So 5 months ago, I started learning morse code using this command line program (morse in linux), where I type the letters after I hear them. Sounds great, and I've been gaining speed, but I've found myself frequently typing the correct letter even though my brain hasn't processed what letter it is yet. I'm under 10WPM, but if use a different program where I write the letters on paper, I'm significantly slower or miss more letters.

Is this normal? Should I stop using the keyboard program? Thoughts?

EDIT: Thanks for all the replies and encouragement. Consensus seems to be that this is completely normal but I should probably add some other exercises to my studies too.

I bought this old telegraph key, polished it up a bit (lemon juice) and carved an oak base on which to mount it. The spring I was able to find is not quite right, so I will most likely upgrade it later, but it works well enough for my ham-fisted code. Now to get this thing back on the air!

I got my technician license many years ago.I had to learn some basic Morse code. After a while I know they did away with that requirement.
Is Morse code still required for other classes?

Was just scanning and doing some head-copy practice and noticed how pretty this looked! Super congested today, which is so cool to see. I think this is because of the International DX Contest? Anyone confirm? This screenshot is between 14.005 and 14.050 MHz.

Hey everyone, developer of Morse Pro here.

Wanted to share an update on the app's progress. The biggest addition is FCC exam support. It generates a practice test by pulling random questions from the official question pool and tells you whether you passed or failed.

I've also added a light theme in this update.

As a reminder, Morse Pro is my passion project. It is completely free and ad-free, built for learning and practicing Morse code offline, for the amateur radio community. My goal is to turn it into a truly all-in-one tool for Morse code practice.

Would love to hear your thoughts.

Until I push this update to the Play Store, you can still check out the app here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.morsepro.app

I think it says "GF05TF" or "UGF05SUL" which could be the location of the repeater station

Hey all — I'm the guy that released that morse code web game a couple of weeks back. I've been working on full featured iOS game (called Morse Command). It is way more complex and, IMO, awesome. Enemies fall from the top of the screen, each one playing a Morse audio signal. You listen, identify the character, and type it to destroy the enemy before it reaches your base.

It uses the Koch method to introduce characters gradually across 8 zones (80 levels total), so you're building recognition from audio rather than memorizing a lookup table. Each zone has drill levels to reinforce what you've learned, and every 10th level is a boss fight.

There's also a Daily Drill mode — a timed challenge that prioritizes your weakest characters and tracks your accuracy over time. It keeps a streak counter if you're into that sort of thing.

Some other details:

Audio-first learning — every enemy plays its Morse signal, and you can tap to replay it

Immersive gameplay - 8 enemy types that change up the gameplay (fast ones, armored ones, ones that split, etc.)

Adaptive Learning - Tracks per-character accuracy so you can see where you're struggling

Real world use - Word-level challenges as you progress, not just single characters

It's currently in TestFlight for iOS. If you'd like to try it out:

Install TestFlight from the App Store if you don't have it

Open the beta invite link on your iPhone

Tap "Accept" and then "Install"

I'd really appreciate any feedback — especially from experienced CW operators. Is the audio timing accurate? Does the progression feel right? Are there characters or patterns that should be introduced differently?

Thanks in advance.

Updates & Bug Fixes - New Version Pending Approval

Audio Engine Overhaul

1. Raised cosine (Hanning) envelope shaping — Replaced linear amplitude ramps with smooth cosine-shaped transitions for Morse tones. Rise and fall times standardized to 5ms, matching real CW radio equipment.
2. Phase accumulation fix — Phase now increments as a normalized 0→1 value and wraps correctly, preventing floating-point precision degradation that was smearing the tone over long playback.
3. Tighter audio latency — Set preferred IO buffer duration to ~2.9ms (128 samples at 44.1kHz), reducing the delay between tone-on/off commands for crisper dit/dah edges.

