Congratulations, and thank you for sharing your story. I’m on my own journey towards learning CW, and these kinds of posts are encouragements that keep me even more motivated.
I’m also a leftie but was really surprised how easy I found it to use my right hand with an iambic paddle.
Congratulations on your activation. I will chase SOTA S2S CW with no concerns but activating CW and dealing with a pile up still scares me (had to correct that from scars me 
)
3 Likes
Probably true in the initial phases of CW skills development.
But those who, over the years, persist to rather faster speeds (typically not a requirement for SOTA) do get to hear whole words, callsigns and phrases.
Much like your native tongue. Where you listen, say, to the spoken news on the radio your brain receives the ‘words and sentences’ without conscious effort; listening to individual characters plays little part.
What is more, the brain can be trained to do a subconscious ‘double’ translation. Many hams from EU countries and elsewhere, can copy CW sent in the English language at 25+ wpm with little struggle; though it’s not something achieved overnight 
For this cohort, the order of learning is probably: native language, English, then CW. Thanks due to the education systems in EU countries and elsewhere, an early desire to watch English-language movies, etc?
73 Dave
1 Like
After nearly 30 years since my Morse test, I must still be stuck at the initial phases.
My problem was / is about hearing callsigns spoken by the chaser then my writing them down sometimes with swapped characters, which doesn’t happen when I hear callsigns in Morse.
But I know what you mean about hearing the unique Morse sound of some whole words, or, in my case at least the frequently-used abbreviations like CQ, DE, RST, 73 and TU which I hear complete (but I don’t write down anyway).
With callsigns, my own is the one I hear so often that I recognise its unique sound, the callsigns of some very regular chasers too.
1 Like
Congratulations! .. next level is Morse Runner 
73 Ivica
1 Like
As seen at the recent event in London, many people can run a Marathon in 4 to 5 hours. They get much enjoyment from so doing. Their Marathons have been at more or less the same pace for years, and many for all sorts of reasons, raise lots of money for all sorts of charities. Most will probably continue on for years and years to come.
The fact that none is ever likely to run a sub 2-hour (not minute ) Marathon is wholly irrelevant.
As they say in the everyday running world: “Competition can be the thief of joy”
73 Dave
2 Likes
That really would be worth watching. I ran only one marathon (Glasgow) about 43 years ago. An achievement (not worth repeating IMO), but for pleasure I prefer (much shorter) cross country running.
Regarding Morse skills, I don’t feel I’ve plateaued - my skills match my needs. I do CW [VHF/HF] SOTA activations regularly [3 in the last week]. I normally send around 17-19wpm and most of my chasers are around the same speed with a few down to 12-15 and some up to 20-23wpm.
I wish I was better at handling overlapped chaser callsigns during pile-ups which is particularly difficult if they are similar pitches and speeds. Morse Runner helps a bit.
As I don’t care for high-speed CW contests, I’ve never been motivated to get my receiving speed any higher. As for head copying, as discussed recently on another thread, I don’t find it necessary for SOTA with 99% of the QSOs being so short and formulaic.
On sending, my preference is squeeze-mode iambic keying although I like to use a straight key from time to time (at home and on summit) to keep my ‘fist’ sounding alright.
1 Like
Hi again Ian.
I can only admire your determination to do CW SOTA. I’m proud to say that, according to the database, I’ve had more CW QSO’s than either of the other two, proving I’m a big fan. That said, my Morse skills are pretty poor and I rely on just reading the callsigns and reports. If they’re too quick I have to ask for a repeat. I never get any better but enjoy the sense of achievement that I don’t quite get with the other two modes.
Thank you for the NP7-NP6 S2S on the 24th April (as I remember the occasion of your first ever CW activation) albeit in the FM mode.
Keep up the great work!
73, John
2 Likes
Thanks for the encouragement and for sharing your experience. I really didn’t appreciate how you could start SOTA CW with just the ability to read and transmit the basics. Though I guess it requires some more experienced chasers.
Hope to share a 5NN on a future NP S2S.
