Learn International Morse code in one week using visual aids, then astound your friends with your newly acquired skills. After about two years of trying to get your Morse speed above 9 words per minute and after trying the multitude of different ways of learning Morse available (usually bad advice) you ask me for help.

At least 90% of the people that contact me for help have gone down the route of Slow Morse and have peaked at about 9 words per minute and then struggled to make any headway after that. Because you have chosen to use visual aids to learn Morse you have immediately given yourself a handicap as Morse is a language and you have to listen to the sound, not try and visualise it in your head.

Although I successfully mentor students through E-mail, the main aim of the Morse Crusade is to educate Morse teachers/mentors in that any time type of visual aid actually handicaps the student and using slow Morse does not help anyone in becoming a Morse operator. To substantiate my claims I include two references for from books on how to learn Morse code.

Extract from David Finlay N1IRZ’s Book “So You Want to Learn Morse Code”:
“Most of what you’ve been told about learning Morse code is wrong, Amateur radio operators traditionally have used the slowest, most frustrating, most painful and least effective techniques possible for gaining code proficiency.”

Extract from Bill Pierpont’s book “The Art and Skill of Radio-Telegraphy”:
“Any kind of printed dots and dashes or any other such pictorial impressions will only impede the student’s progress when he is beginning to learn the code. All such methods violate good pedagogy, because they do not teach the code as actual sound patterns, as it will be heard and used.”