"Dan/W4NTI" wrote in message ...
"Dee D. Flint" wrote in message
y.com...

"C" wrote in message
...

No I am not doing a memorizing of each dit and dah and converting
method. My problem is my brain does not react fast enough to decide what
each character is before the next one is sent.

At 5 wpm with Farnsworth spacing, you have around 1.5-2 seconds
between characters. That should be plenty. Are you using Farnsworth
spacing?

Try this experiment: Have someone read a random sequence of standard
phonetics ("Hotel, Sierra, Alfa, Yankee..." at a rate of about one
word every two seconds while you write down the first letter of each
word. If you can do that, it's a good bet you can learn to copy 5 wpm
code.

Are you block printing or writing cursive? I found block printing
avoided a lot of problems because each letter stands alone.

I just get further
behind. I practice at least 20 to 30 minutes usually twice a day if not
more. I use computer programs and ARRL training CDs.

I will check "The Art and Skill of Radiotelegraphy". Thanks for the
encouragement.

Try this:

Set the computer to send just two unrelated characters - say, R and Z.
Practice copying those two until you get 95% or better copy. Then add
just one more letter and practice until you can get 95% or better with
those three. The trick is to not add any new ones until you know the
old ones almost perfectly.

None of us could react fast enough at first. You are not alone. When you
are copying and miss a letter, just skip it and catch the next one. If
you
let your mind focus on what you missed, you will then miss several others
that come after. DON'T TRY TO GET THE MISSED LETTER AT THAT TIME. Just
write an underscore and go on so that you don't miss following letters.
This takes a little practice by the way as we all want to be perfect so we
sit there and try to figure it out while falling further behind. If you
get
a lot of blanks at first, that's OK. Just keep working on it.

Good advice. But don;t be afraid to backtrack as above, to find what
letters are giving you trouble.

When you take the test, you are allowed time to go back over your paper
and
fill in what you think the missing material might be. Here is an example
(using an underscore for characters that you miss on the copy).

What you originally copied: NAM_ IS JO_N.
Now if you look back over your copy, fill in what you believe the missing
letters should be. In this case, the text sent was most likely: NAME IS
JOHN.
Then on the test questions, you will probably be asked the name and there
you have it right there on your paper.

When I took my extra code test (20wpm), I had a lot of underscores on my
paper but despite that I was able to successfully answer the country
question (it was Switzerland) even though I only had about half the
letters
copied on my sheet.

That works fine unless the text sent was "NAME IS JOAN"

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE


Yeah its tough now Dee. When I took mine is was solid copy at 20 wpm for
one solid minute out of five. Oh well.

Me too. And no time was allowed for going back - when the code
stopped, they took the paper away. Plus, if the examiner could not
read your writing, you flunked. Also you had to send 20 per to the
examiner's satisfaction.

But all that has been gone for over 20 years now. Ancient history. Yet
many hams licensed since those days could easily meet that standard.

Note that today's test can be passed by answering the questions OR
finding one minute (25 characters) of solid copy.

73 es GL de Jim, N2EY