QRQ

Whilst on a break from working on moving my copy speed from sub-20 to 25 WPM I got caught up in a short thread on the Koch method of learning CW on the laconic FISTS reflector. My comments in support of G4XFC's proposal to do away with non-Koch-like learning methods led me over to his new Morse Crusade site. From there I followed a link to the still-in-progress site of N5DWI, John Westerlage, who is putting together a QRQ trainer (40+ WPM). Hurry up John! :)

On John's site is a list of QRQ articles, one of which I went to read, Tom Alderman's (W4BQF) post about the process of learning to converse in Morse at 70 WPM and higher.

This kind of stuff blows me away! I was especially surprised to see Tom's recommendation that one use a code reader when beginning to learn QRQ as it helps avoid the brain cramps that happen when you miss a letter/word and subsequently miss a lot more immediately following (I hate that!). Once you've gotten the hang of it the code reader is no longer necessary. I would have thought that to be like looking at a code sheet of dots and dashes while listening to slow Morse.

It's just about impossible to send Morse on paddles at the speeds these guys are going so they use keyboards. In fact, the really fast ones learn to use the Dvorak keyboard to keep up. 

Could I ever hope to attain such a speed? Right now the short 75 WPM snippet on N5DWI's home page sounds like a blurry staccato to me. I guess if one did get to such seemingly astronomical code speeds the problem then becomes finding another QRQ op to talk with, hi hi!

73!