The Koch Method

The Koch method teaches CW at full character speed from the start. You begin with two characters and add a new one only when your accuracy on the current set exceeds the target threshold.

• Characters are introduced in a proven standard Koch order by default.
• The trainer focuses extra attention on the characters you find most difficult.
• Session length is configurable — set how many items per session before a checkpoint.
• Your progress is saved automatically in a profile so you can continue later.

How the Character Selection Logic Works

The trainer does not build the full session in advance. Instead, each next character is selected during the session based on your current performance.

• Characters you struggle with are selected more often.
• Well-learned characters are still mixed in regularly to avoid forgetting.
• The newest unlocked character is kept at a minimum share in the session so it does not disappear too early.
• The weighting updates continuously after each scored answer.

Starting the Trainer

1. From the dashboard, click Learn → Morse Trainer.
2. Select or create a profile (your saved progress). Multiple learner profiles are supported.
3. Open Settings to configure WPM, Farnsworth speed, and items per session.
4. Click Start Session.

Input Modes

Audio Output

Session Settings

Profiles & Progress

Each learner has their own profile that stores:

• Current Koch level (which characters have been unlocked)
• Per-character accuracy history
• Session completion count
• Item history for intelligent re-testing of weak characters

Profiles are saved as JSON files in the application data folder and are automatically loaded on startup. Click Lessons in the trainer to see your current level, unlock specific lessons manually, or reset progress.

Web Morse Trainer

The same Koch trainer in your browser — nothing to install. Open it at openshack.com/apps/morsetrainer.

The full guide is on its own page — the lessons, per-character progress, the alphabet and Balloon Burst, the optional OpenShack Box on a desktop browser, browser support, and the screenshots. See Web Tools → Web Morse Trainer.

Your progress isn't synced automatically, but you can move it between the PC and web versions by copying the trainer's settings file (default.json) across — see Moving Your Progress Between Web and Desktop.

Advanced Trainer

Training beyond the Koch progression, using the full character set at your own pace.

Prompt Sources and Dictionaries

The Advanced Trainer supports three prompt source modes:

• WordFile: words or short tokens from dictionary text files
• Groups: random character groups from the full character set
• Callsigns: random callsigns from the included callsign pool

On first use, the Advanced Trainer starts in Groups mode with a group length of 2 at 20 / 10 WPM (Farnsworth). Your choices are saved, so on later runs it reopens with whatever you used last.

The program includes built-in dictionaries for English words, German words, and ham radio abbreviations, plus a Callsigns pool based on the well-known MASTER.SCP list.

You can add your own WordFile dictionaries: click the folder icon next to the file list in the Advanced Trainer to open the local texts folder, then add a UTF-8 .txt file with one word or token per line. New files appear automatically in the file list.

Key Differences from the Koch Trainer

Using the Advanced Trainer

1. From the dashboard, click Improve → Advanced Trainer.
2. Optionally connect your Box for keying input and Box audio output.
3. Select a prompt source (WordFile, Groups, or Callsigns).
4. Configure WPM/Farnsworth and source-specific options (items per prompt, group length).
5. Click Start. Selection adapts continuously to your current performance.
6. Type each heard character, or key it on your paddle. Results are scored and saved automatically.

When keying on the paddle, your answer is evaluated after a short pause once you stop sending — not the instant you reach the expected number of characters. You can keep keying past the expected length; any extra characters are counted and the answer is then marked wrong.

When you are listening to an audio prompt of a single word or group, press the Space bar to replay it.

The Advanced Trainer uses the same global PC audio output device setting as every other PC-side player. To send the audio to a different speaker set or headphone output, change it once in Settings → Advanced.

Read Mode

Read Mode turns the exercise around: instead of listening and writing down what you hear, the prompt is shown on screen and you send it on your paddle. It is a sending drill, so it needs a connected Box for keying, and the toggle stays disabled until a Box is found.

As you key, the characters the decoder recognises appear live in the input box, so you can watch your sending being read back. The final character appears once you stop sending and the short decode pause has passed.

Session History

Open Sessions inside the Advanced Trainer to review all past session scores, accuracy over time, and character-level statistics. You can also reset the advanced profile from this view.

Balloon Burst Game 🎈

A fast-paced Morse keying game that can train single characters, random groups, words, or callsigns.

Balloons carrying Morse targets float upward across a dark canvas. Type the matching target on your keyboard — or key it on the OpenShack Box paddle — and the balloon bursts in a satisfying pop. Miss a balloon and it sticks to the ceiling; if any column grows five balloons deep, the game ends. Speed and spawn rate increase with every level, pushing your recognition and keying reflexes harder.

How to Play

1. Open Learn → Balloon Burst from the dashboard, or click Game inside the Morse Trainer.
2. No hardware is needed — the keyboard alone works. Optionally connect the OpenShack Box to key on a paddle as well (paddle keying needs a desktop browser).
3. