When you have reached about 15-wpm code will have become a useful tool for communication: You will have become an operator.

However, it is pretty slow, but now you have come to feel some satisfaction of mastery, and can see that to be able to handle somewhat higher speeds will greatly improve your communication skills. How shall we go about it? -- Mere repetition won't do it. We need intelligently directed practice -- it must be done in the right way. This is what we discuss now.

 

How Far Do You Want To Go?
For the sake of discussion, we may divide advancement somewhat arbitrarily into four stages, which we will call:

 

· a "good" operator up to about 25-wpm,

· a "skilled" operator up to around 35 - 40 wpm,

· an "expert" up to about 60-wpm, and

· over 60-wpm a "super-expert."

 

Each stage should bring increasing personal pleasure in accomplishment up to whatever point you feel satisfied with and have no desire to go further.

 

You determine where that point is. Advancing is by "changing gears" like going from"low gear" where we recognize characters, to 2nd gear where we recognize small words and some common syllable as units of sound, 3rd gear where we have increasing freedom from conscious spelling and sense of increasing pleasure as one hears and sends words pretty much as words, and then finally "overdrive" where we are hardly conscious of spelling except occasional rare words or proper names, and are hardly conscious of exactly which words are used, but mainly of the ideas.

 

Reaching higher speeds will turn out to be easier than you might suppose. It is mostly a matter of determination, right approach and practice, and building on what you already know. Your rate of gain will depend mostly on how you go about it, and will be about proportional to the square of the time invested. So, how far do you want to go? (Remember: it is not speed, but accuracy that counts --. We want to communicate. Time is lost by mistakes, whether in sending or copying.) So take one step at a time, and when satisfied, stop. When we read a book, the bigger the "bites" we take, the faster we can read and understand. It is the same in telegraphy: how much can we take in and immediately perceive as a "unit?" How big are the units? This determines how fast we can receive the code. It is the COHERENCE of the groupings --what makes sense -- which makes for rapid recognition. Whenever something doesn't make sense it tends to slow us down.

 

Word recognition is what makes a proficient operator. The real "alphabet" of the expert telegrapher is largely one of words; it is his "language," and interpreting it is as easy for him as talking and listening. (See "Kinds of Practicing" for an exercise to help develop this.) It cannot be stated too often that: The skilled operator does not hear the dits and dahs, but only the letters, words, sentences. R E L A X and E N J O Y I T. We need to remind ourselves, that if anyone else can do it, we probably can too. How? The "pro" in code is completely relaxed: he knows he can read and copy it, even while doing something else. He hears it like the spoken word and often can even remember it well enough to copy it down later if he needs to. He doesn't get get tensed up. He is a good model, whatever speed he has achieved. If you know one, imitate him and keep relaxed and enjoy the challenge of advancing all the while you are progressing. If you don't know any expert code operators, watch any skilled performer, a violinist, a pianist, a tennis player. See how easily he goes about it.

 

ENJOY the experience of learning. Make each practice period fun. Those who engage in the learning process with a carefree, unhurried, unworried attitude and enjoy it progress the fastest. So don't press your ultimate objectives, don't try too hard, this will hinder our advancement. Be content to go ahead a step at a time. We need to let go any unconscious resistance, and permit our subconscious minds to function without interference. The more we give ourselves permission to let go of any concern and the more fun it is, the better we will do. Someone has written: "When I'm fresh and right on it [which means he is all keyed up and going to try too hard], my code speed is really bad, but when I'm tired I can keep up with the best of them [because he has let go]." (Please review Chapter 2 for details.)

 

One ham who is a doctor wrote: "Communicating in Morse is special. With my headphones on listening, usually with eyes shut, I feel that I'm communicating without talking or hearing voices. After a long day of talking and listening it's pleasant. The message seems to come in a whisper or even represents to me something I'm remembering rather than hearing. I no longer formulate what I want to say and then translate into code for my fingers to send. It doesn't feel like it is coming from the conventional speech centers. The thoughts just come out -- relaxed communication."

 

Make Each Practice Period A Step Forward
In pushing for higher speeds, advancement is pretty much up to you. So what follows is directed to you. However, the principles expressed here are fully applicable to a teacher at any level from beginning to the highest level. Try to plan your practice periods so that you can see or feel you have accomplished something in each and every session. Maintain a positive attitude. See how far you have come. Imitate the good beginning teacher who shows his students how the bits and pieces will soon fit together to make words, and how the context can help to fill in what's missing; and how to learn from failures -- things that need more practice -- and to learn from them how to do better next time.

 

Encourage yourself to keep going and not give up. Know you can succeed. Visualize success and be encouraged. It also helps to provide some small reward after each practice session. In developing speed, we need to push without pushing too hard or for too long at a time, just a minute or two. It seems best to start a practice period with speeds faster than you are comfortable with, pushing when your energy is initially high (to recognize sound patterns more quickly), then slowing down a bit to a more comfortable rate. This way you will be able to see your improvement -- growing. Keeping a record will help you see your progress.

