The Southern African Morse Operators Club

Take a note of the following before you begin...

• Do NOT try your hand at sending Morse code until you attain proficiency in receiving Morse code by the ear. Otherwise, you might end up developing a bad fist (sending accent) which may be difficult to correct later.
• You must never try to listen and copy regular on-air Morse code transmissions while you are learning Morse code. Our CW lessons are scientifically structured and we introduce you to various characters progressively in a controlled manner. This allows your brain to learn Morse code logically without creating garbage of other character sounds that might confuse your brain.
• You must start with the first lesson module and do not attempt to go to the next lesson until you achieve a thorough comfort level copying the characters in that lesson.
• Do not try to rush to the next lesson without acquiring complete command on the alphabets in the current lesson. Even if one alphabet in a lesson is causing difficulties, stay on that lesson till your brain sorts it out and trains itself..
• Let the brain associate the unique sound pattern of each alphabet (as a whole) with a visual impression of that alphabet to be formed in your mind..
• At this stage of the learning process, don't attempt to write down what you copy on paper. Let the brain register and associate the pictorial image of the alphabets to the character sounds.
• Each lesson is a random character sequence of a set of alphabets. The total duration of each lesson file is approximately 5 minutes each... Do not over-strain your mind by repeating the lessons continuously again and again.
• It's a good idea to play the lesson once and then give it a break for at least 30-50 minutes (preferably more) before playing it again. This process is similar to high-intensity interval training that people do in gyms.
• While you are letting your mind rest after a 5-minute training session, do not think about Morse code at that time... Do other normal things and allow your mind to relax. After a suitable time gap, play the same lesson again. Continue this process of interval training as many times or as many days needed till you attain proficiency with that lesson module before moving to the next lesson.
• Make sure to achieve equal fluency while copying each character in the lesson before moving to the next lesson. Do not let any character remain as a weak-link in this learning sequence. Or else, these weak-links will come back to bite you later when we try to copy regular transmissions of sentences and full message sequences by making you miss several subsequent characters or words in the continuous transmission environment.
• Each lesson adds two new characters to the previous lesson. Therefore, we have 13 lessons in this lesson set to cover all 26 alphabets. The character sound patterns are played at 20 WPM while the inter-character spacing has been increased to render an overall transmission rate of 12 WPM. This method is called the Farnsworth Timing Method. This is done to facilitate the learning process, yet your brain hears each character sound at 20 WPM.
• The last lesson (#14) in this lesson set is an additional yet important practice module. Here all the 26 alphabets are played in a random sequence at 20 WPM character speed as before but the Farnsworth timing delay is reduced to achieve a 17 WPM effective transmission rate. This brings you very close to the real thing... Please practice it till you attain good fluency before going to the next Lesson Set where we will introduce numerals and other characters.