Beginners Curriculum

BC1 is comprised of 18 characters in six lessons.  Students learn how to hear and associate the acoustic CW sounds with a character.  We begin at a character speed of 12 WPM and an effective speed of 8 FWPM (Farnsworth WPM) 12/8.  Three new characters are introduced per lesson using the Koch Method.  New characters are played without identifying what character the acoustic sound is associated with.  Students are directed to mark a paper with a dot when they recognize the acoustic sound.  Then the acoustic sound is associated with a character.  From then on, students are directed to say, write, or type the character when they recognize it.  The process is repeated with each new character.  After the new characters have been introduced, students will verbalize them for the instructor to ensure they are being heard as single acoustic sounds.

NOTE: During their first BC1 lesson students are encouraged to focus exclusively on the new characters introduced in the first portion of the lesson. Their homework assignment for the week is to become intimately familiar with the character sounds of those new characters. Students may stay for the second half of the lesson but doing so may prove counterproductive as characters not yet learned will be reviewed.

CODE TALKING:

Verbalizing characters or Code Talking is an effective aid in learning and practicing the code.  It was introduced to LICW by Chris Rutkowski NW6V.

The primary advantages of Code Talking are that it does not require any peripherals such as a key and oscillator, and it uses acoustic sounds in alignment with the received Morse Code.  This makes it easy to integrate into early portions of the curriculum, but Code Talking is only a bridge to actual receiving and sending with a key.

The LICW method of Code Talking uses only three sounds, “di, DAH, and dit.”  The di and DAH correspond directly with the character elements and the last dot is verbalized as “dit.”  The DAH is capitalized indicating emphasis.

For example:

R       . _ .   “di-DAH-dit”

E       .        “dit”

A       . _     “di-DAH”

We are purposely omitting the rest of the chart.  Koch was very critical of efforts to teach CW by requiring students to memorize optical symbols on a chart, which he referred to as the analytical method.  The mental process of copying code by that process requires counting the elements and reassembling them for comparison to the symbols imprinted in memory.  That is inefficient but possible at a low tempo, but it is unachievable at faster speeds.

BC SENDING:

BC Sending focuses on foundational skills such as suggested key adjustments and hand and arm placements.

The straight key is our key of choice for initial learning of code because of its inherent ON/OFF nature.  It perfectly mirrors the ON/OFF pulses of the Morse signals.  There is a 1:1 correlation.  All other forms of keying require the addition of another skill, another layer of translation, and thus complicate the process.

Learning to practice by comparing one’s sending against a standard is critically important to ensure mistakes are not repeated and reinforced.  Techniques such as hear a letter, say a letter, and send a letter are taught.  The focus is on sending with proper element formation, spacing, and rhythm.  Each class sends the previous week’s characters in the carousels.

BC1 students should attend BC Sending classes as soon as possible and begin sending in class with a key.