My advice is to send as well as receive. Get a short automatic recording of something repetitive at a speed you are comfortable with and send along side it - mimicking the code that you hear. This is a good way to build up a good fist. I used to copy a point to point station that sent its long call sign over and over. Get someone else to check your sending and compare yourself to automatic recordings. Sending reinforces the characters into your memory by another route.
Then try sending without paper in front of you; just common stuff like your rig and QTH, name etc. Once you are on the air and getting your feet wet with live contacts, you don't have stuff to copy, you take it direct from the brain. That's quite a jump forward and you need to prepare for it. As a beginner on air, you can have a card with salient points you often mention in your QSOs but you dispense with that when you've done it often enough. It's exciting. 73 David G3UNA > > From: "David Ferrington, M0XDF" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Date: 2008/10/21 Tue AM 09:29:11 BST > To: "Ron D'Eau Claire" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > CC: elecraft@mailman.qth.net > Subject: [Elecraft] Re: [K3] Text decode with straight key - OT now > > Hi Ron, I'd completely agree with that, having used G4FON's excellent > Koch trainer to get started, I found copying my mentor's Morse a > little difficult when I first started and he sends very good Morse on > a S/K. But after a little while, I got better at it. I'm up to ~ 8 WPM > with him now. > I need to listen a lot on the bands now and try to copy, so I'm not > completely blown away by a different fist. Oh and I've taken on board > something both he and someone else I spoke with in JOTA at the weekend > have repeatedly said - just have Morse playing in the background, the > brain absorbs it, in the same way we first absorb human speech when we > are a baby. > > Lastly, why am I saying Morse all the time and not CW? Because I feel > CW has the connotation of transmitted Morse via carrier wave (a mode), > were as Morse means the 'code', but maybe not transmitted, maybe > played from a recording. - Feel free to correct me. > > 73 de M0XDF, K3 #174 > -- > I don't mind that you think slowly but I do mind that you are publishing > faster than you think. > -Wolfgang Pauli, physicist, Nobel laureate (1900-1958) > > On 21 Oct 2008, at 04:04, Ron D'Eau Claire wrote: > > IMHO, if someone wants to be really proficient at reading Morse, > > they need > > to practice, practice, practice reading a variety of not-so-perfect > > manual > > fists. That's the next step beyond learning to copy machine-perfect > > CW. > > _______________________________________________ > Elecraft mailing list > Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net > You must be a subscriber to post to the list. > Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): > http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft > > Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm > Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com > ----------------------------------------- Email sent from www.virginmedia.com/email Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software and scanned for spam _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
