I'm glad it's not just me that has this problem. I struggled with Morse for years due to the way I learned it to pass the test, running each letter through a "lookup table" in my head, which was too slow a method for anything above 12wpm.
Thanks to using what I understood was the Koch method (which seems pretty much like your Farnsworth method) I have re-learnt the code so that I can now instinctively recognize letters, numbers and common punctuation at around 20-25wpm. But I still get hung up converting the letters to words at that speed. If you spelt something out phonetically to me, I would copy it letter by letter and would have to have a second look at the whole thing when you finished, to get the word itself. It's the same in CW, and by the time I have done that I have missed the first couple of letters of the next word and get flustered and it takes a while to pick it up again. I don't seem to be able to copy letters AND be working out what the word could be at the same time. (The XYL says it's because men can only do one thing at a time, women can multi-task...) It's easier copying on the air because the actual vocabulary used in most contacts is quite limited and you recognize words like like NAME, QTH, RST and so on. But I can get thrown if someone has a QTH I've never heard of. I stick to contests or working DX where the exchange is predictable. I'm afraid to return to a CQ, never mind call CQ myself, in case I get someone who wants to chat and I can't follow the conversation. ----- Julian, G4ILO K3 s/n: 222 K2 s/n: 392 G4ILO's Shack: www.g4ilo.com Zerobeat Ham Forums: www.zerobeat.net/smf -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Farnsworth-Method-tp16291474p16299630.html Sent from the Elecraft mailing list archive at Nabble.com. _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [email protected] You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