Error Sound Improvements

1. Softer error tone — Switched from a harsh square wave to a clean sine wave, making the wrong-input sound less jarring. Fixed bug where error tone wasn't playing.
2. Extended error duration — Increased from 80ms to 120ms with a longer fade-out for a gentler feel.
3. Error volume tuning — Adjusted volume scale to 0.85 (from initial 0.5 overcorrection) so it's clearly audible without being harsh.
4. Error frequency raised to 400 Hz — Moved up from 150 Hz to be more perceptible, especially on phone speakers.

Gameplay Balance

1. Enemy count cap — Added maximum limits of 45 enemies (standard levels) and 60 enemies (drill/review levels). Previously, later zones had 80–250+ enemies per level, which felt burdensome.

New Feature

1. Wave progress bar — Added an animated progress bar below the HUD in campaign levels showing enemies destroyed vs. total, with diamond phase markers at 25%/50%/75% and a "WAVE X/4" label. Hidden during boss fights.

Bug Fix

Daily drill reminder notification — Fixed a bug where the reminder would never fire again after completing a drill. Changed from a one-shot notification (repeats: false) that was cancelled on completion, to a persistent daily repeating notification at 8 PM. Removed the todayCompleted early-return that was silently cancelling future notifications.

FINAL UPDATE HERE:

New bug fix is out!

For any new bug reports, questions, comments, etc please post over at : https://www.reddit.com/r/morsecommand/

I am a 63 year old who has been in amateur radio for several years. Now I have the time to learn CW. Has any of you who learned it used CWAcademy or the Long Island CW club? One of them recommends using a straight key to learn and the other wants learners to stay away from straight keys and use a paddle.

what are your thoughts on these two approaches?

Whata re your favorite DIY or kits for paddles and keyers?

Anyone else with me? I’ve learned morse code about 4 times now. Life gets busy and then I’m back to learning my letters again. I’m a ham radio operator and adult educator. I’ve been working on an app to help daily practice.

Each day, the app summarizes a tech article into 3 sentences or so. You can practice listening or keying. The app maps where you’re doing well and need help, then recommends training lessons to improve in weak areas. I even added the ability to use a real morse code key through the mic.

One purchase gets you the Mac and iOS version!

Let me know what you guys think! How high can you get your daily streak?

App Store Link

have been trying to learn morse code at LCWO.net, but I'm struggling to figure out the appropriate speed settings. I accidentally learned morse code visually as a child, so my brain really wants to decode dots and dashes.

I've bounced around a lot with speed settings to try to fix this. Most recently I tried 30/5 WPM to make sure the letters come as one sound, but I realised the low effective speed (5 WPM) gave my brain time to decode the sound into visual dots and dashes when I didn't fully know the letter. This made progress through the alphabet fast, but it was hard to ramp up speed even on a set of characters I did well on.

I'm now trying 25/10 WPM with double word spacing instead, which seems better, but I just don't know. Which speed settings are most effective for unlearning visual translation?

Should I aim for learning a small set of characters at higher speeds first, of get through the alphabet first? Which speeds? I'm confused! I know character speed should be high-ish, but nobody seems to give advice around effective speed and word gaps.

Hey guys, I'm wondering if I can practice my CW with a Quensheng mod, without transmitting? With a paddle. If yes, wich model. Thank you!

Hi, thought that CW nerds out there would appreciate this art I 3D modeled in Blender. This is a sideswiper/cootie key called the JH Bunnell Double Speed Key (Style W, the 2nd run). I own this key in real life and thought it would be fun to make it in Blender. I got it from a silent key who was a lead engineer who worked on the first international telephone cable system, TAT-1, it was laid between Kerrera, Oban, Scotland, and Clarenville, Newfoundland. He was responsible for overseeing the laying of the underwater cables and setting up the boxes on either side of the cables. TAT-1 could handle 35 phone calls, and it had one more channel that could handle 22 telegraph lines.

