 75% | |
| 2025-03-27T16:50:00 | 5 | 74% | |
| 2025-03-27T16:55:00 | 5 | 74% | |
| 2025-03-27T17:00:00 | 5 | 79% | |
| 2025-03-27T17:05:00 | 5 | 74% | I took a break before this to practice keying for the first time. Big mistake. It threw me off. |
| 2025-03-28T16:35:00 | 5 | 86% | |
| 2025-03-28T16:40:00 | 5 | 77% | |
| 2025-03-28T16:45:00 | 5 | 80% | |
| 2025-03-28T17:00:00 | 5 | 77% | |
| 2025-03-28T17:05:00 | 5 | 86% | |
| 2025-03-28T17:10:00 | 5 | 79% | |
| 2025-03-30T03:35:00 | 5 | 80% | |
| 2025-03-30T03:40:00 | 5 | 89% | |
| 2025-03-30T03:45:00 | 5 | 78% | |
| 2025-03-30T03:50:00 | 5 | 93% | Finally! |
| 2025-03-30T03:55:00 | 6 | 64% | |
| 2025-03-30T03:55:00 | 6 | 69% | |
| 2025-03-30T22:15:00 | 6 | 71% | |
| 2025-03-30T22:20:00 | 6 | 69% | |
| 2025-03-30T22:25:00 | 6 | 68% | |
| 2025-03-30T22:30:00 | 6 | 74% | |
| 2025-03-30T22:35:00 | 6 | 71% | |
| 2025-03-30T22:40:00 | 6 | 80% | |
| 2025-03-31T17:20:00 | 6 | 76% | |
| 2025-03-31T17:25:00 | 6 | 73% | |
| 2025-03-31T17:30:00 | 6 | 74% | |
| 2025-03-31T17:35:00 | 6 | 71% | |
| 2025-03-31T17:40:00 | 6 | 69% | |
| 2025-03-31T17:35:00 | 6 | 74% | |
| 2025-03-31T17:40:00 | 6 | 94% | Beginning to try Farnsworth. Speed 15/20. |
| 2025-03-31T17:50:00 | 7 | 93% | |
| 2025-03-31T17:55:00 | 8 | 86% | |
| 2025-03-31T02:50:00 | 8 | 81% | |
| 2025-03-31T02:55:00 | 8 | 88% | |
| 2025-03-31T03:00:00 | 8 | 94% | |
| 2025-03-31T03:05:00 | 9 | 90% | |
| 2025-03-31T03:10:00 | 10 | 82% | |
| 2025-03-31T03:15:00 | 10 | 89% | |
| 2025-03-31T03:15:00 | 10 | 93% | |
| 2025-04-01T16:00:00 | 11 | 75% | |
| 2025-04-01T16:05:00 | 11 | 73% | |
| 2025-04-01T16:10:00 | 11 | 80% | |
| 2025-04-01T16:25:00 | 11 | 78% | Practiced keying for a few minutes again before this one. |
| 2025-04-01T16:30:00 | 11 | 84% | |
| 2025-04-01T16:55:00 | 11 | 79% | |
| 2025-04-01T16:55:00 | 11 | 78% | |
| 2025-04-02T15:10:00 | 11 | 76% | |
| 2025-04-02T15:15:00 | 11 | 94% | Moved to 10/20 Farnsworth. |
| 2025-04-02T15:20:00 | 12 | 97% | |
| 2025-04-02T15:25:00 | 13 | 97% | |
| 2025-04-02T16:20:00 | 14 | 90% | |
| 2025-04-02T16:25:00 | 15 | 97% | |
| 2025-04-02T17:10:00 | 16 | 89% | Missed a lot of A, T, and I. |
| 2025-04-02T17:15:00 | 16 | 96% | |
| 2025-04-02T17:20:00 | 17 | 93% | Missed a lot of R. |
| 2025-04-02T17:25:00 | 18 | 87% | |
| 2025-04-02T17:30:00 | 18 | 90% | |
| 2025-04-02T17:50:00 | 19 | 93% | Missed a few J and N. |
| 2025-04-02T17:55:00 | 20 | 66% | Oh dear. |
| 2025-04-02T18:00:00 | 20 | 90% | |
| 2025-04-02T23:00:00 | 20 | 74% | |
| 2025-04-02T23:05:00 | 20 | 88% | |
| 2025-04-02T00:50:00 | 20 | 91% | |
| 2025-04-02T00:55:00 | 21 | 87% | |
| 2025-04-02T01:00:00 | 21 | 77% | |
| 2025-04-02T01:05:00 | 21 | 89% | |
| 2025-04-02T01:10:00 | 21 | 93% | |
| 2025-04-02T01:15:00 | 22 | 86% | |
| 2025-04-02T02:30:00 | 22 | 79% | Missed lots of V and G. |
| 2025-04-02T02:35:00 | 22 | 83% | |
| 2025-04-02T03:25:00 | 22 | 89% | |
| 2025-04-02T03:30:00 | 22 | 85% | |
| 2025-04-03T15:20:00 | 22 | 78% | |
| 2025-04-03T15:25:00 | 22 | 86% | |
| 2025-04-03T12:15:00 | 22 | 84% | |
| 2025-04-03T12:30:00 | 22 | 91% | Started watching SOTA-specific Youtube videos around here |
