I posted in July 2024 that I had set a goal to learn CW, the few bits of gear I bought initally to get started and that I was beginning with the Long Island CW Club (LICW). I then covered in my 2025 Radio year in review towards the end that post that after spending about 6 months in LICW classes I needed to get on air to both get over my fear of CW on air and also to push me through a bit of a learning barrier that I had hit. My inital goal was POTA hunting and activating given the formulaic structure of the QSO. I mentioned I made my first contact on 13th of July 2025 - just over a year ago as I write this post.

Fast forward to end of August 2026 and I have 102 POTA hunting QSOs and 247 POTA activating QSOs. I still have a very below average fist but my sending is getting better all the time. What I realised a few months ago is I need to work on my copying much more. You give me a POTA QSO and I’m pretty comfortable. If another amateur throws in a bit of banter - “Hi Scott, FB for POTA” etc I can get pretty thrown. So I’ve hit another milestone being pretty comfortable with POTA CW but also a bit of a barrier in that I’d like to get to ragchew level with my CW.

Thankfully like all aspects of this hobby there are a huge number of people willing not just to help but that have setup all sorts of things to do so. I wanted to cover a couple of the ones I’ve started with to get through this next learning barrier.

The CQQRS slow morse net beginning on a Tuesday afternoon UTC+10 has been amazing. An awesome bunch of folk all looking to either help others improve, or improve themselves in the art of CW ragchew. There’s a very active WhatsApp group that helps spot and share details, and not just for the net. Looking for a ragchew outside of Tuesday? Out activating and looking for a few more CW contacts? They also have an fantastic weekly newsletter that comes out each week a few days after the net covering the results of the net - who worked who, who heard who, plus a number of CW related articles. Just like LICW helped me get going - this group has really helped me have a much better go at ragchew CW. Thank you to everyone - especially Mark VK2KI!

The other one that has popped up just recently is Morse with Purpose. Stan ZL3TK and Chris VK3QB are the driving force behind this one - again thank you both! They have 12 different badges available for different achievements in a 12 month period after you sign up. Check out the linked page to see the detail behind each challenge. I’ve committed to trying for Out and About (already underway), RandomGram (did my first one last week and it was super fun), and Cold War (got one of these in this month too!). I’m all for a bit of gamification to help motivate my brain (and learning). The random nature of some of these is really helping me practice my copy skills.

CQQRS and MWP are both absolutley free and amazing resources created by HAMS that just want to help other HAMS.

Chris VK3QB also runs monthly zoom sessions covering interesting topics and interviews releated to all things CW, with recordings posted to YouTube. These have been super interesting and I’ve joined wherever I could this year.

Lastly I am still using my Morserino for daily practice when I am not on air. There are a lot of different training modes available, with the last few weeks spent in Echo Trainer mode. There are similar/other options in terms of learning aids - my Morserino has been worth every cent.

My goal by the end of 2026 is to be a little more comfortable with a CW ragchew. Not great - just a little more comfortable and therefor doing it more too. Let’s see how it goes.