Guidance

This part of the website is to give guidance to those learning Morse Code as well as those teaching the learners. I want it to be as comprehensive as possible and again I will say that I am no expert but an experienced Morse Operator and I am open to suggestions so please feel free to contact me about any queries that you have.

A quote from David Finley N1IRZ should set the tone.

Most of what you’ve been told about learning Morse Code is wrong — dead wrong. Amateur radio operators traditionally have used the slowest, most frustrating, most painful and least effective techniques possible for gaining code proficiency.

As well as an extract from Bill Pierpont’s book “The Art and Skill of Radio-Telegraphy” Download

The expert teachers tell us that any kind of printed dots and dashes or any other such pictorial impressions will only impede the student’s progress when he is beginning to learn the code. All such methods violate good pedagogy, because they do not teach the code as actual sound patterns, as it will be heard and used.
They also require the student to learn something (which he must later forget in order to advance) in addition to the sound of the code itself. While these methods may seem to make it easier at first, they actually make it much harder, or even impossible, to advance. The wise teacher and student will avoid these approaches.

For a start we will cover the Koch Method of learning as this seems to be considered the best way to learn Morse, though I am still open to suggestions if someone knows a better way. I asked Nancy WZ8C of the North American Chapter of Fists, to explain the methods of the K7QO system of learning that they promoted. I discovered that it was designed round the Koch Method and other suitable Software using the Koch Method is reviewed here. If you wanted to learn using the Koch Method online then take a trip to the excellent website “Learn CW Online”