CW

I’ve started reading The Complete DX’er by Bob Locher W9KNI and I have to admit it is getting me fired up.

It is clear however that my 10wpm CW isn’t going to cut it.  A few days ago I said my goal is 25wpm.  That’s probably going to be the minimum.

Fortunately, my code speed is coming back pretty quickly.  I’m now copying almost comfortably at 15wpm. One thing that seems to help is that I’ve got AA9PW’s iPhone/iPad app on my iPad and it is forcing me to copy code without writing it down.

In my last post I mentioned that I need to get my code speed back up after a five month absence. I love AA9PW’s Morse Code Practice Page. It lets you set the character speed, inter-character spacing, and provides tons of practice options.

Before the break I was comfortably copying 15wpm at a character speed of 20wpm. I tried it again today and I haven’t lost much.  I can still very easily copy at 10wpm with a character sped of 15wpm. That means that within a week or so I’ll be back to where I was before the break.

My goal for 2014 is to copy at 25wpm.

For the last five months of 2013 my professional workload was really high. Almost every waking hour was spent heads down at the keyboard.  As a result my CW speed went to pot.  I’ve GOT to get it back up.

Somepeople like antique cars. Some of my friends are into old airplanes. I have another friend who is into old houses and owns two of them. Me? I like CW.

Since becoming active in Ham radio again about 9 months ago, I’ve been working on getting my code speed up.  Actually, a more correct statement would be that I’m re-learning the code.

The best tool I’ve found is AA9PW’s More Code Practice page. Using it, I was able to quickly re-lear the code.  I started out from the beginning with the Character Speed set at 20wpm in order to get my brain used to hearing the characters at that speed.  I used the ‘Sent At’ drop-down to adjust the overall sending speed to be a little more than I can handle.

My end goal is to comprehend at 25wpm in my head without writing it down.

I’ve been setting ‘Sent At’ to 15wpm and I find that I can now copy at 10wpm easily and at 15wpm I’m catching about 80 percent. I think it’s time to do one of two things:

1. Leave the Character Speed at 20wpm and bump the overall speed up to 18wpm, or:

2. Leave the Overall speed at 15wpm but bump the Character Speed up to 25wpm to retrain my brain to hear the characters at that speed.

What do you think?

I bought a new set of paddles today. I’ve been spending way to much time working and way too little time having fun.  I figure this new Vibroplex Iambic Deluxe will draw me away from the work a little more.  New toys have a way of doing that.