 

Learning does not stop when a practice period ends -- it continues on for a while afterward as the mind continues to digest it, provided that we relax or do something quite different. So space your practice periods widely enough apart to give learning a chance to maximize.

 

Kinds Of Practicing
There are several kinds of practicing we can do:

 

· listening practice,

· copying practice,

· sending practice, and

· "mental" practice.

 

Let's consider each one:

 

Listening Practice Listen, Listen, Listen to well-sent code. Listen at every opportunity as well as at planned practice sessions. Listen to the radio, to tapes, to computer-generated materials. Do it whenever you don't have something else to do which requires conscious mental activity: try it during lunch, while driving -- listen and enjoy it. There are several kinds of listening -- first, listening at any speed where we can understand all or nearly all of what is sent; next, there is listening at speeds where we can "read" maybe 75% of it; and finally there is listening to sending so fast that we can only catch some letters or a word here and there.

 

Each kind is valuable to us. Our purpose in listening at "easy" speeds is two-fold. We want to feel comfortable with the code, just as we normally read and talk without struggling with how we do it. To become comfortable we need to get familiar with the everyday day words and expressions, how they sound. (Engaging in personal QSO's -- over the air or through a wire -- is one way, and it provides a strong motivation.) We need to feel comfortable, too, at various speeds, from slow to as fast as we can handle it. Listening over this range helps gain this familiarity. This is a second goal. But take it easy.

 

When we let the mind be quiet and just listen to very fast code, letters and words will soon begin jumping out at us. Want to hear them. This stimulates the mind. Learn to see them on your "mental blackboard." (There is a limit as to how fast we can spell words.) Give yourself permission to let go of the need to consciously recognize each letter. The less we "try," the better and faster we can become. That is, let the subconscious, automatic mind operate without restraining it by conscious interference and control.

 

Listen at every opportunity to good sending even if it is somewhat too fast for you to get it all. Listen. Listen. Listen while doing other things that do not require close mental attention. Let your "ears be filled" with good code signals. Don't let ourself get all wound up: keep relaxed. -- The mind is strange -- it relaxes when asked to perform at a rate lower than it is used to, but tends to tighten up when asked to perform at a level which it thinks it can't quite hack. The essence of code learning, like language, is FAMILIARITY -- which means overlearning. That is, learning to the point where it is automatic, without thinking about how we are doing it: the dits and dahs, or even the words. The highest skill comes when in reading by ear, we are conscious only of the ideas being expressed, just as if we were talking. This is communicating at the highest level.

 

Word Recognition Practice Are anticipation and delayed perception related? We previously noted that we must not attempt to identify a character, particularly a longer one, until the whole character has been received. Here we are concerned with word recognition in the same way. Not jumping to a conclusion about what the total word will be when it is a long or compound word but waiting until it is complete before identifying it. Suggested drills are with compound words such as "wayside, mockingbird, chairman, salesman, notebook, lifetime, customhouse, morningglory hereabouts doorbell, nevertheless watermelon household", etc. and words with suffixes such as "cheerful, personable, fellowship. finality, dictionary, mechanically, characteristic", etc., or where the first part make look like an independent word, but with a totally different meaning as it stands or e.g. "axiom, category, handicap, climax, magnificent".

 

Copying Practice Copying at easy speeds is of some, but not great, value for improving speed. To improve we must keep working at short bursts of a minute or so at a time, at speeds where we can get maybe only 50 - 75% of it -- where it is just too fast for us -- speeds where we write down what we can get and ignore the rest. If You Don't Recognize A Sound Pattern Immediately, Just Skip It, Leave A Space and Go Ahead. -- Never let yourself stop to try to figure it out, because if you do, you will miss what immediately follows. Don't frustrate yourself this way. Keep pressing on, copying what you immediately recognize and ignoring the rest. Remember that here we are only practicing -- missing out is no big deal -- at this point we're still learning. We must condition ourselves to this. Gradually the holes will fill in and we will be getting it all, and without straining.

 

Often, even when we're trying to make good copy, missing a letter here and there won't matter much. If we are interested, the gaps can often be filled in later from the context. After reaching a fair speed, it is helpful to copy long enough to become tired and then still keep on copying. As the conscious mind gives up and stops guessing, this lets the subconscious mind more and more take over. Then any mental strain you feel will subside, and you can copy page after page, and yet may hardly be aware of a single sentence in it.

 

For teachers: Sometimes it may prove best to let the student think the speed is slower that it actually is. That way he may just go ahead and copy it anyway!

 

Random character practice at speeds above about 15 - 20 wpm is of questionable value unless you are planning to do a lot of copying of enciphered messages. It tends to prevent the development of the important sense of word recognition, something that we must develop for normal use of the code in communication. Practicing with words spelled backwards is a good substitute for random groups: it eliminates anticipation, yet gives give normal letter distribution and the feeling that one is dealing with words, not nonsense. Foreign language texts may also be used profitably, where no special characters used diacritical marks, etc.

 

Sending Practice - Using a Key To Practice "It is more blessed to send good code than to receive it. " Most CW Operators Are More Impressed By Quality Of The Code Than By Speed ." Readability is the number one requirement. It is the sender with his key who has control of this. If it isn't intelligible, what's the use of sending it in the first place? Most people consider sending easier than receiving. This is hardly surprising, because we already know ahead of time what we are going to send before we send it. However, we may be fooling ourselves unless we have developed accurate sending habits. There is no excuse for sending sloppy cw. When we get in a hurry we may tend to shorten or eliminate spaces between characters in familiar words and between words - this makes it very difficult to read. (When static or interference is present, it is even harder.) And -- if we think we can send faster than we can receive it is very often hard stuff to copy.

 

Remember that WHAT WE DO REPEATEDLY IS PRACTISE, whether we are learning or using code. We need to watch the quality of our sending as we use the code, not to slip into bad habits. Most bad fists have probably come about from imperceptible shifts away from good timing. Avoid the use of buzzers for practice, as they have a delayed start and promote bad sending habits. Use an oscillator instead.

 

Mental Practice Thinking between regular practice periods is one of the many valuable means of learning. It is both thinking about the skill you are developing and thinking the skill itself. One way is to think the code to yourself when you see a street sign, car license plate or other printing. It is even more effective to whistle it or say it out loud in rapid dit-dahs. Another valuable form of mental practice is the picturing of yourself using the code, as described in Chapter 2.

 

On The Air Practice: "Reality Listening" and QSO Practice. Don't hesitate after you get your license to go on the air. If you flub up, remember that just about everybody's first few contacts are more or less "failures". Stumble through them, muddle through and make it as easy as you can.

 

If you miss, stay calm; ask for repeat if it seems important. If you don't understand some abbreviation or word (he may have spelled it wrong) muddle through. Laugh off your blunders. Become comfortable about it. You have no job to lose. Listening by pulling weak stations out of interference and static is a skill to be learned. A good IF or audio cw filter will help. If you have one, practice using it. Static crashes which take out pieces of text is another problem: filters can sometimes help, but some have found that by using speeds up to around 20-25 wpm the characters may be squeezed in between crashes, and so less may be lost. This is one incentive for advancing in speed.

Chapter 6

How Fast? The Wrong Question - How Well!

 

"How fast?" -- that's really the wrong question when standing all by itself. The question, which ought to be asked, is "How well?" or perhaps "How effectively?" or "How intelligently"

 

The telegraph code is simply a means of communication, and communication is transferring ideas from one person to another in the form of words and sentences. If a person talks too slowly, attention tends to lag and comprehension becomes difficult. If too rapidly, things may be missed or misunderstood. Mumbling is usually inexcusable. Speed itself is not usually the object, except perhaps in case of emergency, such as "Help!” and even then it may hurt rather than help communication. The normal goal is coherency and accuracy. Speed for us is just convenience.

 

Commercial operators have always prided themselves in their ability to handle a large volume of traffic with dispatch and 100% accuracy. One operator wrote: "Over 50 years ago as a trainee commercial operator I was told that it is better to send at 20 wpm, and be received 100% the first time, than to send at 28-wpm and be involved in time wasting repeats."

 

The U.S. Navy insisted on accuracy above everything else: speed was always secondary. Battles, lives and expensive ships -- often the outcome of the battle itself -- depend upon perfect accuracy in communication. A single erroneous word or number during wartime or emergency might be ruinous and tragic. Accuracy comes first always, at all times there. The telegraph code was devised to communicate - that is its sole purpose.

 

If the code is not understood it is a waste of time and effort. If we send personal "dialect" or in a strongly personalized manner we make it hard, or even impossible for the receiving operator to make sense out of it. How do you like to struggle to make sense out of what a speaker with strong dialectical speech, or with a serious speech defect, says to you? If there is anything that causes downright joy in an amateur's heart, it is the pleasure of communicating with an operator who really knows how to send and how to receive. Aim to be one of these.

 

Copyability
How fast can you copy? Even for a highly skilled operator this is almost wholly dependent on the sender's quality of articulation -- his rhythm, spacing and keyer weighting. One of them said: "I can read a super operator at 50-wpm, but there are some hams I strain to copy at 10 wpm - some old timers hard to copy because of bad habits." The key to high-speed reception is to recognize the pauses between letters and between words. This means that the sender must not run things together. It is this split second it is the space which gives the time needed to get the mind set for the next word. One of first things that often happens when we try to send faster is to run the letters and words together. For example, when "of" comes out "dahdahdahdididahdit". We can learn to read that stuff, but when longer and less familiar words are sent and word spaces also are neglected, we can quickly get lost in a maze of letters, which make no sense. (It seems to me that as speeds get really high fewer and fewer abbreviations are used.)

 

Fast Enough to Communicate Satisfyingly
It is possible to creep along at five wpm, the minimum FCC amateur qualifying speed -- communicating, but just barely. Many hams in the past found lots of enjoyment plugging along at ten wpm, which for many years was the minimum requirement for an amateur operator's license. Perhaps a majority of hams have found 15 - 18 wpm to be comfortable, adequate and quite pleasant to satisfy their desires to communicate.

 

Back in the days of landline telegraphy sixteen wpm was considered the minimum to qualify a new operator, while 25 - 30 was considered a "standard" range of speed. For very many years the ARRL bulletins have been at 18 wpm, which is a comfortable speed for most of us to read and copy. It should be clear that speed, in itself, should not be an object, but rather proficiency and ease of operation. (One does not usually buy a racing car just to drive to work each day.) On the other hand, when there is a lot to say, or when there is a need for extensive personal interchange, a minimum speed of 25 - 30 wpm is really needed to keep the thought moving.

 

From listening in the bands it would appear that in the CW mode this speed range seems to be very common. Even when one is contesting, and ragchewing is out of the question, if one moves too slowly, he is going to have a rather low score. But here also, speed, in itself, is not of much value: intelligibility and accuracy are required, and correct call signs, etc., are vital for qualification. There must be a balance.

 

All through the history of telegraphy, from almost the earliest days to the present, there has been the challenge for speed. The high-speed skilled operators achieved a sort of prestige, which was salable and commercially was rewarded by higher pay. The beginner and the plug were looked down upon with more or less scorn. But as radio amateurs, CW is one element of our hobby, something we do because we like to do it. We are subject to neither monetary incentive for proficiency nor threats for mediocrity. It is our own sense of need and desire that motivates us. Those among us who can race along at buzz-saw rates should not look down upon the rest of us who are content to enjoy lower rates, and we slower guys, in turn should not despise the newcomer, the handicapped or the ham content with thirteen wpm. We don't have to communicate with those above or below our state of proficiency unless we want to. So, the word we ought to emphasize here is "proficiency" -- proficiency at a speed that satisfies our enjoyment -- a pleasant speed which we feel is comfortable and satisfying.

 

The Proficient Operator
He is "at home" with the code up to his limiting speed. He is quite comfortable sending and receiving in this range and except for excessive QRM and QRN feels no sense of strain. To him or her the code is just another, and particularly enjoyable, way to converse. He understands what he hears without any particular effort, and of course he hears it as words, not just strings of letters. Some of our best-written examples come from the old wire line RR telegraphers in small stations across the country.

 

These men (few women held such jobs because of the other duties required) also had responsibility for delivering train orders to the train crews, maintaining RR property associated with their stations, operating the semaphore signals and track switches for passing trains, answering customers' questions, selling tickets, handling baggage and freight shipments, etc. In short, telegraphy, while of great importance, was but one aspect of their jobs. They were not just sitting beside their sounders waiting for something to come through on the line. Their ears were attuned to the sounder, and they would have to be ready to interrupt other duties if something important was heard. Their sounders were continuously on the line and they could and did hear, almost unconsciously listening to everything that was said to anyone on the line: they knew everything going on. (It was like a big party line.) Very many skilled radio operators of the past and present do the same thing.

 

One of them who operated commercially for many years and was also a ham wrote: "During my time as a RR telegrapher, and as a [radio] operator, I could and can do several other things while still knowing what is going on the wire or on the radio. As a matter of fact, right now, I have 20-meter cw on and I am fully aware of what is going on, who is there, what they are saying, etc., while writing this letter. With speeds of up to 30 - 40 wpm, I have always been able to carry on a complete conversation while copying the code on a mill, servicing the message ahead of time, etc., etc."

 

Set Your Own Goal
So, how high should you set your goal of speed? - Set it to meet your own temperament and desires, what you think will be comfortable and enjoyable to you. Set it realistically -- not so high that you get discouraged by how long it takes to get there. But not so low that you are unable to enjoy much that is on the air, available to be read or copied. If you feel challenged to go to the top, fine, but maybe you should divide it into stages of growth along the lines suggested here.

 

Ted McElroy, long the code speed champion and a teacher, said that 25 wpm is an easily achievable and reasonable goal -- one who can handle this speed comfortably is a "good" operator. But if you can read or copy at 30-35 wpm this added margin will allow you to correct for errors, static and other kinds of interference or losses, as well as widening your contacts. We have tried here to lay out for all to see what has been done and what can be done. Pick what you yourself want. You don't have to keep up with the fastest Joneses you may hear.

 

First and foremost, have fun: enjoy it. “Good" operator? "Skilled" operator? "Expert?" "Super-expert?" Up to some point each stage brings increasing pleasure as one becomes more and more free from conscious effort. Reaching higher speeds will turn out to be easier than you might suppose. It is mostly a matter of right approach and practice, continuing what we have already started. Your rate of gain will depend mostly on how you go about it, and will be more or less proportional to the square of the time invested. What do you want?

 

Shortening Things Up
At too low a code speed it takes so long to say things in ordinary English that it may become tedious or even boring. This can be a major roadblock to the real enjoyment of slower cw operating, but it is not the only reason for tedious QSO's. This can be partly overcome by certain shortcuts. In the early days of wireless, code speeds were necessarily slow for a number of reasons, and so three ideas were borrowed from landline telegraphy to help speed things up:

 

· special signals -- including the special three-letter "Q" signals providing short forms for common radio communicating needs,

· omitting words not really necessary to convey the sense,

· using standard or easily understood abbreviations.

 

"Q" signals allow us to cover a lot of ground with only three letters. If they are followed by a question mark, the sender is asking a question; without it he is making a statement. "QTH", for example, says "My location is ...", while "QTH?" says "What is your location?" (It is a waste of time to send: "My QTH is ..." as we sometimes hear, or "What is your QTH?") See the ARRL Operating Manual for a list of the most useful of these. (A similar but much more extensive set of special commercial three-letter signals was once devised, called the "Z-code." This system never attained wide popularity, but it is much easier to remember.)

 

In most sentences certain words can be left out completely without altering the meaning of a sentence. Words such as "I". "the", "that", etc., can often be dropped without causing any confusion. Several words or a whole phrase can often be ignored without detracting anything of importance. These were the kinds of things commonly done in writing commercial telegrams to reduce the cost.

 

Various kinds of abbreviations, a sort of shorthand, have been in common use over the years. Many of them were used extensively by people making brief notes, etc., others were devised by old time telegraphers for their special purposes. Several different schemes have been devised to form them:

 

· short words may be represented by their first and last letters: e.g. "now" by NW, "would" by WD, "check" by CK, etc.

· short words may be spelled "phonetically": e.g. "some" by SUM, "says" by SEZ, "good" by GUD, "because" by BECUZ, etc.

· other words may simply omit all their vowels and just use the consonants: e.g. "letter" by LTR, "message" by MSG, etc.

· easily suggested parts of longer words may be represented by a single letter: e.g. in amateur practice "transmitter" may be sent as XMTR, "weather" by WX, "distance" by DX, etc.

· those who handle considerable message traffic have devised some very brief forms, such as "aa" for "all after".

 

Amateurs must, however, remember the government regulation that we may not use secret codes or ciphers -- our communications must be open, which means something generally used and understandable. (The old Phillips code, for example, would qualify because it is public information.) The older handbooks contained lists of the more common abbreviations, a sort of standard list. Some were for general use, others were for handling heavy message traffic, etc.

 

When commercial telegraphers were sending press (news) at relatively high speeds they used a very extensive set of abbreviations called the Phillips code. Here the sending operator translated many of the words and phrases of a news dispatch into this code, and the receiving operator retranslated them back into normal English as he copied the news. This procedure reduced the total number of letters to be sent and received by around 40% (estimated from samples given). When speaking of the speed of press dispatches this factor must be factored in (the counts were based on normal English spelling). Some of the Phillips abbreviations were adopted by amateurs.

 

The important thing about using abbreviations is that they must be obvious to the receiving operator. That means they must be common words in normal amateur or everyday use. We must use common sense with them -- not overdoing it or using them excessively, just being careful that they will be understood. Refer to Chapter 27 for examples and lists of abbreviations.

Chapter 7

Listening or "Reading"

 

"Copying in Your Head" Just listening to good code sending is perhaps the very best way, both to learn the code and to advance in skill.

 

It is surely the simplest and easiest -- no distractions -- you can give your whole attention to just listening to and trying to understand -- no struggling to write at at the same time. Isn't that the way we all learned our language? Watch how little children learn.

Listen!
Many experienced teachers consider that just listening to good code without writing anything down is the very best form of code practice at all stages. It serves a number of purposes.
First, it keeps our attention to the fact that code is sound, and we are learning to recognize the sound patterns of each character and of some words. Second, and very important, it helps to reduce any tension associated with getting every letter written down (no distractions) But there is more -- it helps us get very familiar with using the code.

 

So, listen, listen, listen to improve. As soon as you have some mastery of the alphabet, start listening at every opportunity to good sending, even while doing other things that do not require your close attention (e.g., cooking, eating, working with hands on routine things). Don't think you need lots of new recordings. Remember that: "To repeat often is to learn." Replaying of the same familiar materials over and over, day after day, is especially helpful if you do it creatively, really listening to it. Play them over and over, paying close attention, trying to understand. As you listen, let your mind be open and receptive -- intent on listening to each signal as it arrives. Not anticipating or trying to remember what it said before. – So, let yourself get familiar with the code by taking some time every day to relax and enjoy just listening to good CW.

 

This kind of listening is listening creatively, constructively, as it comes along. This has several distinct advantages, not the least of which is to take away any tension or strain -- you know what it is talking about -- you are already familiar with it in general and you feel more comfortable with it. And -- you are getting really familiar with the sound of code -- it is becoming increasingly meaningful to you. So, you can benefit greatly by listening to the same things over and over in this constructive way -- just listening as it comes along. But as you advance mix in a pattern of new and unfamiliar recordings, too. The new material will become easier and easier with this kind of practice. You can make your own recordings: -- a few ARRL bulletin broadcasts, quality QSO's -- Bible passages are good -- or other text material and play them back over and over.

 

Especially in the early stages of receiving, when things go very slowly, and often again when you have gained considerable skill, the mind may tend to wander off somewhere else, or go galloping ahead (jumping to conclusions). As you listen, hang onto every letter, word and phrase -- hang on like a leech (that is, concentrate on it), really listening to it. (This also helps; take off any strain, knowing something of what is being said.) Remember that in practical communications, when we listen to the radio, the signals are here and then gone and cannot be brought back unless they were recorded. You are learning to get so familiar with the sound of code that doing it right the first time will be easy. Easy familiarity will help us to do that.

 

We are more likely to rush ahead when we are fresh and alert. Don't let your mind try to outrun the sender. We must resist letting our minds wander off, or anticipate, or pause to try to figure something out. Some of us do this in normal conversation and reading, but we need to be especially on guard against this in code reception. Don't let it become a habit with Morse. As we listen, we need to disconnect all conscious analytical processes, and instead maintain an eager readiness to receive -- to hear each letter, word and phrase as it comes along, willing for it to be whatever it will be. That means we hang on to every letter, word and phrase as it comes along, ready for the next one. Listen, keep listening and want to understand. Let's develop the desire and feel for doing this. There is no need ever to become embarrassed (or panic) because you can't read or copy everything you hear.

 

Whatever You Miss, Let It Go
Am I afraid of losing something? I must let go of that fear, and relax and learn to trust the mind and to enjoy listening. It is a fact that the less hard we try, the better we will receive. Don't ever stop to try to figure out something you didn't catch. Keep following the sender -- keep listening and you will soon be getting enough to make sense out of every sentence, and in time you will get all of it. But even when you are quite good there will be some words, which don't make sense at first -- in most cases you will make sense out of it as you go on following the sender, and without even trying. The context and redundancy both help fill in the gaps -- just keep focussed on the signals. (And don't forget that the sender sometimes may have made a mistake.) If you have learned only to write things down, it will take some practice to learn to "copy in your head" without writing. Listen to understand. Keep listening, not worrying about losing here and there. Soon the signals seem to be slowing down as they parade before your mind or "inner eye" as meaningful words and phrases. Learn to listen for whole words, phrases and the meaning of messages rather than single letters.

 

"Throw Away Your Pencil!"
Many an old-timer has always copied down everything he receives: he has never learned to sit back and relax and just enjoy conversing. He needs to throw away his pencil and learn to enjoy listening for listening's sake. Many a newer-comer likewise feels tied to his pencil and paper out of fear he may miss something if he doesn't get it all written down, every letter of it. This creates a tension, a strain that impedes the normal functioning of the telegraphic "habit" of mind. "Throw away your pencil and enjoy just listening" is good advice.

 

Concentrate
In receiving, we must learn more and more to shut off all distractions and concentrate our attention on the signals we are listening to, what is being said. We need to learn to center our attention consciously on the signals and ignore all else, until it becomes a habit -- automatic. Prepare yourself to do this immediately before starting to listen and whenever there are lulls. Make it a habitual mental clearing-for-action, so you can pay attention solely to the signals you hear. When we are interested in what we are hearing this will help us concentrate. So let's want to know what is being said -- yet not so intensely interested that we begin to guess what is going to be said and miss out on what is actually being transmitted.

An agent who was responsible for hiring shipboard operators was himself a dyed-in-the-wool cw operator. He connected a telegraph key in his office with a buzzer in the waiting room. Then whenever there was an opening, he would send an appropriate name from his prospect list in Morse code. If the man didn't answer promptly, he simply skipped him and went to the next name. He believed that a good shipboard operator should be alert, able to respond to cw. Isn't that an interesting way to get a good operator? -- Is he listening, alert?

 

Learn To Hear Words As Words They Are The Building Blocks Of Thought
As you become more familiar with the code alphabet, you will soon be hearing letters easily enough -- it is time to begin to think in terms of meaning -- that means starting to hear words instead of strings of letters. But as speeds go up, there is a limit to our ability to spell out words. Our next goal is to hear words. Let each word or code group develop on the internal monitor screen of your mind. Begin to develop sound consciousness of words. This does not mean you have to relearn words, but only change your approach from visual to sound. Practicing with lists of words, replaying texts or QSO's -- this kind of practice can help you gain that familiarity with words commonly used.

 

There is a limit to our ability to spell words out mentally and remember them. As long as we hear only letter-by-letter, we almost have to copy them down to understand what is being sent. To hear code as we talk, we have to learn to hear words as words -- that makes the code readable or "conversational," and not just short or long strings of letters. This is stage two. If you have learned to hear and think of at least some of the 100 most common words as words, you already have taken the first steps. Words are the building blocks of language, so we need to begin to hear not code or letters, but more and more in words as perception units. (Step three, the expert stage, is to learn to hear more by ideas -- total content -- than by words.)

