Suggestion based on REAL effectiveness back in 1950-51 when I learned it!

 DS>   A former ham (now a SK) told me his secret to learning CW was to
"learn
 DS> all the dirty words first". I laughed, and admitted
"Well, you can't say
 DS> it on the air, but if it helps, more power to you".

Learning it originally from the tthe 78RPM records my Uncle Bill Schuster
of Erie, Pennsylvania sent me, although he was not a Ham, on my own I
figured this one out. I'd bought my first car when I was 12 in 1971, a 1929
Model A Ford Victoria with the trundle trunk in the rear.  I was mowing
lawns for a $1 USD a lawn to help pay my way through middle school at
A&M Consolidated here in College Station.  Happened to see this Model A
up on blocks in the garage of a boyfriend's home I walked by to mow Col.
Dunn's lawn, the Texas A&M College football band leader.  The one who
actually wrote the Texas Aggie "Saw Varsity's Horns Off", Aggie
War Hymn.  I asked my friend, "Why is it up on blocks?"  He took
me into the house where I got to meet his Grandpa who had come to A&M
from Vermont in it where he bought it for $927 to drive it to Texas to get
out of the Great Depression!  My friend and I were both railroad fans.  His
grandpa said, "Mike, sometimes you just wreck the train when you drive
things fast!"  He took me into the living room, fired up their 78RPM
record player and played me the, "Wreck Of The Southern 97" I had
never heard before!  Then in Railroad Morse he diddle mouthed me 'UJOINT
BAD MIKE' and told me I could have it for $60.  He couldn't pay to fix it!

I told my Dad I wanted it, asked him if he's loan me the $60 for it?  He
told me, "NO!"  I said if he did, I'd never ask him for another
dime for auto stuff.  He loaned me the money and he drove it home into our
back yard where I took the drive shaft apart and fixed the internal yoke at
the back of the transmission.  From parts at $1 a yard mowing.  Got my
Texas Driver's License at 14 years of age in it and learned something!

I noticed that as I drove past a street sign, I could practice my Morse
Code by mouthing the sound of it as I drove past a sign!  More important,
the faster I drove, the better I got at Morse Code as I upped the speed! 
But the first week or so after I got my Driver's License, I also got my
first traffic ticket from a Bryan, Texas, cop!  I was diddling with
"29th Street" in the twin city to College Station, Bryan, on a
four lane road as I turned left to "29th Street" from the curb
side lane of "Texas Avenue" there!  Cop wrote me up for
"Illegal left turn without going 250 feet in left lane."  Taught
me a VERY important lesson.  You have to really be able to use Morse Code
and still pay attention to everything else in the noise game, 1952 ham by
then too, recall?  That's how you chase DX, Grin!

But it really helped me speed up my International Morse Code for ham use as
well!  Even then I was a Hot Rodder, chuckle.  I had torn the four cylinder
straight engine apart as well.  Polished the intake and exhaust ports plus
routed the intake air tube to the upward vertical carb so that the air from
the push from the front would raise the horsepower of it!  With the big 21
inch wheels that it had I had gotten it to even go 75MPH on the highway.

Which my Dad was HORRIFIED I was able to do, grin!

But even then at 75MPH on the highway I had gotten to where I could mouth
diddle both International and Railroad Morse Code perfectly for the signs I
was passing as I flew down the road.  And most importantly, that I was able
to SAFELY do this as I was also driving so that I could multitask while
sending and understanding Morse Code as I drove.  Which I didn't at all
realize would be a HUGE benefit to me when I got recruited to learn to
first fly airplanes in 1958 when I first went to A&M as a Aggie here as
well.

And speed wise, there is a huge difference between air work with a 'zero'
in International Morse as ----- and Railroad Morse as _____, chortle! It
was a LONG time before I ever even flight instructed in an airplane that
went faster than my Austin Healey 100 that I had stuffed a Chevy fuel
injection Corvette engine into.  Which would float the valves at over
175MPH on the highway.  And which I was still 'practicing', from time to
time, diddle Morse, while I drove it.  Grin.


Mike Luther N117C at 1:117/100

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