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Catch it-Catch it
dead-end or Godsend?
By Dr. Jerry Wheeler W6TJP
In the August 1997 issue of World Radio an article by Dave Kelley, AI7R
(see his article below) astonished us with his un-hedged condemnation of the Code Quick
method. Although well meant, his comments NEVER use crutches and THIS IS A VERY BAD way to
learn the code, demonstrated, we believe, a misleading and serious misunderstanding of the
code learning process. We were left to wonder just what scientific research provided
justification for Mr. Kelley's dazzling
assertions? The Editors of this magazine are to be congratulated for their willingness, in
this debate, to air both sides. This article will demonstrate why Acetate it-Catch it and
other such Crutches enable fledgling amateurs to become truly code proficient in a
fraction of time compared to traditional or even Farnsworth approaches.
ZERO TO 5 WPM IN ONLY A YEAR!
When
in 1950 Mr. Tom Thorpe taught the author Morse Code at West Phoenix High School, he played
the code on a military surplus machine. A long tape with holes whirled around, producing
the code while the RPM of the spool set a 5 wpm speed. Painfully and fruitlessly in front
of that ancient device, our class assembled for countless hours. In this method the
student was told to associate the sound of the character being sent in Morse with the
elusive letter. While this method could be praised for keeping a group of high schoolers
off the streets, the endless parade of dahs and dits produced few amateurs! In retrospect,
I remember that although I never seemed to make much progress, I was among the best and
after a year, I successfully passed my Novice tests. But code never came easily and like
Mr. Kelley says, it wasn't much fun.
PAY DAY TODAY AND OTHER
CATCHY PHRASES
Then one day, Mr. Thorpe
walked through the classroom while the CQ was
sounding and playfully exclaimed, Hey guys,
listen to the Q it says pay day today! You'll
never forget your pay day will you? From that instant I never again struggled with the
letter Q, it was always there instantly. However, all the other characters continued to
conceal their identities from me. Practice as I would, it took another ten years before I
gained enough proficiency to squeak through the 13 wpm test. But working CW was always a
white knuckle experience. Tense and rigid, my body seemed intent on flexing every sinew
and popping every ligament. Even this maximum exertion rarely provided a satisfactory QSO,
so I mainly stuck to phone.
AND THEN THERE WAS ONE!
In the late 1970
at Huntington School in San Marino, Calif., fifty-seven enthusiastic students agreed to
sacrifice six weeks of their summer, all morning long, to the establishment of a school
radio club and station. Excitement and anticipation filled the air. The eager troop began
stringing dipoles, obtaining gear and pounding the books. While with usual speed the
theory fell into place, the code began to take its toll. One by one discouraged and
frustrated kids disappeared from the roster until at last only seven starters completed
the requirements for Novice. Sadly, when the tickets arrived two months later, one lone
fledgling knew enough code to man the radio club station! What made the learning of code
so nearly impossible for so many? His negative experiences launched your author's life quest and doctoral level research to solve
that puzzle. The following conclusions represent his answer.
WHY CODE STOPS SO MANY COLD
Our brains
demonstrate the amazing work of a master creator. They are designed to handle thousands of
tasks simultaneously, each part functioning independently and co-dependently. In order to
receive code, the sound needs to be noticed, determined important and processed for
meaning. When we first hear code the mind asks itself what
manner of audio information is this? Not recognizing it as language, the sounds are
mistakenly routed to the non-language auditory area as though they were environmental
noises. The "grey matter" in this region is extremely efficient for recognizing,
thuds, clunks, screeches, and squeals, but quite inadequate for processing language. The
functioning of this section of the brain appears to be sound specific. It is looking for
exact matches with stored experiential information. Scanning the environment and searching
for potential hostile noises it locates a sound it deems worthy of notice, notifies the
visual part of the brain that trouble might be brewing, collects data and quickly
determines its importance, hopefully in time to get you out of the way of the approaching
truck. Literally hundreds of thousands of messages pass through this portion of the brain
every day. Most are ignored as irrelevant.
WHAT IS A
"3 WPM WINDOW?"
If we try to copy code in this non-language portion
of our minds as environmental noises, symbols must be learned EXACTLY the way they are to
be received. As many of us have discovered, the process is arduous and often exasperating.
