CW for beginners, Lesson 2

You will hear a lot of nonsense from old timers who have forgotten that there is one thing you have to do before anything else and that is.... simply learn the morse code alphabet!

This preceeds everything else...bar none!

We have 26 letters to learn, ignore the old timers (prosigns, koch method, just recognise the tune blah blah blah) and lets just cut to the chase as fast as possible by using simple association and memory techniques to try and fast track the code into those "little grey cells" believe me this step is unavoidable.

Firstly lets do all the letters that only consist of di's or ( . )s, **remember the letter group "eish"**:

e ( . )
i ( . . )
s ( . . . )
h ( . . . . ) That's 4 out of 26!

"Every Indian Shoots High" imagine the arrows coming towards you.

Second, lets do all the letters that only consist of dah's or ( _ )s, **remember the group letter "tmo"**:

t ( _ )
m ( _ _ )
o ( _ _ _ ) That's 7 out of 26!

"Totally Massive Ohms" imagine a PCB track circuit with small breaks, the ohms become massive with more breaks.

Third, lets do all the letters that start with di's and end with a dah, **remember the group letter "auv"**:

a ( . _ )
u ( . . _ )
v ( . . . _ ) That's 10 out of 26!

"Autonomous Underwater Vehicle" imagine the di's are the rope with the dah being the vehicle slowing going up the alphabet.

Fourth, lets do all the letters that start with a di and end with dah's, **remember the group letter "awj"**:

a ( . _ )
w ( . _ _ )
j ( . _ _ _ ) That's 12 out of 26!

"Awful Woolly Jumper" picture wool being pulled from a single point on a badly knitted woolly jumper, the dit being the single point on the jumper and the dah's being the wool.

Fifth, lets do all the letters that start with dah and end with di's, **remember the group letter "ndb"**:

n ( _ . )
d ( _ . . )
b ( _ . . . ) That's 15 out of 26!

"No Dust Bins" picture a bin lying on it side and the litter spilling out.

Sixth, lets face it if you've listened to any cw, you'll definitely hear this pattern all the time, **remember the group letter "cqdx"**:

c ( _ . _ . )
q ( _ _ . _ )
d ( _ . . )
x ( _ . . _ ) That's 18 out of 26!

"CQ DX" just listen to some cw on air.

Seventh, dah or dah's encapsulated with di or di's

r  ( . _ . )
l ( . _ . . )
p ( . _ _ . ) That's 21 out of 26!

"Right Lazy Person"

Eighth, multiple dah's ending in di or di's

g ( _ _ . )
z ( _ _ . . ) That's 23 out of 26!

"Giant Zebras"

Ninth, lets face it if you've listened to any cw, you'll definitely hear this pattern all the time, every general call ends in a 'k' and also a repeater sends it after you unkey.

k ( _ . _ ) That's 24 out of 26!

"CQ DX DE GM0ELP K"

Tenth, think of this as forming the letter 'f' with the first di being the tail of the letter and the dah being the strike through of the letter.

f ( . . _ . ) That's 25 out of 26!

 as follows:
    .
   _
  .
.

This leaves us with y, no help here

y ( _ . _ _ ) That's 26 out of 26 and we are done!

Now we need to practice recalling the alphabet in cw, if you stumble, punish yourself by going back to the beginning. Enjoy!

Doug GM0ELP