I've spent many an hour observing my subjective thought processes as I copy CW. And I have to admit that after 60 years of operating CW (with a head copy cruising speed of 25-30 wpm and a hard copy speed transcribing radiograms of about 22 wpm using pencil), I do not actually hear entire words, except maybe for a few 2-, 3- and 4-letter words sent very frequently. I do what your smart phones do, which is to guess each word from the first few characters as they're being sent, based also on context and experience, and usually get the right word before the next one is sent.
I'm able to keep the actual sounds of several characters worth of code in mind for a few seconds and to "replay" that "recording", in case I guess wrong or miss one or two characters, and I can remember the past few words sent so that I can make sense of each sentence, without having to write anything down. It's like my brain has a sound buffer, a character buffer, and a word buffer. In fact, writing stuff down often interferes with my ability to focus my attention on what is being sent, so I tend to take really quick notes. (I'm poor at multi-tasking.) When I'm copying radiograms which often contain addresses and phone number or net reports with lots of numbers, call signs and abbreviations, I copy about one or two characters behind so that I don't have to erase when the sender makes an error. While I do not count dits and dahs within each character, I immediately discriminate any character from any other, based on its rhythm, no matter the speed. Perhaps those not exposed to music education at an early age might not enjoy that advantage. Again let me reiterate that I learned code from a dot-dash chart in the Boy Scout Handbook, which I used as shorthand for mouthing the code using the dididahdit method which tends to force proper timing of each character. I don't remember ever having so-called "plateaus", other than having to switch from printing block upper case letters to using lowercase script, once I got beyond 20 wpm, and finally realizing that I didn't really have to write everything down to follow what somebody was sending. I could have gone beyond 22 wpm for radiograms had I switched to using a "mill" (typewriter) or computer terminal, but that has never been necessary for casual rag-chewing or handling radiogram traffic on the section and regional nets. I was able to smoothly increase my copying speed to about 25 wpm over about two years of engaging in CW QSOs and checking into CW traffic nets. I also did sometimes listen to and either head copy or write down W1AW code bulletins and code practice sessions. And I also would sometimes just "read the mail" between two CW operators having a rag chew. I will say that if you don't challenge yourself to copy at ever higher speeds, you will remain pretty much stuck at whatever speed you normally operate. Traffic nets and actual QSOs with faster operators or during contests are good ways to push yourself to higher speeds. I'm content to remain at or below 30 wpm for my enjoyment. Rick N6IET ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
