How to start copying Morse code by ear
To start copying Morse code by ear, listen to characters sent at a full character speed with long gaps between them, write each letter down the moment you recognize it, and leave a blank for any you miss. Keep each session short, ten to fifteen minutes, and come back to it often. That is most of the method. The rest is choosing what to listen to and learning what to do in the half second after you lose a letter.
Set up the sound before you start
Two speeds matter when you copy, and for a beginner they should be very different.
The character speed is how fast each letter itself is sent: the length of its dits, dahs and the gaps inside it. Keep this fast enough that you cannot count the dits. Somewhere around 15 to 20 WPM is a good place to start. At 20 WPM a dit is 60 milliseconds, and H, ...., is over in 420 milliseconds, which is too quick to count and just right to hear as a single sound.
The overall speed is how many words arrive in a minute, and you control it with the gaps between characters and words. Stretch those gaps until you have time to recognize each letter and write it before the next one starts. This is Farnsworth spacing: full-speed characters, slow overall pace. Farnsworth spacing: what it is and when to drop it explains how to shrink the gaps as you improve.
Why not just slow everything down? Because a letter sent at 5 WPM does not sound like the same letter at 20. At 5 WPM a dit is 240 milliseconds, H takes 1.68 seconds, and you hear four separate beeps you are tempted to count. Counting works at that speed, and then it stops working, and the habit has to be unlearned. Learn the fast sound from the first day.
A few practical things help too:
- Use headphones in a quiet room for the first sessions.
- Pick a tone you find easy to listen to, and keep it the same for a while.
- Have plenty of paper and a pencil that writes without pressure, or a keyboard if you type faster than you write.
- Print each letter in whatever form you write fastest. Neat handwriting is not the goal.
Listen only to the letters you know
Start with a few characters, not the alphabet. The Koch method, devised by the German psychologist Ludwig Koch in the 1930s, begins with just two characters at full speed and adds one more when you copy about 90 percent of them correctly. Even if you follow a different order, the principle is sound: a handful of letters you can actually copy is better practice than twenty-six you are guessing at. The Koch method for learning Morse code, explained has the details.
Whatever letters you have, hear them in random order. Alphabetical order, or any order you can predict, lets you guess the next letter instead of hearing it.
Write it the moment you hear it
Write each letter as soon as it registers. Do not wait for the next one to confirm it, and do not replay the sound in your head to check. If a letter does not come to you by the time the next one starts, it is gone for now.
Two habits to drop on the first day:
- Counting. If you catch yourself counting dits, the character speed is too slow or the letter is new. Listen to the shape instead: S,
..., is a quick run, di-di-dit, not “one, two, three”. - Looking it up. Keep any chart out of sight. Picturing a table of dots and dashes is a second step your ear has to wait for.
Let missed letters go
This is the hardest part, and the most important. When you miss a letter, everything in you wants to stop and work out what it was. By the time you have, you have missed the next one, and often the one after that. One lost letter turns into three.
So when a letter does not come, leave a gap or put a small x on the page and listen for the next one. The missed letter is not a failure; it is a note for later. After the session, look at your blanks and wrong guesses. You will usually find they are the same few characters again and again, often letters that sound alike, such as S and H or U and V. Morse letters that sound alike, and how to tell them apart has drills for the common pairs.
Keep sessions short
Copying by ear is tiring in a way that does not feel like effort until it is too late. After a while, letters you know perfectly well start to slip, and the session is teaching you to miss them.
- Ten to fifteen minutes is plenty at the start.
- Stop while you are still copying well, not when you have run out of attention.
- Aim for a short session every day rather than a long one once a week.
- If you have only five minutes, five minutes of real listening is worth doing.
What to listen to
| Stage | What to listen to | Why |
|---|---|---|
| First few letters | Single random characters from your set | You learn each sound on its own |
| A dozen letters or more | Random groups of five characters | No words to guess from, so you copy what is really there |
| Most of the alphabet | Short common words: THE, AND, FOR, YOU | You start to hear words as shapes |
| Alphabet complete | Short sentences, then longer text | Real text, with the rhythm of real messages |
For material, a trainer with a Koch or Farnsworth setting, practice files made for learners, or a friend who sends Morse will all do. Avoid anything you have heard so often that you know it by heart. Once you recognize a recording, you are remembering it, not copying it.
When single characters come to you without thought, you are building what operators call instant character recognition, and it is the step that makes everything after it possible. Instant character recognition: hearing Morse letters without thinking is about training that directly.
Copying by ear in Dot & Dash
If you practice on a Mac, Dot & Dash has this as the Listening drill in Practice, marked Advanced: “The machine sends; you type what you hear.” It drills on Characters, Groups of five, Words, Callsigns or Sentences, at a speed and Farnsworth spacing you set, and its Ear only switch plays the sound alone, with the lever still and nothing on the tape. Its course teaches by keying first, so this drill is where the ear work happens. It opens once you have met your first characters and draws only on the ones you have met, so you can use it alongside the chapters rather than waiting for the end.
Questions
How slow should Morse be when I start copying by ear?
Slow the gaps, not the characters. Send each character at around 15 to 20 WPM so it sounds like itself, and stretch the gaps between characters and words until you have time to write each letter before the next.
Is it normal to miss letters when I start?
Yes. Missing letters is part of learning to copy. Leave a blank, keep listening, and look at the misses afterwards to see which characters need more practice.
How long should a listening session be?
Ten to fifteen minutes at the start. Copying by ear tires you faster than it seems to, so keep sessions short and make them daily rather than long and occasional.
Should I copy with a pencil or a keyboard?
Whichever is faster for you. The aim is to get each letter down the moment you recognize it, so use the one that does not make you think.