Sending From Your Thoughts
Reading With Your Ears
The ”Comprehensive ICR Course” stands alone in its pursuit of providing every CW student the opportunity to “Learn How to Learn CW.” Having FUN and enjoying the journey is emphasized. It is comprised of a maximum of 10 students and becomes a safe and welcoming place to share your experiences and ideas as the group progresses together. You will have a Code Buddy with whom you will actively participate outside of class. The intent is for you to become self-sufficient in your future pursuit of the CW journey. All the tools for learning are provided, and individual assistance is consistently welcomed.
The Comprehensive ICR Course is Modules-Based, leading you step-by-step through the process of reaching your CW goals. The Modules are based upon student input and provide succinct instructions.
The course emphasizes ICR plus an additional set of necessary and complementary skills. It is coached in a way that eases the plateaus and speed bumps associated with building CW proficiency while using Instant Character Recognition best practices.
This class focuses on progressive skills; sending proficiency, building callsigns, words, phrases, and entire thoughts. It features a comprehensive approach designed to enhance and enrich one’s on-air experience.
This 10-week course with 2 sessions per week is a proven method for those wanting to move beyond decoding dits & dahs. You’ll learn to listen for and recognize the unique sound of each character instead of parsing dits and dahs. Instant Character Recognition (ICR) is the path to CW fluency.
Speaking (sending from thoughts) and listening (copying without writing) are coequal skills you will practice and learn in this ICR Course.
Morse code classes typically begin and end with a focus on listening for dit and dah sequences and decoding them. However, there is no need to decode, but rather hear and understand, Learning the alphabet by unique character sounds leads to ICR and the skill of relaxed comprehension. It’s important to be patient with yourself and have fun as you follow the process.
Regardless of your CW interests and goals, ICR greatly enhances your ability to enjoy and converse with CW. Your proficiency with all types of Morse code activities will increase dramatically when you achieve ICR. When you can comfortably converse using ICR, you’ve arrived at the peak of CW fluency.
Simply stated, the pace at which you’re able to recognize characters is the pace at which you’re able to hear, use, and enjoy Morse Code. The slower the pace the more cumbersome CW becomes. ICR provides CW fluency and transforms Morse code into a new language for you.
Instant Character Recognition depends upon hearing each CW character as a single distinct unit of sound instead of dits and dahs. This means patiently learning the alphabet in a new way – by unique and distinct character sounds.
You think you know the alphabet but the slightest hesitation in recognizing even a few characters can wreck your ability to keep pace with the code. At a minimum, Instant Character Recognition with every letter of the alphabet is required.
Decoding dits and dahs is a conscious remembering process that takes a lot of effort and is slow. ICR is a subconscious knowing process that’s extremely fast and nearly effortless. You achieved ICR with spoken characters and words long ago. This ICR course focuses on achieving the same with Morse code.
Achieving Instant Character Recognition makes the sound of each Morse code character equivalent to the spoken character. ICR is naturally fast when you know character sounds instead of remembering dit and dah sequences.
The answer to “Why Instant Character Recognition?” is simple. With this skill, Morse Code transitions from a slow conscious recognition process to a very fast and nearly effortless subconscious recognition process. The goal is to understand what’s being communicated by simply listening.