Yes, very likely. I passed my RSGB 12wpm Morse test in the mid ‘90’s and for the last two decades my maximum receiving speed has plateaued around 22-25wpm. No doubt I could have driven that limit up had I been motivated to do so. But I’m not interested in CW contests and the majority of SOTA chasers reply to me in the 15-25wpm range and usually close to my sending speed of 18-19wpm.
IMO, given that we want fairly short – but not hurried - SOTA QSOs with the minimum of repeats, and with activators often operating under less-than-ideal conditions (low-ish power, compromised antennas, wind/tarp/tent noise, cold fingers/brain, uncomfortable posture, the many on-summit distractions, etc) my motivation has been more on improving managing the activation than on attaining high-speed Morse (which in any case is a turn off for the CW newbie).
So it seems, especially if you listen to the old-timers’ reminiscences about how easy it was for them to learn the code seventy-mumble years ago when they were kids. Apparently, back then, folk often got on the air and made contacts at well under 10wpm, and there were lots of others doing the same thing…
Almost a decade ago I took a look at downloaded RBN data for two days in August, a mid-week day and a weekend day. Obviously that only measured folk calling CQ, but fewer than 1% of CQ calls were 10wpm or slower. Mid-week, just over 10% of CQ calls were 15wpm or slower, but at the weekend, with a contest on, that dropped to 7%. Mid-week about 25% of calls were between 15 and 20wpm. At the weekend that dropped to under 15%. Mid-week the average was around 22wpm. At the weekend it was around 28wpm. Predictably, the pattern on the WARC bands didn’t change nearly so much between mid-week and weekend, but was skewed a little faster than the non-WARC bands mid-week, presumably reflecting the limits on access imposed in many jurisdictions.
For years before I got my license, I would listen to contesters. Not having a dog in the fight, I found it highly comical when some ops would rigidly operate at a blindingly high speed in order to increase their QSO rate only to have to repeat themselves numerous times to actually get the exchange across and thereby defeat their purpose. A need for speed that was utterly counterproductive.
And then proceed to the next QSO in exactly the same manner.
I think it was Henri Bergsen who said that laughter was often triggered by what he called “mechanical inelasticity” of mindlessly doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result.
As M0JSB said, this did seem to be a minority of operators. Most contesters are remarkably skilled. As a lurker in the peanut gallery I was in awe of their prowess.
The number of times I have been called by a chaser at high speed and with poor spacing that I have struggled to copy them. You would think that when I return with an incorrect call repeatedly they would get the message and send slower. But no, the same again. It’s usually not the speed but the poor spacing that defeats me.
It’s ironic [or should that be ironical] that it’s usually their callsign - the most important item in the exchange - that gets squashed the most. This has to be a blindspot (deafspot?) caused by over familiarity and lack of reflection on one’s skills.
Thats an interesting theory. Its not something I’m aware of happening when I was learning and certainly reaching a plateaux was never an issue for any of my colleagues nor did anyone ever mention sticking points. Perhaps that’s because we were all taught in classes using a regular and proven format until we’d all reached 20wpm and 94% or so accuracy.
Learning on your own, and/or without an experienced, trained instructor may mean that there’s a natural tendency for most to try one method, find it doesn’t produce instant results or whatever , then they try another method and so on. I wonder if thats a reason for sticking points??
I’m not sure contests or indeed SOTA or other activities will automatically improve your morse - it will, or should, improve your ability in contests or SOTA, POTA exchanges but that doesn’t follow you’ll be better at morse in the wider understanding.
Practicing to learn to read morse - all morse - all the letters prosigns random groups etc., until you can copy anything your hear on the air makes for better morse comprehension.
There’s no short cuts, and as you say once you’ve got to a reasonable speed and morse is no longer mental punishment it won’t atrophy - or shouldn’t. I had virtually no exposure to CW for 50 odd years and it came back almost immediately I got my licence a few years ago.
I suspect that they were there Dave but the formal teaching methods, which would have been constructed to optimise results had adapted to minimise the effects. I think that age is also a factor. I am guessing that you learned quite young, as did I, and I can’t say that I was particularly aware of the sticking points either. I did become aware of them when I started teaching Morse to older people (say 30+).
It’s interesting that you mention code groups. Back in 1966 there were no computer programs or other aids to learning and I had no mentors, so I used to listen on 80m. There was a CW practice station on 3650KHz every evening that I think must have been military, with, from distant recollection, the callsign P8K. It would send 5-letter, 5-figure and mixed code groups from around 5wpm to 20wpm for an hour. In the following hour the entire sequence was repeated. I would write down as much as I could during each session and compare what I had copied.
Eventually I was managing the fastest transmissions without error so I put in for the Morse test (12WPM). Of course I had no idea that I had been copying the code groups at 20WPM. Needless to say I found the test ridiculously easy! I would have been putting in two hours every night and I guess it took me a few weeks. As you rightly say, there are no short cuts.
2 hours a day shows extreme dedication. = !!!± Thats almost certainly more than we did (I think),
Yes, I was a teenager learning morse as were most of the other learners with the odd 20+ learner.
.Now at 74 I have to say, there’s a lot going for learning CW (and other task requiring manual dexterity) when you are much younger. There was as far as I recall no evidence of any sticking points. But as you’ve mentioned we were in classes and the format was much the same every day. , including once we’d got to a typing speed which matched our CW speed we were also using typewriters… The two instructors would sometimes knock out a morse exercise by hand - this was then, a little bit harder to read aswell as seeing if anyone could recognise, a), the language if it was a foreign text, or, b) the book the English text came from. The latter I never could answer as I never read fiction.)
As someone who later became a qualified trainer (in other fields) I have to say the training was well thought out and thorough.
Being an older learner doesn’t help as you say. I tried to learn a Penny Whistle and later Mandolin when we lived in the Irish Republic some 24 yrs ago… Self taught I was doing OK at Airs and slow melodies until I got to some of the reels and Jigs. These are pretty fast and needed deft finger work. That was a killer for me and I just couldn’t spare the time or the willing to get past that plateau !!! So I gave up!! Had I been in a class - who knows??