This area of the brain does not appear to possess the ability to learn at one speed or
frequency and then decipher at another. Consequently, we learn code at one speed, say
20wpm but are out to sea when someone sends us code at 5 or 13wpm. If we learn code by
listening to the sound of the characters and then attempt to associate the letter with
those sounds, we are locked into a dismal three word per minute window. (hams often refer to these windows as
plateaus) If we speed up or slow down, we no longer recognize the characters. Thus, we
might get through an exam if our code window matches the test oscillator, but we don't become CW proficient unless we set out on the
grueling course to learn six or more complete sets of code. As so many of us know by
personal experience, this is just too painful and most who try it give up in disgust. Who
wants to spend the rest of his life studying code?
SPEECH - MAN'S
MOST AMAZING ABILITY
Now compare that scenario with what happens in the amazing
language part of our brain. One aspect of man which makes him unique from all the animal
kingdom is his ability to receive and process speech information. Scientists tell us that
language functions are strung all over our skulls where thousands of circuits connect and
constantly communicate with each other. As a result, this most powerful part of our mental
function is able to hear and decipher meaning from a child's high pitch whine, the thick accent of a Jamaican
fisherman, the bass roar of a Marine drill sergeant, or the slow drawl of a Louisiana
river boat captain. No one ever needs to teach the difference between fast language and
slow language, high pitch or low, our brain just fills in the differences. It can process
speech equally well at an agonizingly slow 25 words per minute or from a traffic
controller's 500 WPM machine gun like spiel.
30+ WPM - HOW DOES HE DO IT?
The old ham
who sits by his radio while code flows at 30 words per minute, no doubt receives and
processes code in his mental language center. Some can even carry on two conversations at
once, one with you, the awestruck ham shack visitor, the other with a CW friend through
the transceiver. Somehow for him, the code language became fluency, as easy as English. He
feels no struggle, hesitation or tension; how did he do it? It remains a mystery to us how
for a small minority of hams the non-language he learned connects to his brain's language center. We don't know how he developed his skill while so many
others flounder. But we are delighted to report that since 1979, Code Quick has launched
tens of thousands of men and women into his world of CW language with the unique
sound-alike process. Hundreds of students continue to succeed by following the simple
steps found in the Wheeler Applied Research courses and computer programs.
HOW DOES CW BECOME LANGUAGE?
To acquire
any foreign language, say Spanish, we learn a set of sounds (noises if you will) to
represent an idea. Take the sounds, Mi boca as an example. If we are older than 9
years old we will most likely have to go through the process of saying to ourselves, Mi
boca means my mouth. Every time we hear mi
boca, we think, my mouth. Those of us who
learned a foreign language are familiar with this translation process. If we stick with
it, eventually we jump right from the Spanish word to the imaged thought and the English
equivalent then drops away. Wallah, we arrive at the point of fluency.
WHY DO "SOUND-ALIKES" ELIMINATE PLATEAUS?
If we learn code by way of sound-alikes, very much the same process emerges. Using Mr.
Kelley's example, Catch it- catch it is first
learned as a sound-alike to represent the letter C. In the beginning, the student will
hear the code say catch it catch it, and will
go through some rapid mental gymnastics to remember that those sounds represent C. Just
like the sounds Mi boca represented my
mouth in the example above, translation was necessary. With practice, the catchy phrase
disappears into the subconscious and the brain deals with the sound as it would with any
other language bit. Once a sound becomes fluent language, it can soon be deciphered at
almost any speed. A minimum of processing time, freedom from speed or frequency
dependency, long term retention, and instant comprehension mark our language abilities.
Getting all this power working helps us to become code fluent quickly while avoiding
failure. That's why so many Code Quick students
come to us after a lifetime of struggle to learn that CW can be both fun and rewarding.
In conclusion, the author would like to recommend that you
NEVER
study code as dahs and dits, dots and dashes, Farnsworth or traditional; THIS IS A VERY BAD WAY TO LEARN THE CODE.
This article was submitted to World Radio in
answer to Dave Kelley's Article published in the same magazine, August 1997 issue.
It is reprinted below for those who want to hear the opposite view. For Code Quick,
the proof is in the pudding! Check out the endorsements page for copies of users
unsolicited comments.
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FROM 'NO CODE' TO
KNOWING CODE!
Dave Kelley, AI7R - World Radio, August 1997
(Black Font) (Dr.
Wheeler's answer White Font)
I'm not going to start out
by telling you that learning the code is fun. I'm not going to tell you there is an
easy way to learn it. But, like just about everything, there is a right way and a
wrong way to do something. I hope to give you some ideas that should help you learn
the code and get all the way to the top. Like many, you may learn to love the CW
(continuous wave) mode. Don't believe it can happen? Listen to the CW bands on
any day and compare the number of QSOs going on compared with the phone band. You
probably will find more people chirping than talking.
