Five-letter groups: the Morse practice that keeps you honest
Five-letter groups are blocks of random characters, like TNSAE or HOEIR, sent with a word gap after every five. Because they spell nothing, you cannot guess the next letter from the ones before it: you either recognize each character or you miss it. That makes them an honest test of what you actually know, and a quick way to find the letters that are still shaky.
TNSAE in Morse is - -. ... .- .. There is no word in it to hold on to, only five characters, each of which you know or you do not.
Why random beats words for testing
When you copy words, context does part of the work. Copy STATI and your mind supplies ON before it arrives. That is a real skill, and you will lean on it for as long as you use Morse, but it hides weak spots. A letter you hesitate over can still come out right in a word, because the word told you what it had to be.
A group gives nothing away. After NHTRE, anything can come next. If you write all five characters down correctly, you knew all five.
Sending works the same way. A friend copying your words will read a lopsided R correctly because the sentence makes sense. In a group, the same R is read as whatever your timing said, so a group shows you exactly which characters you form badly.
Why groups of five
Coded messages have long been sent as groups of letters that mean nothing to the operator copying them, and practice groups work on the same principle: the operator copies what was sent, not what makes sense. Five is the usual size because it is handy. It is short enough to keep your place in, and it makes scoring simple: ten groups are 50 characters.
A footnote on speed: a code-group speed is sometimes quoted using the word CODEX, which is 60 units long, rather than PARIS, which is 50. The same WPM figure measured with CODEX means dits a sixth shorter. For your own practice, stick with PARIS.
How to make good groups
Groups should use only characters you have learned, mixed at random, with the newest and weakest ones turning up a little more often.
- Slips in a cup. Write each character you know on its own slip of paper, and make two slips for the ones you find hard. Draw one, write it down, put it back, and draw again. Every five draws is a group.
- A friend. Ask someone to write out ten groups from your letter set without showing you. Better still, ask them to send them to you.
- Practice files or a trainer that sends random groups at your speed, for copying by ear when nobody is around.
Avoid making groups up in your head. Groups invented on the spot tend to avoid repeats and drift toward the letters you like, which is the opposite of what you want. Real randomness gives you HHSEA now and then, and that is the point.
Running a session
Copying by ear:
- Set the character speed to your usual speed, and add extra space between characters if you need it. That is Farnsworth spacing. Do not slow the characters themselves down to make groups easier; that teaches you to count dits.
- Copy ten groups. A sheet ruled into boxes, five boxes to a group, keeps your place.
- Miss a character? Leave its box empty and listen for the next one. Going back to puzzle over a missed letter usually costs you the next one as well.
- Do not ask for repeats. The aim is a true picture of what you know, not a perfect sheet.
Sending:
- Write out ten groups first, or use a sheet a friend wrote.
- Send them at a steady rhythm, with a full word gap after each five.
- Record yourself or send into a decoder, then compare what came out with your sheet.
Five to ten minutes of groups is plenty at one sitting. Groups are hard work, and attention fades quickly when nothing makes sense.
Scoring yourself
Mark the copy against the original, character by character, and sort what went wrong:
| Mark | What happened | What it usually means |
|---|---|---|
| Blank | You wrote nothing | You did not recognize it in time |
| Wrong letter | You wrote a different character | A look-alike, often one dit or one dah off |
| Too many in a group | Six characters where five were sent | Something split, or you heard a gap that was not there |
| Too few in a group | Four characters where five were sent | Two characters merged, or you lost one entirely |
Then count the characters you got right. 46 right out of 50 is 92 percent. The Koch method adds a new character when you copy about 90 percent correctly, and that is a sensible bar for groups too. The Koch method for learning Morse code, explained has the rest of that method.
The wrong letters matter more than the score. Write down each swap, what was sent and what you wrote: S for H, ... for ....; U for V; D for B. Each of those pairs differs by one dit. When the same swap turns up session after session, that pair is your next practice list. Morse letters that sound alike, and how to tell them apart has drills for the usual suspects.
Keep a line in a notebook for each session: the date, the speed, the score and the swaps. A week of those lines tells you more than any single good day.
When groups help, and when they bore
Groups earn their place:
- Right after you add a character, to find out whether you really know it or are recognizing it from context.
- When your word copying feels fine but you suspect you are guessing.
- Before callsigns and figures. Mixed groups with figures and the slash train the characters that callsigns and reports are made of; How to send and copy callsigns in Morse code picks up from there.
- As a regular check, scored the same way each time, so you can see real progress.
Groups wear thin:
- They are tiring. With nothing to make sense of, your attention slips sooner, and a tired copying session mostly teaches you to miss letters.
- They do not build word recognition. You will never hear THE as one sound by copying groups, and head copy, reading Morse without writing it down, needs words.
- They are dull. A practice you dread is a practice you skip.
A good balance is a short block of groups at the start of a session while you are fresh, then words and sentences for the rest. When groups go clean several sessions in a row, add a character or nudge the speed up.
Groups on a Mac
The drills in Dot & Dash can run on Groups of five as well as Characters, Words, Callsigns and Sentences. In the Sending drill you key and the machine reads it back; in the Listening drill the machine sends and you type what you hear. Progress keeps your accuracy for each character, so your notebook only needs the swaps.
Questions
Why are Morse practice groups five characters long?
Five is the usual convention because it is a convenient size: easy to keep your place in, and ten groups make 50 characters, which is simple to score.
Should groups include letters I have not learned yet?
No. Use only characters you have met, and let the newest and weakest ones turn up more often than the rest.
Are five-letter groups better than words?
For testing, yes, because you cannot guess from context. For fluency, no: words teach you to hear common words whole. Use both in the same session.
What score should I aim for?
About 90 percent, the bar the Koch method uses before adding a character. If you are well below it, add more space between characters or drop back to fewer characters until the score recovers.