"Mike Coslo" wrote in message
...
S. Hanrahan wrote:
On Wed, 05 Nov 2003 12:35:58 GMT, "Bert Craig"
wrote:


"S. Hanrahan" wrote in message
. .

At 5 WPM, you don't need a computer to copy good or poor code.

I think you've just hit the nail on the head. It's really not how hard
or
easy 5-wpm is, it's the willingness (or lack thereof) to make the
initial
(i.e. "initiative") effort to learn the 43 required characters.


Exactly. I look at it this way, if a person doesn't want to learn the
code, fine, if they want to fine, just don't come up to me and bitch
and moan that 5 WPM is a hurdle or mountain too high to climb.

I'm hearing impaired in both ears, and I can copy 45-50 WPM in my head
solidly, and attained the 20 before taking my General class written,
without waivers.

Now you have my attention, Stacey! What is the nature of your hearing
loss, if I may ask? I have tinnitus and am about 60 db down compared to
normal hearing, with several 100 db plus holes in various places. One
of the weird things about my particular flavor of hearing loss is that
all incoming sounds seem to get equal treatment in my brain. Whereas it
appears that most people can filter out the good stuff from the noise, I
end up treating all sounds equally. No mental DSP here, unfortunately! 8^)

At any rate, I've had to do a lot of work to get this far. Took 6 months
of intense work to get to 5wpm, and I've been working daily on
increasing my speed for the last month or so. I don't envy much, but I
envy those who were able to pick Morse code up in a few weekends.

- Mike KB3EIA -


We all envy those who can get it in a few hours. It takes a normal person
30 hours to get to 5wpm, 60 hours to get to 10wpm, 95 hours to get to 15wpm,
and 150 hours to get to 20wpm (info from the book "Morse Code, The Essential
Language"). Some of us will need more time and a few unusually talented
people will get it in a lot less.

So don't be discouraged. Keep at it. Get on the air and make some QSOs
even though you need to go slow. If you can tolerate the frustration, try a
contest even if you have to listen to the other station repeatedly to pick
out the info and then throw in your call. You'd very likely see a
noticeable improvement in speed.

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE