Roland,
Of course there are many ways leading to success, and you have to find a way that suits YOU (so be careful what others are telling you - it might be good advice, but it might also be not th right thing for you).
Although this is against „old school“ teaching, I suggest you start with a paddle and not a manual key, and you start keying right from the beginning. The following could be a starting point for using teh Morserino:
Example Koch Training Program
Start with Koch Lesson 1, and then do for each lesson:
• Koch Trainer Learn new Character (set speed to 15 WpM or slightly higher):
• listen to the new character several times, trying to memorize the sound pattern
• Repeat new character saying dit and dah (e.g. di-dah for an A)
• Using the paddle enter the new character with the paddle, until you can do this without problems
• Koch Trainer CW Generator - Random (15 - 17 WpM, Length Random Grp = 1, Interword Space = 20 up to 30), often, about 5 minutes each session
• Listen to characters and write them down
• Listen to characters and speak them with dits and dahs
3. Koch Trainer Echo Trainer, settings as above, but interword space = 7 to 9 , length random gap = 2 to 5
• Repeat the heard characters with the paddle, calling them out loud when you hear them (as „A“, „K“ etc)
Do 2 and 3 often, until you are really confident and not making many mistakes anymore.
Beginning with lesson 5, you should add the following (set speed and itnerword space so that it is doable, but challenging for you):
4. Koch Trainer CW Generator - CW Abbrevs and / or English words (set max length in the beginning to 3, later to 4, 5, 6 etc)
• Listen and write them down
• Listen and repeat them out loud (spelling the words as you hear them in Morse code)
5. Koch Trainer Echo Trainer - CW Abbrevs and/or English words, length as above
• Repeat the heard words with the paddle, calling them out loud (decoding them in your head) when you hear them
It is important to have a speed of at least 15 WpM - as soon as you feel confident with that speed, you could increase it slowly to 16, 17 or 18 WpM. Set inter-word space to a level that you can manage.
You should do some training each day - and be it only for 5 - 10 minutes.
When you have learned all characters (gone through all Koch lessons), you can start to increase your speed, and to decrease inter-word spacing.
You will see soon what is working for you, and what is not - so by all means modify your training program accordingly.
Hope this helps!
73
Willi
