station 716 said:
Learning code is still getting the best of me....
I don't know if this will help, but there used to be a word association method I ran into years ago that went something like this.
X = an hourglass _
.
X
.
_
Here's the "TOP"
Here's a grain of sand inside
Here's a grain of sand that's come down thru
Here's the bottom of the glass.
Read from top to bottom _ .. _ !
Question Mark = .. - - .. or Ditty dum dum Ditty!
G= a goldfish bowl _ = the top of the bowl, _ = the water level, and . is the fish. Read from top to bottom _ _ .
V= a headache powder (if you remember the old Vanquish commercial!) di-di-di-da ..._
............................................
Anyway, there might be variations of this method. It's not something you can write out. Like the CW, it is a
SOUND association mostly and also using some word associations, too.
It is hard to forget the di-di-dum-dum-diddy (question mark) one you have heard it a few times. I know that one of the things that is hard for some of us is to STOP trying to pick out each and every sound---every "dit" and every "dah". The trick is to associate the entire character with the sound like .- is "A" and when you hear it, you don't sit there thinking "this is an 'A', you write it down without actually thinking about it. You also have to FORGET about the characters you missed; you WILL pick them up later. Have you ever seen that email going around where there is a garbled up paragraph to read? You actually will READ and understand the paragraph even tho it is horribly mispelled!! That's kinda what happens when you stop and try to get every single character while copying Morse; IOW, those missed characters actually mess you up because, since you didn't KNOW them to start with, your brain is supposing that those characters could be ANYTHING and it is visualizing random characters as you go. But if you train yourself to ignore those characters you missed, the finished product will be readable and you can fill in the missing letters in the final copy. Even the old railroad and landline telegraphers did this!
I know this might not help or be part of your difficulty, but stick with it, You WILL get it, and you will also get a feeling of satisfaction and achievement when it DOES come to you. Once you cross the "bridge", it will seem so easy!!!
Good luck!
CWM
