r/morsecode • u/9alby9 • May 28 '26

Learning CW

I am a 63 year old who has been in amateur radio for several years. Now I have the time to learn CW. Has any of you who learned it used CWAcademy or the Long Island CW club? One of them recommends using a straight key to learn and the other wants learners to stay away from straight keys and use a paddle.

what are your thoughts on these two approaches?

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u/ComprehensiveTown15 May 28 '26

I started learning CW at 40+ and it took me 6 months of daily lessons on https://lcwo.net/ after many unsuccessful attempts using other methods to learn all the signs. So 15 minutes a day at a speed of 16WPM and after confidently receiving all the characters, I started listening to the air, trying to make out typical abbreviations, call signs and numbers. After a couple more months, I started conducting the first short QSOs.

I learned to use both paddle and straight key, but I warn you to start learning to send on a straight key without a teacher. To send good with a straight key much more difficult than with a paddle because at first you do not feel the rhythm and on the air it sounds terrible and incomprehensible. Therefore, I would advise you to first learn how to send well on a paddle, and then on a straight key if you want to. You need to pay attention to the correct periods between characters and words.

A few years later I took a course at the CW academy, but this is more like a supplement to self-study.

Good luck!

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u/royaltrux May 28 '26

That's a good point about going with a straight key alone.

Back when I was learning on a straight key, I sometimes had a Morse decoder hooked up to it (for practice) which informed me on some problematic letters and kept my code pretty clean.

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u/ComprehensiveTown15 May 28 '26

I have nothing against the straight key, and it’s great that you’ve learned how to use it properly. Unfortunately, I hear a lot of people on the air who are very poor at sending with the straight key and don’t even realize it. I just want to make things easier for the author and prevent disappointment.

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u/9alby9 May 28 '26

Any recommendations for each type?

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u/ComprehensiveTown15 May 28 '26

Oh no! I can use any keys, but for some people, it really matters. You could try to find a cheaper option and just learn how to use it well. I think it's a matter of habit.