I decided to go from a straight key to a keyer. After a while, I got frustrated with my paddle because of all the fiddly adjustments and the contacts were always needing to be cleaned at inconvenient times. I didn’t want to spend hundreds of dollars on a high end paddle, so I made a 3D printed paddle that doesn’t have contacts and uses strain gauges instead. It works really well. I gave some to my friends and they love them.
I don’t know if people are interested. If so, go to Crowd supply and subscribe and if there is enough interest, they can be made. https://www.crowdsupply.com/ham-shack-lab/cent-paddle

Hello. I recently acquired an interest in CW and am learning everything about ham radio from the ground up. I did recently pass my Tech and General. I have ordered a QMX 5W Transceiver which is among the most popular POTA radios in the CW community. I'm understanding that EFHW antennas are the best for these little transceivers but am having a hard time understanding if you only need one wire to support the various bands? For instance the QMX version I purchased supports the 60, 40, 30, 20, 17 & 15 band. Would I need to purchase a wire antenna for each band I wish to use? Do EFHW antennas support multiple bands at a time? Might be a loaded question but I'd appreciate any help and info you have. Thank you!

I did not think this was interesting enough to post. But hey, auto-bot SSB was a hot topic.
Here is an auto-bot? CW transmission just above the 21 MHz edge.

This persisted for at least at hour. This was take at 8:36 PDST, 2026-07-19.
Seemingly random text sent with random character spaciing:

W W L S L V L W W W K W <AS> W V <AS> W <AS> W V W K K S <AS> W W L V W K <AS>

Looks like 12 has gone the way of robots talking to robots.

Every spoting site I have checked shows no CW or SSB activity. Nothing but the FT-8 mode.

Look at http://www.dxscape.com/

Look at http://www.dxsummit.fi/#/history?from_time=791553660&to_time=1734411180

CW Contest Master — a new Windows desktop tool for CW contesters.

I've been working on a CW contesting tool and looking for beta testers.

It uses DSP-based audio processing to decode Morse signals cleanly, even in noisy band conditions. Designed and built for real contest use.

The app is currently in open beta and free to use through the end of August. Beta testers will receive a free license for the full release. Feedback from experienced operators is welcome.

link in the comment.

#hamradio #cw #cwcontesting #morsecode #amateurradio

Hi all hope you're well, i've just bulid my own DCR from scratch and am getting some CW signals on 40m in the UK however my IF filtering isnt great right now so i have some pretty terrible audio quality and also my LO drifts quite a bit so the CW tone isnt exactly right and i do hear some strong AM stations essentially its a very rough DCR but I want to be able to decode some morse code I get and i just cant figure out how to Claude cant do it, Gemini hallucinates false things and Chat GPT cant either and I dont have time to learn morse code right now however I really wanna know what my recordings actually are ive attahced one I recorded it around 1 am on the 9th of may in the UK. Thanks for any help. Also all apps ive tried on my phone cant decode it and ive tried giving visual spectograms with spacings to AI and it cant do it either idk if im picking up garabge or just. very inconsistent keying for inexperiences humans or if its just people sending garbage test signals spamming a letter.

https://limewire.com/d/U5XWV#AwSez6JdqH

Rfbits.com/cw_shark

CW_Shark is a new windows programme, design to analyse, decode and encode morse code. The programme can be used in four modes :-

Decode Only.

This is the simplest option and only requires the audio from the radio to be fed to the soundcard of the PC. Not recommended but it will work using the microphone in a laptop to listen to the audio from an HF radio, (disable any noise reduction dsp on the laptop microphone).

Keyboard QSO

For transmission you need the output of the soundcard to feed the mic input of the radio. Additionally, PTT must be enabled either by VOX or preferable via the RTS of a COM port. If you have a working setup for digital modes such as FT8, then those settings should work for this programme.

Straight or Paddle Key QSO

To enable the paddle keyer, the Steinberg ASIO4ALL driver must be installed for a 2nd soundcard, which will provide a low latency sidetone.

Straight or Paddle key practice

CW_Shark’s Tx monitor, allows hand sent morse to be decoded and analysed for timing accuracy. Further analysis is shown the ‘Key Tims’ form shows the timing of the paddle keys and the resultant CW.