 

How Can We Learn To Do This? Listen For Meaning
When we begin to hear and send in words instead of individual letters our receiving ability and speeds are going to improve. That is part of our goal in making the code more useful and enjoyable. Hearing words instead of strings of letters will make speeding up natural and easy. It will require some practice and effort. The mind has to be pushed, but not too hard. Let's do it the easy way, in short practice periods. Learning to recognize whole words becomes an automatic process of decoding, something that lets us understand as we hear. This is no big job -- the word "the", for example, is no longer than the number 9.

 

Start learning to hear common short words until they have become indelibly fixed in mind as word sounds. Learn to read by words as readily as you recognize letters. First learn to hear common short words over and over until they have become indelibly fixed in mind as word sounds, as if someone had actually spoken them to you. Extend this to longer words by such methods as the following, which some people have found helpful:

A "MENTAL SCREEN" is like a typewriter writing -- visualize a typewriter or blackboard on which writing out each word as it comes, writing it along letter by letter along the line, or like one of those lighted display signs where the words walk slowly across the screen. Let each word develop on the internal monitor screen or blackboard of your mind so you "see" it being written in context. Try "projecting" the letter or number, etc., for split second on your mental screen as you listen to it to encourage instantly "seeing" it in your mind when you hear it. Learn to write on your mental blackboard. This helps focus our attention on the signals forming words and learning to "see" them as words. Let you mind be blank as you listen to fast code, and soon the letters jump out at you.

 

Some have found that PHONICS can make comprehension and speed building easy and natural this way: --. Relax and think of the sounds of the code letters, not as letter names, but as they are pronounced in words. Like this -- while the word "west" is being received -- as each letter comes along one after the other say out loud, or to yourself: "wuh, wuh...wee, wee...wes, wes...west", progressively building up the word in mind by sound. This makes it easier to hear their sounds. Sound them out one after another as they come along until we get syllables and finally the sound of the whole word itself. It teaches the mind to decode the dit-space-dah patterns and combinations into their sound values, the way we hear words.

 

This system doesn't work perfectly, of course, because English is not written in a perfectly phonetic way. Some of the letters are "silent", like final "e." Let the letters combine into words as you hear them in code, much as we recognize words as we hear their sounds You can help by practicing with the common letter combinations (br, gl, ng, etc.) and syllables (com-. ex-, inter-, -ment, -ing, -tion, etc.) to get familiar with them. Reading whole words this way then becomes a process of decoding from something we hear in bits and pieces into something we hear and understand as meaningful units. It even can help with abbreviations. You may like to try this approach and let it become automatic. When we have learned to hear words as words, we can often also mentally correct a sender's errors or signal drop-outs while listening.

 

The importance of PROPER WORD SPACING should become more obvious now. It gives the mind a split second to make sense out of the stimuli it has just received. Those word-separating spaces are vital. The following exercise is worth a try -- as soon as you recognize a word by the space which follows it (if the sending is not too fast, and the spaces between words are long enough), try saying each word out loud (or mentally to yourself) as you recognize it. You may want to make up some practice materials, which leave wider spaces between words to allow time to say them. (It may also be useful to practice this way with short groups of numbers, such as 2 or 3 digits.) Notice how, as you listen, the silence before says, "start here" and as the following space says "it is finished", sort of islands of rest. That is why gaining familiarity with the sound of code words is so helpful. It makes the word a meaningful unit, and you get to feeling easy about receiving what makes sense. The more words you are familiar with the easier it is to receive. It banishes tension.

 

One ham put it this way: "the code just flows into my ear and comes out as words." Just as we have learned to let the mind recognize each code character and present it to us consciously and automatically, now we must take that next step and trust the same mind to store these letters and put them together into words without demanding to be conscious of the process and "hear" each letter individually. We have to learn to let our subconscious mind present us with the words they form. As long as we insist on recognizing each individual letter, we are interfering, meddling with our normal habitual mind's functioning, and misdirecting our attention.

 

The goal is to learn to listen to the code as you would to the spoken word. Eventually the sound will trigger your consciousness just as the spoken word does and then, when you can do this, it will also be easier to copy it down.

 

We Must Listen At Higher Speeds To Improve
To improve we must begin by listening at a speed higher than we are comfortable with, in order to get used to it and speed up our recognition. We ought to listen at different speeds, both slower and faster than we can easily read. We need to be flexible -- to avoid staying at any one speed too long at a time. Along with this, let's practice listening to lots of standard English at speeds close to our limit. This limit should keep going up as we continue to practice this way. A total of a half-hour a day spent just listening at speeds we can barely follow will work wonders in a couple of weeks. Listen as you would at a concert, enjoying it as you go.

 

Sometimes we should pick speeds so high that we can only make out a character here and there. This kind of listening will quickly help us to begin to get more and more. Small words will start jumping out -- as soon as they have been sent we will know what the words are, although we didn't consciously spell them out as they were coming in. We need to continue this kind of practice, and soon we will be getting enough of each sentence to make sense out of it. Learning Is Variable. Some days you'll do better than others, but don't let this trouble you -- that's normal. All of us are like that for a while at each speed.