Here are some points to
think about. People all learn differently, so use what you think will work for you,
and discard or modify these ideas for your own use.
s Don't
learn CW at a slow rate, even from the start. If your goal is to get to 20, or even
13 words per minute, set your learning speed accordingly. For example, if your goal
is 20 then try to copy with a character speed of 22 wpm with a long space between
characters. As you start to recognize the letters more quickly you can simply close
the spacing between the letters until you are at full speed. This allows you to get
used to the sound of the characters at this speed.
(Our note) The reason Mr. Kelley is
correct is that he is working into a part of the brain which has a very narrow window.
, only the language part of your brain lets you learn at slow speeds and
then be able to recognize information at a fast speed. Better not learn sets of
code. If you are not using Code Quick, follow Mr. Kelley's advice.)
Hearing code at a slower
speed later will be easy to recognize, as opposed to the other way around.
Learning at 22 wpm is just
as easy as learning it at 5 wpm. The 'plateaus' that you hear about occur when
people learn 5 words per minute and then try to achieve 13. A block at 10 wpm is
common. They are learning the code all over again because the sounds of the letters
at the higher speed is very different. Guess what happens when that person now tries
to get to 20wpm? You guessed it, they find another 'plateau' at 17-18 wpm because
once again, the letters sound different at the higher speed. Why not learn it at the
higher speed from the start? Then you only have to learn it once.
(Our note) We're
glad Mr. Kelley recognizes the
problem! However, he doesn't realize that the non-language part of the brain is
sound specific, wanting an exact match. His student who begins at fast speeds will
have real trouble trying to hear code at slower speeds later precisely because the code
sounds differently at slow and fast speeds to the non-language brain!
Listen to the SOUND of the characters. Learning code at a higher speed helps you
avoid one of the biggest problems we all have when starting out in code. We tend to
"count" dits and dahs or visualize the letter on paper with the code next
to it (a= .-). If you learn code by doing any counting, memorizing code
charts, or even thinking about the pattern of the sound you will find those 'plateaus'
again. Our minds can do these conversions only so fast and the more obstacles we put
between hearing the letter and writing it down, the slower our response time.
(Our note) We agree with Mr. Kelley on
this point. People who learn by writing dots and dashes can rarely get beyond 10wpm
and are about the only people who have any trouble learning Code Quick. Oh yes, one
other thing: Some people who have learned code by watching blinking lights also have
more difficulty mastering code as language.
By learning the sounds of
the character we can learn to copy almost automatically. If I were to recite letters
to you in English you would be able to write them down without thinking about how to form
the letter or even what it looks like. You just know that when I say
"Double-U" you would write W on the page. Code should be learned the same
way. No conscious conversion process in between.
(Our note) When a person says
"Double-U" first you hear the sound, route it to a part of the brain where you
have stored a visual image of the "W" letter and then connect it to language
center. It is then instantly identified, all in a split second. Now, do the
same thing with a foreign word such as "boca." which means "mouth" in
Spanish. Your brain identifies the foreign word and translates it into English
before you get meaning. Keep using "boca" and pretty soon it will reach
the point of fluency where you will not need to translate anymore. That is exactly
the point. Code should work the same way, and it does only as language.
NEVER
use crutches! In keeping with the above paragraph you should stay away from
crutches. One that comes to mind that is the worst way to learn code is the
Sound-Catchy Phrase-Letter technique. This is where you learn little rhymes that go
with each letter. The letter C is "Catch-it Catch-it," like the sound of
the C. THIS IS A VERY BAD way to learn the code. Can you imagine using this to
copy at 20 wpm? You'd hear the sound, have to think of the phrase, then think
of what letter it was from that phrase and then write it down. Oops, you just missed
5 letters while you were doing all that mental converting. Chances are that you
would never make it to 20 wpm using any crutch. Frankly, I think learning it simply
by the sound of the letter would be easier than learning little rhymes...(article continues but without reference to Code Quick)
(Our note) Using Mr. Kelley's premise,
no speech recognition should be possible since spoken language works exactly as he
describes. The beauty of the language function of our brain is that it has so much
speed and power that it can listen to the hundred separate sounds of the phonemes in a
common sentence, process them compared to other similar sounds, gain instant understanding
and then integrate the sounds into complex meaning. Of course, he is correct if you
try to do language in a non-language part of the brain! Man is higher than all other
of God's creations precisely because we He endowed us with this amazing function! Trying
to learn code as non-language is about as tough as teaching your dog to talk!
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By Dr. Jerry Wheeler W6TJP 