Learning Morse in the Royal Navy

I joined the Royal Navy as a Radio Operator in 1966.

Morse was taught as apart 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.

In addition to  morse 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 or maybe two hours per day. 

 I distinctively remember arriving at the RN Signal School, HMS Mercury in near Petersfield Hampshire, on the Friday evening after having completed  six weeks of basic naval training (knots, marching, seamanship etc. at another  naval establishment).   I was  interested in how the RN was going to teach me morse.  Much to my surprise I  found out as soon as we arrived.  It wasn’t a  sophisticated 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 then told us, “You’ve the weekend to learn the 26 letters".  “Get on with it and we’ll be starting on Monday”.   We were left much to our own devices for the rest of the weekend.   As you would expect, learning morse on our own  was rather a lot to expect from a group of teenagers, but I guess it kept us occupied and out of trouble over the weekend.  I’m not sure if anyone managed to learn the complete alphabet though.   

On the Monday morning 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.   Once we could read all the letters and punctuations  we started listening to pre-recorded tapes..

Not long after the course  commenced 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.   A number of us failed, including me  but luckily we were told that it didn’t matter as the Navy was simply trialling the test.  All of us managed to complete the course without problems.

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.  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.

Random groups and foreign language texts were used as it prevents you from guessing what letter might be coming next. Whilst anticipating what comes next sometimes helps we were taught to write what we heard and therefore avoiding  incorrect guesses.  This was important.  We were required to print what we heard.

 

The emphases was on accuracy and we were clearly being taught to read anything sent in morse code.

I cannot remember what speed the first tapes were sent at, but probably less than 10 wpm.  But I do know we did start with the characters sent slow enough so everyone could 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 punctuation  and miscellaneous  characters, and the 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 the character speed and reducing the time between letters etc.,      

As the weeks passed by we also listened to morse being sent by hand on a straight key and to morse being sent over the airwaves, with background noise/static. This of course 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.   

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, one  using a pen and an other test done using a typewriter. 

 
As the course progressed we were later  taught to send morse by hand.  .  As we’d also learned about  different  wireless telegraphy procedures and the format of military signals, these too became a part of both the morse reception and the morse transmission classes.  The  pass rate for morse transmission was 15wpm @ 80%.  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.  A year after I joined my first ship my ability to send  and received morse had increased considerably and 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 I think  may have been the ‘Pitman Method” and 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 training is costly, both in time and money   If there was a faster or better method of teaching I’m sure the RN  and 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. 

Like commercial operators 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
3. There were no distractions
4. The instructors were (in my case), also qualified trainers/teachers - 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. 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.
7. No understanding of what's involved or how long it might take to learn morse.
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 learned if you are taught how to do them by someone else. Touch typing would be a good example. I can also remember my failed attempts to learn how to Eskimo role a kayak on my own with a 'book of instructions', with me. Then someone showed me - success!!! Driving a car might be another better example!!

There are some erroneous beliefs about learning morse, which I believe simply 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 of morse 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 military ships  Morse was on its way out.