Im a CW man Myself so here are some tips i give others.
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If you have a way to decode it, go to the ARRL website and search for code practice. they have archives of practice sessions and qualifying sessions plus the text to go along with the sessions. then pick the fastest code you can possibly receive and go from there.
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Arrl has it from 5wpm up to 40 wpm.
Good practice material as you relearn the CW. Try to push yourself to go faster on the code and when you get it down again, you will soon find you will be able to copy a few charactiers here and there on a faster setting, then keep going even as you learn it. each character should be learned being sent fast like 15,20wpm but spaced out for the speed you can copy. that way you know what the characters sound like at a faster speed and you are not trying to count dits and dahs.
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This is my own opinon of it. if you can learn the character sound at a faster speed and know what it sounds like when you hear it, it will be easier when you decrease the spacing of the charactors. example the word bat at 5wpm:
B ? ??? A???????? T? but the characters or letters are being sent as a faster rate at 15 to 20 wpm. now at 10: B? A? T now at 15 B A T now at 20wpm : BAT
then when you progress and practice on the practice logs ARRL has, you will find you can start picking out the characters even if the actual code speed is 15 to 20 wpm.
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I taught my Son this and he way surpasses me on CW. He is now hitting about 35 wpm and copies behind about 3 to 4 words.. this was started on a code practice oscillator i built for him and using one of my rigs for receiving real time transmissions in the Extra class sections.And listening to the ARRL bulletin broadcasts .
I also required him to do the traditional CW key instead of a paddle or bug. He now has switched to a more advanced key
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There are loads of practice material online,and software that can be found for FREE and some which i recommend to a beginner that has been created by many talanted hams for a very very low cost. and also the best thing after refreshing your code and getting up to at least 5-10wpm is on the air copying real time code.
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If you learn the code being sent at a faster rate for the characters, then shortening the spacing will be easy. You will find that after learning the code characters at a faster rate, you wont usually have the traditional speed limit compared to someone who was trained with characters being actually sent at 5wpm.
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Once you learn it , use it. make hour long tapes so you can listen to them while you are putting around the yard on the mower,etc. see how many words and such you can decode in your head.try to visualize letters coming across your mind like a ticker tape machine.
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Some hams use a typewriter or now, the pc? to type the letters and such as they come out from the speaker. Or headphones.
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hope this helps. just my take of it all and im sure there are loads of hams here who probably have better advice. Liten to them all.
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Good luck on your beginnings of a neat and fantastic venture in the world of ham radio with CW.
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73
David
acxh
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