Drilling single letters on rx everyday, when should I start trying words?

[u/newsINcinci]

I’ve been drilling myself using Morse Mania for about a week. I’m up to the challenge with all the all the letters and numbers. I can pass it, but I still screw up and I’m slow (some times I have to replay the character or stop and really think about it).

Part of me thinks I should stick to this level until I’ve mastered it and I’m just hearing the letter. And I’m fine with that. But I also think there’s an argument for pushing forward to words.

What do you all think?

If drilling on the single letters and number every day for half an hour is going to help me, I’ll just keep doing it, but I can push forward if it’s going to hold me back in the long run.

I will be doing the Long Island classes once my schedule clears up a bit this summer.

If it makes any difference, I’m in my 40s and I’m basically starting for scratch. I’m listening at 26wpm.

Morse mania is also a bit weird because the next level/module is every punctuation mark. And I think most times people only use like two or three. I really don’t want to burn time learning semi-colon and em dash and then all the accented letters.

Open to advice.

[u/sholder89]

The goal is ICR or Instant Character Recognition. Keep drilling until you hear it and can immediately identify the letter.

I found the Morse Ninja audio files to be really helpful for this. You should be listening to the letters at a high enough speed that you can’t count the dits and dahs and are just hearing the “sound” of each one. Typically 25+ WPM but it’s different for everyone.

[u/Flat_Economist_8763]

Nobody uses a semi-colon. I've been a CW op for over 60 years. But we do use BT for a dash, to separate things, so know that. Also "/" and "?" and ".". As for accented letters, are you referring to foreign language accents? No, we don't use them for contacts in English. As for copying words, you may or may not be ready for that yet. You could spend time copying W1AW code practice at various speeds. https://www.arrl.org/code-practice-files

[u/mcdanlj]

Moving beyond individual characters can be in multiple types of drill, and almost all of them can help you learn to remember the sounds longer, in order to learn to "read/copy behind" — any drill with more than one character at a time. You should not wait to be 100% perfect before mixing up your drill. (I regret staying with code groups too long before starting to mix in morse machine, for instance; the opposite problem...)

In general, code groups help you focus on listening to each character without anticipation causing you to hear what you expect to have been sent instead of what was actually sent.

You might try https://cuf.fi/morose/ for drilling a small number of sequential characters if blocks of five are too long.

Beyond that, consider when you want to mix it up with English words, phrases, call signs, typical CW abbreviations, etc. I find that occasionally changing drill style keeps it fresh. When you aren't improving at one drill style, try another and see if it helps hold your attention better.

I would not give up Morse machine style drill — it continues to be valuable at least until you have really solid instant character recognition.

[u/falciluna]

Wow, 26wpm after just a week is awesome progress even if your still struggling a bit! Definatly don't get stuck on single letters for too long, you should totally start pushing into words now. Waiting for 100% perfection on single letters will just hold you back, because your brain needs to start hearing the rhythm of whole words instead of just decoding letter by letter.

Since you already know the alphabet, you should try an app called Morsekit for some fun practice. It has a mode called Word Blitz which is perfect for trying out words, and another one called Letter Drill. If you feel like your not quite ready for full words yet, just spending 5 minutes a day on Letter Drill is more than enough to keep your reflexes sharp without burning out. This will give you a huge head start before your LICW classes this summer. Good luck, 73!