Ham Radio Question: Learning CW

The FCC dropped the requirement for code. It's no longer required to obtain your license.

 

Gotcha! Well, in that case go straight to the ARRL ...
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Morse-American-Radio-League/dp/0872598314

 

http://www.morsecat.de/

It seems to have worked for those who had problems learning in the past.

Have a friend that has hearing issues (not the kind that means hard of hearing but processing some tones and speech), she tried for years to learn morse and failed a lot which stopped her from getting licensed in the past. She was determined to learn it out of shear frustration. So I showed her this program. She started to learn a little at a time but kept getting interrupted using the computer so she recorded a couple of hours of listening with this program and broke it up in 15/30 minute segments. Saved them in mp3 format tagging them with letter, number and speed groups and stuck them all on her iPod, setting up a play list for each group and combinations of groups. She would listen to them as she drove and caught on quickly without the distraction she had in the past. It took her longer to learn because how her hearing problems were creating the block but once that was gone, she learned quickly.

 

It simply takes practice. There are computer programs out to help you.

I (and most everyone else) recommends that you learn the actual letters at around 20 words per minute (wpm), spaced appropriately.

If you have an HF rig, once you get a handle on a dozen or so letters, tune in the ARRL nightly CW bulletin. It's sent at 18 wpm, and just try to pick out the letters you can.

 

You can send morse code using the MIC on the Yaesu FT 857D. Meanwhile as I myself learn the code; I installed the MORSE CODE KEYER and the MORSE PLAYER app's on my Samsung Galaxy 2. They were both free apps at the time and were highly recommended over the other free versions. Let me know if you go this route.