Learning Morse in the Royal Navy

I joined the Royal Navy as a Radio Operator in 1966 immediately after leaving secondary school..

We learned as a part of our Radio Operator training course which  lasted about   35 weeks.  This included breaks for conventional holidays if they occurred whilst in training. Training ran 5 days per week and the hours were approximately 8am - 5pm.

We were also taught  subjects such as cryptography, voice & morse procedures, touch-typing, message handling, radio organisation, Visual/tactical signalling, and so on.  Morse was just one of the elements of the course.  The morse lessons lasted perhaps an hour and a maximum of two hours per day. 

 After having completed  six weeks of basic naval training (knots, marching, seamanship etc. at another  naval establishment). I  arrived at the  RN Signal School, HMS Mercury  near Petersfield Hampshire, on a Friday.  I was  interested in how the RN was going to teach me morse as I'd probably tried before joining but had no success.  Much to my surprise I  found out as soon as we arrived.  There was nothing complicated about the method.
  
We were greeted by  two of our instructors who introduced themselves and  told us to  pair up.  They  gave each pair  a set of flash cards with the CW character on one side and the letter on the reverse. He told us that you described a dash as "dah"  and a dot, as a 'dit'.  So for example N became, 'dahdit'.   He then told us, “You’ve the weekend to learn the all 26 letters".  “Get on with it and we’ll be starting on Monday at 8am”.   We were left much to our own devices for the rest of the weekend.  
This was a lot to expect from a group of mostly teenagers, but I guess it kept us occupied and out of trouble over the weekend.  I’m not sure anyone managed to learn the complete alphabet though.   

A day or two  after the course  commenced  on the Monday we were  given a morse aptitude test.  This consisted of having to listen to morse characters being sent  and write down the corresponding sequence of dots and dashes.  I cannot remember the speed the characters  were being sent at but I was having problems telling dots from dashes or being able to estimate the number of dits being sent.   A couple of days later  the results came back and it was announced that a couple  of us failed, including me.  My heart sank!  but we were quickly told that it didn’t matter as the Navy was simply trialling the tests.  All of us who failed the test managed to complete the course without problems.

On that first Monday the flash cards were taken away and  the next few lessons the instructor took us through the morse characters with him sending the individual letters on a key and getting us to learn the ones we didn’t know.  I cannot quite remember how exactly how he did this but from speaking to other Radio Operators from around the same time it appeared that instructors all followed one of two methods.  One was by going through all the letters comprising  of dits (E I S H etc.,), or dashes, etc., then A U V , then perhaps N D B etc., and so on.  Other instructors simply chose to start with A B C D and continue through the alphabet..    Either way it was not too long before we all had grasped the sound of the letters of the alphabet as we were encouraged to refer to morse characters by their sounds, such as, 'didah' for the letter A and 'dadaditdit for Z etc and not by saying two dits and dot dot etc.,.   Once we could knew all the letters, numbers  and basic punctuation, we started listening to pre-recorded tapes and later on hand sent morse.

I  remember  very early in the course the instructor playing a tape of morse at 20 wpm and telling us this was the goal we would achieve by the end of our training..  I certainly could not recognise or identify dits, dots,  dashes, characters or words.  To me it sounded unachievable.  We certainly did not use Farnsworth or Koch methods of learning.

The pre-recorded  tapes contained a combination of ; 

 

a) Plain language texts, often from popular or classical books,

 

b) Foreign language texts, and; 

c) Groups of 5 random letters.

 The aim was to train you to copy what you heard -  and not what you thought you heard.  Random groups or foreign language texts would  prevent  guessing what letter or number might be coming next. Whilst anticipating what comes next might sometimes be of help, we were encouraged to write down what we heard, therefore avoiding incorrect guesses.  This was very important.  Professional operators don't just deal with plain language, they may have to send or receive  detailed requests for various stores, fuel,  re-routing of ships, telegrams, complicated operational instructions and so on.    Our papers were swapped around to be marked at the end of each session.

 

The emphases was on accuracy and we were clearly being taught to read anything sent in morse code regardless of wether we understood it or not.

I cannot remember what speed the first tapes were sent at, but probably less than 10 wpm. I do know we started with the characters sent slow enough so everyone could easily recognise &  identify what dits and dahs were being sent.   

We certainly did not use Farnsworth spacing, or Koch 

Over the coming weeks we were also introduced to additional punctuation  ( ) - ;  /  and miscellaneous  characters,/prosigns,  common letters utilised in other languages such as  Á È, Ö Ü,  and so on.

 Once the class achieved around  94% or more accuracy the speed of the tapes was increased by one or two wpm.   This was achieved by increasing both the character speed and reducing the time between letters etc.,  NB both the character speed and the overall speed matched.  We copied the lessons down in print as this is what both commercial & military operators needed  to do.  Copying what was sent  also allowed us to mark our progress accurately enabling the classes to progress at an appropriate speed.

As the weeks passed by we also listened to morse being sent by hand on a straight key and to morse being sent with background noise/static. This  made it a little harder but more realistic.    As trainee RO’s we were also being taught to touch type in another class  and once we’d gained a decent ability to touch type we also learned to copy morse directly onto a  typewriter.   This needed a lot of concentration at first and was often quite fun, with the whole class typing in unison - until someone made an error in which the rhythmic sound of everyone typing together was broken.

Or course we had breaks at weekends and holidays.  Several days of not listening to morse meant that when we resumed our classes we struggled for a while getting our previous speed back up.

Over  the 35 weeks the speed was  increased until we could all read morse at 20wpm at  98% accuracy.   We were required to do two tests, to complete the morse training,  one test copying with a pen & paper and another using a typewriter. 

 
As we became more competent at reading morse we eventually started to be  taught to send morse on a straight key.  .  As we’d also learned about  different  morse procedures and the format of military signals, these too became a part of both the morse reception and morse transmission classes.  The  pass rate for morse transmission was 15wpm @ 80%. accuracy.  This may seem rather low but the RN knew that having reached that degree of proficiency we’d soon became much more proficient when we were posted to our first ships as operators.  A year after I joined my first ship  I was able to send on a straight key at over 22 wpm with 100% accuracy.  Likewise I could easily copy morse at  25wpm  by hand or typewriter.

As far as I can recall no one failed to learn morse or failed the course, and although I remember coming out of some morse lessons rather exhausted I wouldn’t say learning morse was difficult.  There was no ‘plateau’ phase often mentioned by people who learn morse on their own.  Learning morse was certainly no different from learning to touch type which we did using a method and may have been the ‘Pitman Method”.  Much of the  typing was done to music with distinct beats.  This was quite fun - especially as we were all typing exactly the same scripts at the same time and it was amusing when someone made a mistake and the class rhythm was shaken somewhat.

All our instructors were Petty Officers or Chief Petty Officers.  As far as I can remember, all of them were also trained and qualified instructors.  Without exception they were  good instructors, patient and encouraging.  We were certainly not shouted at or insulted.

  

Just about every merchant navy  operator I have met learned in much the same way.   Military and civilian training is costly, both in time and money   If there was a faster or better method of teaching I’m sure the RN  or commercial institutions such as Marconi Marine, would have  adopted better ways  a long time ago!

NOTES:- 'Instant Character Recognition',  & 'Instant Word Recognition', were never mentioned, although I've heard many amateurs use the terms.  The ability to recognise characters & words, 'instantly' simply comes with practice and familiarity. 

We were taught not to anticipate or guess what was being sent and to write/record what we heard.  Having said that the ability to anticipate what is being sent can sometimes be  helpful.  This is one of the reasons we listened to foreign languages and random groups.  We were being taught to read morse at 20 wpm regardless of what was being sent.

Some differences on learning on your own and learning in a structured group:-

As for the so called 'difficulty', of learning morse. I think there are a number of issues for most learners. This is based on a comparison between my experience of learning morse as a 16 yr old in the RN (Learning Morse in the Royal Navy) and that of hams in my radio club who've tried to learn morse (and failed).

My experience of learning morse is not particularly different from other servicemen or commercial operators I've met over the years:- 

1. We were mostly teenagers or early 20's 
2. We had to attend lessons and we became a group with identical goals.
3. There were no distractions.
4. The instructors were (in the RN), were  experienced Petty Officers, many also qualified trainers -  they knew how to teach us.
5. The method/s used had evolved over many years and was tried and tested.  
6. The instructors were there in the lesson with you to help, encourage, humour and clarify any issues.
7. We spent at least an hour each day learning morse.

8.  You got a job out of it at the end, which for many was the start of a long career.

Compared to my experience or knowledge of how hams appear to learn morse:-

1. Often a solitary experience = no one to help/clarify, encourage etc.,
2. Family life gets in the way.
3. Work gets in the way.
4. Other distractions get in the way!!
5. Numerous choices of learning, many of which appear to be based on someone's experience of learning or trying to learn morse on their own.
6. No particular target to reach or time scale to work to..
7. No understanding of what's involved or how long it might take to learn.
8. Age! I think the older you are it might just be harder to learn some new skills such as morse.
9. And if you drop out you've still got a life (and job).

Some things are simply easier & quicker to learn if you are shown/taught how to do them by someone else. Touch typing would be a good example as would learning to drive a car.

There are a number of  erroneous beliefs about learning morse all of which I believe  make learning it harder.  Many hams who learned morse on their own talk about the ability to 'Copy  Behind' - copying one or two letters behind what is being sent. I'm not a believer in trying - or attempting to "copy behind is either desirable or necessary to teach it.  I think it just happens as you gain experience and the speed of the morse increases.".  

I can copy over 30wpm. I'd guess I must be 'copying behind', in that as I'm writing down one character the next one is either being sent or has already been sent. I think it is just what automatically happens when you are listening to faster morse especially as your speed increases. You obviously have to write down a character after its been sent (not as its being sent!!), so beyond a certain speed there is an overlap which means your are still writing/typing or even thinking about the character that has just been sent, whilst the next one is being sent.

Its certainly not something I deliberately do and I'm not aware of it when I'm receiving morse. I've never heard any radio operators or trainers ever mention it.

So attempting to copy 'behind', is really just an exercise in making it harder for yourself. I'm sure if I deliberately attempted to copy one or two characters behind then my brain just would not manage it. 

I think copying behind is just what happens automatically and not something deliberate.

Another erroneous belief is telling learners never write anything down and from the start only do 'head copy'.  Again this is something that comes automatically. None of  the military and civilian operators I know were taught to 'head copy', yet all could if they wished.  I think trying to tell new learners to head copy from the start is simply making the learning of morse more difficult because it compels the learner to memorise the letters, words and sentences being sent in their heads when they are still familiarising themselves with recognising the individual morse characters.

Note:  My experience of learning morse was just at the start of the decline of widespread use of morse at sea.  Older contemporaries of mine were required to read morse at 22wpm, and  around 1975 the requirement had dropped from 20wpm to 18wpm.  RATT/RTTY & Satellite communications were becoming increasingly fitted to both commercial shipping  and most naval ships by the end of the 70s,  Morse was on its way out.