A developer of https://stendec.io/morse/koch.html, which I used to learn #CW, Elvis Pfützenreuter, PU5EPX, I believe, has told me that he seems to remember they removed Farnsworth spacing from the website because they received several complaints from other users claiming that #Farnsworth compression is detrimental to learning, so they ended up removing it. I learned at 20/12 approx. What do you folks think about Farnsworth spacing when learning? Pros and cons? Thanks!
Learning #MorseCode, Farnsworth spacing allows character recognition by THINKING. If you practice that, you train THOUGHT processes.
To reach speed, you'll need to unlearn that well-practiced thinking, which is hard to do. Some never manage.
Some 90 years ago, Ludwig Koch proposed to start with SUBCONSCIOUS decoding from the start instead of Farnsworth, by simply using true 12 wpm speed, too fast for thinking.
More details in the section on Koch method of https://gitlab.com/4ham/koch-method-real-words/-/blob/master/README.md?ref_type=heads .
@dj3ei @Ea5iyl The problem with slower than 25 WPM character speed (not true speed) is that you are able to count dits/dahs. Which is bad habit too as this must be unlearned.
I don't know if it is stated fact that Farnsworth causes "thinking". I have practiced with Farnsworth-method and for me for most of the characters a certain sound pattern is clearly that character. I don't need to "think" at it all. So dunno where that claim is coming from?
One observes the "plateau at 10 wpm". With Farnsworth, people start at X/5 wpm and first learn all characters at such slow speeds. They then happily increase to X/7 and X/8, but get stuck at about X/10 for a looooong time before finally proceeding to higher speeds. Explanation: Thought processes throughly practiced thus far need to be un-learned at (about) 10 wpm.
Worst are mnemonics: "God save the Queen" is like "da da di da" - ah, that's a "Q". Too slow for even 12 wpm.
@dj3ei @OH3CUF @Ea5iyl Hmm I was going to say that the best thing I did was learning characters by reading them as e.g. dadadida or didadidit. If you read that aloud as if it was a word it's quicker than 12 wpm. That way you don't use dots and dashes anywhere. Everything is sounds.
I learned the letters like that from a 70s or 80s edition of the Jahrbuch für den Funkamateur.