I want to write some about techniques for learning Morse Code. I'm sure you've seen these charts that list all the letters of the alphabet & numbers, with their corresponding code equivalents shown in dots & dashes. At best these are like a technical dictionary that defines how each symbol is sent in Morse Code. But publishers & educators have misled people into thinking these charts are training tools. They are NOT! In fact, if you use them as training tools, you will be slowing down your ability to learn and use the code.

When I was a kid, I learned to send the code with a Western Union Radio Telegraph Signal Set. It allowed you to send code with a flashing light, or with a clicking sound, or with a buzzer. We always used the buzzer. When my father sent me code on our back porch at night, he used this same buzzer. You'll notice that this device listed the alphabet & code equivalents down the white section on the left side. Below that raised section were the batteries for the set. My father learned the code as a Boy Scout and still remembered it well decades later. I guess if he forgot a letter while sending me practice code, he could quickly check the letter in the white area on the left.

But the trouble with learning this way is that it was inevitable that your mind would form an image of each letter with the dots & dashes next to it. It's a look-up table. Once you had memorized it, you could look back at the mental image you had formed from the chart and you could then send the letter from the mental image you had formed. This works well enough for a history test in school, but we're learning the code to be able to communicate with people. Having to look up these memorized mental images and then count the dots & dashes and the order they are in all takes time. It was okay for passing the Novice CW test at 5 wpm. But to pass the General Class test at 13 wpm, this method was really pushing it. And for the Extra Class ticket at 20 wpm, well forget it. You'll never manage at that speed using all these mental images.

The right way to learn the code is by sound. I tell people just starting out to not even look at these charts as they are learning. Have someone send you a letter with the buzzer and then tell you it was the sound for the letter A, or whatever. Repeat this over & over and before long when you hear that sound, you will know it is an A. And please don't translate this sound into the dot & dash equivalent. That would just be re-introducing the slow mental image of learning. Don't do that, it slows you down! The way the Boy Scouts did it, maybe even my father, was to listen to the sound of the code on records. You see how he plays the sound of the letter and then names it, E. That's the proper way to learn the code. He doesn't say anything about dots & dashes or code charts. He just starts with the sounds and what they mean and then goes on to T, then A and so on. Nowhere on the record does he ever mention a dot or a dash or a code chart. He just sends the sounds and tells what they mean.

Okay, that's a good example of the way to do it. Now click here and see how the Bob Scouts changed to teaching code in 2015 with the "help" of Google, which developed "clever" pictographs on flash cards to represent each letter. For example the letter M is two dashes in the code, and that looks kinda like a moustache and moustache starts with the letter M. So you hear the sound, notice the sound has two parts, then remember the pictograph with two parts was the moustache, then recognize that the first letter in that word is M, so that sound means M. See how clever that is?!! Geesh, why not just drill that sound and teach the student it means M, eliminating numerous ridiculous steps in the process. I can't believe this is what the Boy Scouts had become.

It gets worse. Take a look at this Wikipedia page on Morse Code Mnemonics. With these, they translate the letters into clever images and remember that OR associate the dots & dashes of a letter with one of many possible phrases of words and remember that. To the credit of the Wikipedia editors in this case, they point out that you can't use these techniques to learn code at practical speeds, so if you really want to learn the code, you better find yourself an amateur radio club. Well, yeah!! But wait! Speaking of charts, take a look at this chart for Morse Code. Notice that someone thought this was so brilliant that he/she registered and pays for his/her own domain name to feature this chart. Apparently this is related to a computer science technique, which the Wikipedia page on Morse Code says is called a dichotomic search table.

Next time I'll give you the real lowdown on Mastering the Code. Don't miss it.