| 2025-04-03T12:35:00 | 23 | 82% | |
| 2025-04-03T12:40:00 | 23 | 100% | 5/20 WPM. I really want to CW SOTA this Saturday! |
| 2025-04-03T12:45:00 | 24 | 100% | |
| 2025-04-03T12:50:00 | 25 | 87% | |
| 2025-04-03T12:55:00 | 25 | 100% | |
| 2025-04-03T13:05:00 | 26 | 93% | |
| 2025-04-03T13:10:00 | 27 | 100% | |
| 2025-04-03T13:15:00 | 28 | 97% | |
| 2025-04-03T13:20:00 | 29 | 92% | |
| 2025-04-03T22:40:00 | 30 | 87% | H's and 5's are confusing. |
| 2025-04-03T22:40:00 | 31 | 91% | |
| 2025-04-03T22:50:00 | 32 | 96% | |
| 2025-04-03T22:55:00 | 33 | 96% | |
| 2025-04-03T23:00:00 | 34 | 98% | |
| 2025-04-04T23:40:00 | 44 | 80% | |
| 2025-04-04T23:40:00 | 44 | 93% | On words, Q-codes, and abbreviations. |
Beyond JustLearnMorseCode
My 30-minutes-per-day discipline really fell apart around April 3rd. I had a SOTA event coming up on April 5th and I really wanted to hit 5 WPM to feel comfortable trying to make my first calls on CW. I switched focus and started doing a variety of POTA-specific training.
- Listened to morsecode.ninja podcasts while running and doing chores.
- YouTube
- Asked an LLM to generate realistic SOTA-like exchanges that I would load into JustLearnMorseCode.
- In addition to listening to these, I'd occasionally pause them in between the operator changes to pretend I was the operator on the other side and practice responding.
Here's an example of something the LLM generated. I loaded this into Just Learn Morse Code and practiced at 5/20 speed.
CQ SOTA CQ SOTA DE W1ABC W1ABC K
W1ABC DE KD2XYZ KD2XYZ K
KD2XYZ DE W1ABC UR 599 599 W1/HA-001 W1/HA-001 BK
R R UR 559 559 TU 73 K
R TU 73 QRZ? SOTA DE W1ABC K
First attempt was about 80%. But I got the gist of it. My copy looked like this:
cq sota cq sota de w1abc w1abc k
w1abc de kd2xyz kd2xyz k
k d 2x de w1ebc ur 599 599 w1/ha-001 w1xha-001 bd
ur 559 559 tu 73 k
r eu qrz? i de w1abc k
SOTA on April 5th, 2025
When I started keeping notes on this, I didn't have a particular day/goal in mind. But when I saw I was getting close to 5 wpm and the SFRC Simul-SOTA event was approaching, that became my goal - at least one CW QSO on Saturday, April 5th.
I did it! https://pota.app/#/profile/KI5RCF
Technically I got two. But the first one was coordinated on SSB with Rick (K6TOR), a fellow member of the SFRC, so I don't know if I can really count that one. But my next one was all natural.
At 19:55 on 2025-04-05, KI5RCF at San Bruno Mountain State Park (US-1196) contacted W6EFI at Candlestick Point State Recreation Area (US-7493) over CW on frequency 14.0615.
I probably could have made a few more QSOs, but I felt bad keeping people on the line as I sent "AGN" after "QRS" after "AGN"... And the wind our mast was losing its fight against the wind. So we packed up and headed home after accomplishing our primary objective.
The future
There are several other SFRC members who are new to CW. KU2MM mentioned "vband" and the Long Island CW Club. Those will be my next steps.
I may occasionally update this page with more progress. Until then...
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