CW Coach
Two minutes of B against 6, three minutes of speed, three minutes of callsigns. Not general advice, but the advice that follows from your own numbers.
Where you stand
Where the plan comes from
The coach invents nothing. It reads what the trainer, the callsign trainer and the daily challenge record anyway, and converts it:
- Mastery per character - deliberately not the same as the hit rate. Three correct answers are not mastery, they are three correct answers. The rate is therefore weighted by experience.
- Confusion pairs - what you heard instead of what. That is the real diagnosis: "wrong" on its own does not say what it was confused with, and that is precisely the fact you can practice against.
- Copying and sending speed, kept apart. They drift far apart, and measuring only one tells you nothing about the other.
- Reaction time - how long you take to reach the right answer. A character that is solid but takes two seconds is not solid on the air.
What has not been measured shows as a dash and is not estimated. An estimated figure on a dashboard is worse than a gap: you can see that it is a number, but not that it was a guess.
The five levels
- Beginner - fewer than ten characters solid.
- Listener - ten characters solid.
- Operator - every letter solid, copying from 15 WPM.
- Advanced Operator - plus 20 WPM and 90 per cent accuracy.
- CW Expert - letters and digits, 30 WPM, 95 per cent.
Every level rests on several figures rather than one. Someone who manages 40 WPM but is unsure of half the characters is not an expert but a person with a fast favourite selection.
This is a level on this site and not an examination. It says nothing about an amateur radio licence and replaces none.
Why speed is always in the plan
Speed is the only one of the four figures that goes back down on its own without practice. That is why every plan contains a speed block, even when everything else is solid.
Its target sits deliberately above your best: practicing at your best means practicing what you already have. Two WPM above is the range where it still works and already strains.
None of this leaves your device
Your progress lives in your browser's local storage. The coach computes there, and nothing goes to a server - not even if you have an account. The account carries the ranking, not your training record.
You can still take it with you: the account page has "Download my data" and "Load data". That is a file you hold yourself.
Frequently asked questions
-
Why is there no plan at the start?
Because nothing has been measured. A plan from zero data would be a guess, and guessed plans look exactly like real ones. After about twenty answers in the trainer, something appears here that follows from your numbers.
-
Does the coach cost anything?
No. As things stand today, everything on this site is free to use.
-
Why twelve minutes by default?
Because a skill that rests on hearing grows with repetition rather than with the length of a sitting. Ten to fifteen minutes on six days beat two hours on one. You can still set the slider wherever you like.
-
The total always adds up exactly?
Yes. If it says twelve minutes, the blocks add up to twelve - not eleven and not thirteen. That is the difference between a plan and a suggestion.