CW Practice

[ke4pjw]

Last night I decided to practice sending off-air with my paddle. After about 20 minutes of practice sending the front page of /. (http://slashdot.org) I suddenly noticed I was not thinking about what motions I was doing with the paddle. It's as if it had become an extension of my hand, just like when I type on a keyboard. The characters simply flowed from my hand. I think this is a good sign. At some point I may try to get on the air again http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[K7JBQ]

That is a very good sign.

Now, when you stop hearing dots and dashes, and start hearing letters and words, code will stop being "work."

Way to go.

73,
Bill

[al7n]

You are almost there...
Now listen to some code from some "live" source, not a tape you have been listening to, and just listen to what it "says". When you start getting what it "says", just write that down..by the word, and not by the character...that is, let the whole word be sent , then write it down. You won't get it all at first, but it WILL come, if you keep after it.

Good going...keep on with it!

AL7N

[ai4ep]

Works great for me !!

[w4rot]

Onward bro!
I can send like a madman.
Hearing it shuts me down sometimes, but I'm working on it.
Have fun and Enjoy..
Pretty cool...ain't it.
w4rot

[n2nh]

Quote[/b] (ke4pjw @ April 01 2005,19:12)]Last night I decided to practice sending off-air with my paddle. After about 20 minutes of practice sending the front page of /. (http://slashdot.org) I suddenly noticed I was not thinking about what motions I was doing with the paddle. It's as if it had become an extension of my hand, just like when I type on a keyboard. The characters simply flowed from my hand. I think this is a good sign. At some point I may try to get on the air again http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif
Congratulations.. there'll be a point where you'll even be able to copy in your head. This is the start of that and it won't be that long... to yr sucess OM. http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[WA2ZDY]

You have found the holy grail. The big secret of how some of us can love CW. After enough exposure, one day you wake up and realise it isn't work anymore; it's enjoyable instead. Don't give up, you're on the way!

[wa9cwx]

Y # # E # # S # # ! # http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif #http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[nz3m]

That's great. You are on the right track. You may want to start sending things from your head, instead of something on paper. This way your mind and fingers are working together. I used to sit and talk to myself everyday(no, I'm not crazy). I would just send all sorts of things about me, and things just started flowing.

As far as copying, the only advise I can give is to listen, listen, listen. Whenever I had spare time I would tune the bands for a QSO. Regardless of what some people may say, you can always find several CW qsos. I would listen to the conversations, trying to "hear" what they were saying in my head. If they were too fast, I would just find a slower QSO. I gradually moved to faster speeds as time went on. I copied my first CW QSO on paper, and that was the only one. I found it was a pain in the neck, so I decided to teach myself how to hear "talking" instead of beeps

I'm not an expert by any means, but I feel comfortable using the mode and really enjoy all of the nice people I meet.

Dave

[k0ews]

Sounds like you are doing great! It really is fun, and at the point where you send ideas and conversation, you don't even realize that you are sending dots and dashes.
It really does work better when you relax. Me, I like to crack open a beer or two as I am working CW. The beer relaxes me, and I usually have no trouble copying and sending is usually good too. Too MANY beers, and well, you unplug the paddles and hook up the keyboard as a courtesy to the guy on the other end.
Anyway, sounds like you are doing great, and enjoy! http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/laugh.gif