Friday, September 22, 2017

CW Academy - Lesson 4

Greetings! Lesson 4 is in the books and with that we are 25% done with the course. During these first four lessons I have discovered what may be my biggest obstacle in learning the code. During copying, after the first couple of letters in a word are keyed, my mind immediately races to what I think the word is going to be. When the third or fourth letter is not what I expected I quickly try to regroup but then multiple letters have passed as my mind is still trying to process what the letter was that was not what I expected. At that point I am lost. So, this is a habit that I need to try and break over the next couple of lessons and train myself to copy one letter at a time.

When I signed up for the academy I had looked all over the internet for reviews or experiences from other hams. I did not find many and I really wanted to understand what it was all about. How it functioned, how you studied, how you met up for class, what you studied, etc. That is why I decided to blog my journey and I just hope that some of you reading this are finding the answers you want and I hope others are being inspired to give morse code a shot. I can not tell you how much fun I am having and I know that the fun I am having now will not compare with what is ahead once I start making contacts.

So, this week seems to be more of a review week covering the letters and numbers introduced in the first three lessons but, we do have two new letters, U and C. With that we are now working with half the letters of the alphabet and four numbers. Last week I struggled to find quality study time for lesson three but was able to find a little more this week. Remember they suggest one hour per day minimum at no longer than 30 minutes per sitting. I believe that my pre academy attempts to learn morse code were doomed from the start as I found most of my free time during my commute back and forth to work. Driving takes a ton of concentration and, at least in my case, I was not "hearing' the letters. I heard them but I did not hear them. I hope that makes sense.

Attendance this week was down. Our N. Indiana student was absent as was one of the Tarheels. We did have an issue this week with one of our students having bandwith problems and he dropped out of the Skype call multiple times over the 45-50 minutes we were in class. We started out this week in much the same manner as the others, copying words sent by the instructor. I did pretty well on this but still struggle occasionally with a and n. The problem with this is that if you think about it you will miss the next couple letters. When we practice copying the instructor will send the words, and phrases for that matter, 2 or 3 times. If we all get it faster then he queries one of us for the translation. It is mixed whether I get it quickly or not at all sometimes. Next we moved on to copying three word phrases. This was my best week yet on phrases. If you stop to think about a letter in a phrase your are really setting yourself back as you will miss words instead of letters while you think about it.

Our third task of the evening involved copying call signs. I have work to do here as my mind is locked on the US format of a one or two letter prefix, a number, and a one to three letter suffix. My mind immediately looks for that pattern and when a DX call comes around I question what I heard. I will focus on this going forward.

Next we were told to send our call sign followed by three word phrases. My fingers decided to disrespect me tonight. I am usually much better at sending but tonight got me. I was not alone as the other students had their fair share of problems as well. I have been focusing on copying and barely putting the time in on the paddles so I think I may need to allot a little more time each lesson to sending as well.

After this we finished up with both copying and sending longer phrases. We were sent a few seven word phrases and I did well. On one in particular I missed a letter in the third word and was able to shake it out of my mind and begin copying again. I picked up the last three words which helped me not bomb the entire phrase. I need to continue to condition myself.

Well, this is long enough so I am going to stop here. Lesson 5 coming up and things are going to start heating up a bit. I hope you all are enjoying the blog and if you are thinking about trying CW I encourage you to do so. It is rewarding and a load of fun!!

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10 comments:

  1. Great job Steve. The habits you are trying to overcome are things we all have done and still sometimes do. I have found that if I miss a letter I will draw a dash letting me know I missed a letter and move on. You can always try to fill in the blanks later. Keep up the good work!

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  2. Interesting to read your path to learning the code. I've used the Farnsworth method at 20 w/m starting with a few characters at a slow 5 w/m and then building the speed up to 18 w/m before adding new characters back at 5 w/m. I'd restrict myself to only 15 mins transcribing each evening - once I started making mistakes I'd stop so not to learn the wrong pattern to letter association. I can't understand how people listen to morse while driving - how they can expect to have total concentration on their driving is beyond me. Keep up the good work...

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    1. Interesting method to learning and thank you for the encouragement. I hope to hear you on the air someday.

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  3. To prevent guessing words (incorrectly), try listening/writing down 5 letter code, or cw in a foreign language.

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    1. CW in a foreign language? That is an interesting approach.

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  4. Great series of posts on your CW Academy experience, Steve. Like you, I didn't find a lot out there on what the CW Academy classes were composed of, so your blog will certainly be helpful to future CW students considering that route.

    I am also currently taking the CW Academy Level One course. We're a half-week in front of you (i.e. at tomorrow's (Monday's) bi-weekly session we'll be going over Session 6.

    My experience is tracking very closely to yours. I'm looking forward to finishing off the alphabet and getting my character recognition to the point where I can start making QSO's.

    Keep up the great work!

    73, Jeff K4YWZ

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    1. Thank you Jeff and I hope we both come out the end of this thing burning up the frequencies. Ironically, after looking you up on QRZ, I live in Mooresville, IN which is about 3 hours South of Ft. Wayne. And, I am a motorcyclist as well. Very nice Beemer. I own a Suzuki VStrom (Wanted the BMW but funds were low) and a HD. Been teaching motorcycle safety for 16 years Southside HD. Good Luck on the rest of the class!!!
      73

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  5. Congrats on making to lesson 4!! There will be the up and downs for learning the code for sure. As already has been said it's so true that you try to figure out the next letter and then you are so behind trying to catch up, it has happen to all of us. I know a ham once told me that once you get used to the code it is like talking. When someone says "hello" to you we don't spell it out we just know how "hello" sounds and it's done. Eventually you will get the hang of how some CW words just sound as a group of letters. For example someone is sending "CQ" we never have to stop and say it's a "C" and a "Q" you just know the sound and know it's CQ.
    73 and keep us updated with lesson 5
    Mike
    VE3WDM

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    1. Good to hear from you again Mike! CQ is pretty burned in my brain right now and I definitely do not hear a C and a Q like you said. It is a sound that is no question. I appreciate your reading and your involvement.
      73

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