 

You will discover that sometimes you can read several words solid, and then not be able to read anything more than a letter here and there for some space. All this is part of normal learning. Keep on listening: give the incoming signals your undivided attention and keep relaxed, as though listening to a friend talk. Soon you will be catching not only small words, but longer ones . . . until you are getting it all. You will discover, with practice, that the signals, which were too fast before, will seem to be slowing down as they parade before your inner eye as meaningful words and phrases. -- An interesting example is the blind amateur who could copy 35 wpm, and came across some code practice and listened. He lost a letter here or there, and then was startled when they said it was 55-wpm practice!

 

MISSING WORDS, LONG WORDS, DECAPITATED WORDS and BROKEN WORDS
Static, interference or fading can momentarily wipe out a letter or two, a small word or part of a longer word. Momentary inattention (due to mental fatigue, distraction or something else) on our part while sending or receiving can do this, too. When a word is decapitated the first several letters are missing. This makes things particularly difficult in English, because word beginnings are so important for us to be able to make sense of a word -- and worse, this is often the accented part. In fact, when we can get the first several letters of a word don't we often know pretty well what the whole word is likely to be?

 

When reception is solid as we are just listening, some strange things may happen: a little word or the first part of a long word comes along which seems unfamiliar -- has no recognizable shape -- and we stumble a moment trying to make sense of it. This tends to blank our minds against hearing the next few letters and then we are likely to lose the what immediately follows, in the case of a long word, the whole word. At other times our minds sometimes seem to go into reverse after the first few letters of a long word, then misses a couple of letters in the middle, tries to pick them up, and finally loses the whole word.

 

How to can we stop this? We mustn't let missing out first part of a word distract us so that we stop hearing the rest of it. -- How can we prevent this? Is part of the tension caused by missing out or losing first part due to recognizing a time gap with nothing recognizable to fill it? -- We may be able to recapture long words if we just keep on listening. (When we are copying we can often fill it in afterwards from the context.) A broken word (interrupted, disjointed) results when the missing letter (or letters) occurs in the middle of the word. Sometimes this break is due to the sender who inadvertently hesitates an instant too long between two letters. In either case, the space between letters is too wide and our minds interpret this as a break, marking it as the end of one word and the beginning of the next. Since it doesn't make sense, we realize something is wrong and wonder what word that last group of letters was. (Let this be a warning to avoid it our own sending.)

 

When a wrong letter (mis-spelling) or a non-character is sent or a word is left out it may distract us in much the same way. Really, isn't this much like a misprint in reading? Don't we often skip right over a misprint or missing word and hardly notice it? How do we do that? Isn't it because we understand it in the context? Can't we learn to do this in telegraphy also? -- Where one or more letters or even words are wrong or missing, can't we often fill them in correctly? We can learn to do this for missing or extra dits, etc., mentally correcting them as we listen. As we have emphasized before we must just let it go and keep on listening. If we pause try to figure it out at this point, it will divert our attention from reception to analysis, and seriously disrupt with our automatic reception as we try to make sense out of it. Frequently we discover that as we go it will clear itself up.

 

First, we must keep focussed on the incoming signals without struggling to make sense out of them. TRYING to make sense is a conscious activity, interfering with the automatic mental functioning. A sense of concern is involved - concern that we won't be able to remember the first part until the word is finished, or that its beginning is peculiar, has no recognizable shape (e.g. technical or medical terms), or that it is going to be a word we won't be able to recognize at all (doesn't seem familiar). For many words, one way to help is to get familiar with the common prefixes and suffixes so that they are "heard" as units instead of separate letters. We must learn not to let conscious thought block further reception.

 

On-The-Air Listening
When we listen on the radio, static, fading and interference tend to slow us down. Under these conditions high quality sending (accurate timing) will get through far better than sloppy sending. But there are certain adjustments or changes which can be made in our receiving equipment which will help: e.g. the use of RF and audio filters, changing the tuning of IF amplifiers, etc.. These will help separate signals and reduce noise.

 

Static and irregular non-signal types of electric interference can often be reduced by turning down RF gain and increasing AF gain to bring the signal up. Some noises can be canceled in the brain by using headphones wired so that they are out of phase with each other. Dual-diversity reception can greatly reduce or eliminate fading, but this requires a major equipment change: two separate antennas and two identical RF front ends are necessary. The ear is an excellent discriminator of CW signals in QRM, noise and other interference, much superior to any equipment available today.

 

We can train our ears to minimize interference by focussing our attention to the one signal we want to hear. The musical pitch and quality, so long as two signals are not identical, can help us separate them, while the speed and style of sending also help greatly to separate the one we want from the other. In addition, the ear can be trained to read incredibly weak signals in the midst of strong distractions. Some operators have learned to get almost 100% copy in spite of all these.

Some have found that by listening in the dark, or closing their eyes, they can focus more sharply on signals, which are in the midst of interference and other distractions. You may want to try it and see if it helps you develop or improve this skill. Finally, sometimes writing it -- copying -- may help us to concentrate.

 

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