On Wednesday 19 March I gave a short presentation about “Learning CW in 2025” to my club, Waverley Amateur Radio Society.
It’s essentially about techniques to master Instant Character Recognition and its partner Instant Error Recovery and a distillation of ways to use Morse Training Apps such as the Word List Trainer to learn those skills. Below are links to websites, online resources, applications, individuals and organisations with the same focus. My debt to the thinking of people like Tom Weaver W0FN and Glenn Norman W4YES is clear.
These are sites, documents and applications I mentioned and that I think are of most value for anyone wanting to learn Morse code (as well as some I failed to mention).
I don’t think there’s ever been a better time to learn CW or a better range of resources available to ensure success.
I was surprised at how many people turned up in person and online. My favourite question was whether Morse is harder or easier to learn than Ancient Greek?
websites focussed on CW learning courtesy of LICW
Morse Code Ninja Kurt AD0WE’s massive site devoted to learning Morse. He has thought long and deep about learning and teaching Morse.
The Long Island CW Club website offers informative documents about their approach to teaching Morse. I think they represent excellent value to anyone wanting to learn or improve their Morse skills. This club with almost 7,500 members globally is able to do remarkable things with the talents of its members.
CW Academy, part of CWops has pages of resources and video guides to using Morse learning tools etc
CW Innovations by Glenn W4YES, a champion of Instant Character Recognition
The CQ QRS RagChew The Slow CQ Practice net every Tuesday 1800-2400 Eastern Australian Time on 40 and 80m.
documents
Nancy Kott on Instant Recognition
Nancy Kott on Go With the Flow
The Art & Skill of Radio Telegraphy by William Pierpont
A package of documents relevant to the research by Ludwig Koch on archive.org
Donald Taylor of Harvard’s July 1943 paper on training Morse code operators
LICW Curriculum This page links to documents detailing the thinking behind the LICW’s offerings
applications
G4FON’s Koch CW Trainer (Windows)
Word List Trainer This is the web based application I briefly demonstrated during the talk, and the one I am most familiar with. It’s developed by Stephen Phillips.
ICR Trainer This is another aspect of the same application suited to developing ICR skills.
LICW Club Practice Page This application is similar to the Word List Trainer, and actively developed by the LICW Club.
Morse Runner a very popular and realistic contest simulator. Even seasoned CW contesters warm up with this application. (Windows)
youtube
Morse Code Ninja Over 4,000 videos devoted to learning CW at every stage and speed
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