2 Likes
Ian. Congratulations on ur cw activation. I’m with you on call sign memory. I can head copy them up to 35 WPM, but if I don’t write them down immediately, I forget most of it. That’s why I use paper logs. I can write 4 times faster than I can enter them on my phone keypad.
With regular text I can head copy fine because once I recognize the word, I have it.
3 Likes
Learning to read morse in another language or indeed random letter groups is really no different to reading it in your own language, although you won’t understand what is being sent. There is the slight advantage that in your own language you might have the advantage of being able to anticipate what word or letters might follow.
Ian
Don’t think “upgrading” to headcopy is better or worse. Professional operators were required to write almost everything down. The ability to head copy comes with practice and famlarity whether you like it or not. Slowly slowly catchee monkey 
Your brain gets used to recognising certain patterns. So I could recognise and remember ship callsigns without to much difficulty - they are 4 letters and in the case of the uk starting with G or M like ours. But I could not remember the ‘strange’ ham ones when I started as a ham. my brain just could not take in letter,number followed by another 3 letters.
As others have said you don’t need to remember them whilst operating. So don’t. Write them down.
Asking your brain to remember 3,4 or more random letters is pointless. That’s what writing is for….
2 Likes
I’ve found it can sometimes be a disadvantage. It’s when you suspect it’s a particular word and it turns out it’s not. That can throw you briefly and if its fast Morse you can miss a letter or two before you recover your concentration.
1 Like
You are quite correct Andy. All professional operators were trained to learn morse by reading groups, random characters, foreign texts and of course your own language for that very reason you’ve described.. it also means you are no thrown off when someone goes ‘off script’.
1 Like
I thing the Royal Navy [“other navies are available”] in war time or other periods of high security sent radio messages in Morse code by encrypting the plain text into groups of numbers. From the receiving RO’s point of view this would seem to have two advantages 1) you don’t have my previously-mentioned problem of false predictions and 2) apart from prosigns you know to expect only numbers.
2 Likes
Classified messages were encrypted into 5 Letter groups. They were much easier to read than people might think —- 5 Ltrs space 5 ltrs space etc if you were using a typewriter it was even easier as you could do it blindfolded. You knew as well how many group were going to be sent. An oppo of mine rcvd a 1258 grouper. (I kept a diary on this particular trip) it would have taken him over an hour to copy.
We had no fascimilly machines on the ships I was on so wx charts were sent to both military and commercial shipping by transposing the chart into 5 number groups. These were transcribed back into a chart form by the navigator’s assistant. I have no idea how this was achieved. As you can image sending/recving long numbers of figure groups takes up a lot of time so ‘Cut’ numbers were often used. Reading cut numbers took some getting used to.
2 Likes
Like this …?
1 = A
2 = U
3 = V
4 = 4 (no change), but sometimes N
5 = E
6 = 6 (no change) or T
7 = B or D
8 = T or TT
9 = N
0 = T or O
Were messages already written out using the ‘cut’ characters or did the sending RO have to make the substitutions in real time when sending?
A bit like we amateurs often send a T instead of 0, e.g. my ref G/LDT58 instead of G/LD058.
1 Like
Cut numbers used world wide and recognised by the ITU are 1 to 4 as you show.
But 5 was always sent as a 5 (5 dots)
6 was sent normal as a 6
7 = B
8= D
9 = N
0 = T
They were never written out as letters -you just abbreviated them as you went along. You might ask the other rcvng operator if he was ok taking cut numbers as they were not sent a lot given that teleprinters were in wide us in the RN then. Commercial operators on most cargo ships had to use cut numbers as most of their kit was CW /ssb 
only.
2 Likes
OTP decode as well, hence unbreakable to this day. There was some images of a OTP found in a raid in the 80’s (i think). I forget who the agent was allegedly working for though.
E2000 keeps thorough records of transmissions.
1 Like
OTP (one time pad) was rarely used by us although we carried it.
I don’t know what you used to encrypt stuff but we used a KL7. Widely used by NATO( there were numerous models) but really much like the original Enigma machine. Lots of photos on line of them now.
What is/was an e2000?