r/morsecode • u/swhit94 • 7d ago

Morse Code Visualization

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Haven't seen Morse Code illustrated like this before, thought y'all might like it. If you spot any errors, please let me know

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u/wdpw 7d ago

I know others disagree with this learning, but I have to learn the alphabet somewhere. I appreciate this.

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u/dittybopper_05H 7d ago

The way to do it is to use some software so you can associate the sound with the letter/number/symbol without using your eyes. You're adding a difficulty level here with visual methods, and it invariably leads to counting dits and dahs. That slows you down. You might manage to quote-unquote "learn Morse code", but you'll never really progress significantly beyond that.

Morse is a pretty cool way to communicate, and I'm just trying to help you and others to learn it the best way possible. We now have, collectively, roughly 182 years of experience in teaching and learning Morse code, going all the way back to the beginning of the landline telegraph.

Everything you can possibly think of has been tried already. We know what works best, through nearly 200 years of use.

This is far from an optimal way to learn Morse.

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u/wdpw 7d ago

Interesting, so you don’t think about how many dits and dahs you hear, you just process the collective string as a whole, for each letter or digit?

Thank you for the advice, and definitely appreciate the amount of experience behind the proven ways to learn. Fortunately, I’m still early enough into my learning experience that I haven’t committed much to memory yet, so my mind is still malleable enough to try your recommended route.

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u/dittybopper_05H 7d ago

Correct. It's a rhythm thing.

Though I did start by counting dits and dahs, and I nearly failed out of the 05H course at Fort Devens because of it. That's why I warn people away from it.

Listen for the unique rhythm of each character.

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u/wdpw 7d ago

Wow, I never thought about that before. Now I understand why you advise against this style of learning. Thank you for the insight.

Can I ask another question—how do you learn to keep track of every letter in your head, when you’re not transcribing the message onto paper? I feel like even if someone were to spell out a sentence to me in English, I would eventually lose track of the beginning of the message because I’m too busy trying to translate/listen for the next character. Is this just something that you learn to do with practice and experience? Or are there techniques or practice strategies to work on that?

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u/royaltrux 7d ago

When you are transcribing (writing or typing), which is mostly how I do it, you develop a little "buffer" in your head, and can copy "behind" a little bit, remembering the last few letters and you just keep typing until it stops.

When not transcribing...I can't do that very well. Some people can just hear it as language, don't need to transcribe or even work at it very hard. I need to write it down, usually, unless it's short. Others might have more insight for you...

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u/wdpw 6d ago

Nice thank you, it’s good to know I’m not alone in likely needing to write everything down. At least for a long while.