I'm just starting to move away from where you describe. Been stuck
there for too long. Koch helped me a bunch. Using the G4FON
software, when I was traveling, I would sit in front of the TV at
night and every commercial (there are a lot) I would mute the TV and
start G4FON sending common words, and I would type them. It helps
that I can touch type. I would often have to go back and read what I
had copied, and was amazed at some of the complicated words.
Three things have helped me, though as far as QSO's digressing from
the script, I still have trouble.
*Contesting
*MP3 player
*Listening while otherwise occupied
Contesting - they go fast, and I have to often sit there and listen
over and over. But it is a chance to get a lot of practice in a short
period of time. You are listening for your call, and then any
exchange, this is all after you figure out their call. Start at the
top of the CW band (where they are going slower) and work your way
down. Morse runner is good for this too.
MP3 player - I get the archived MP3's from W1AW and load them on my
cell phone MP3 player. I can then, when driving, on when I have a
moment, sit and listen to them. Often at a faster speed than I can
copy everything. Makes me stretch my abilities. Even if I just copy
pieces, I am happy. Then when I go back in speed, it seems much
easier. I will often let this play at night when I go to bed. Have
to watch that though, as too much code at night, and I start dreaming
in morse, and that is REALLY weird.
Listening to the radio while doing other stuff - I have a rig in the
car, mainly for listening to 20m cw. I work from home and will, at
times, let the rig run and just listen and copy bits and pieces. Just
today, with the rig on in the vehicle, and driving along, I was
copying good chunks of a QSO, in my head. Guy's name was Evan, and he
lived in Horseshoebay, TX (that was a tough QTH to copy by the way)
and I _think_ that is near Austin.
It is funny you mention copying words. I first noticed that when I
was active on FISTS. The sound of the word FISTS is _very_
distinctive, and I learned that first. But then I started noticing
other words. One that was initially quite painful was "his". The,
is, and hr came to me pretty quick, followed by fb. To this day, Q
still messes me up. You put a C in front of it, and I am just fine.
Great thread. Know I'm a bit late, but really enjoying it.
Dave Wilburn
K4DGW
K2/100 - S/N 5982
"A dead enemy is a peaceful enemy.....blessed be the peacemakers."
G4ILO wrote:
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
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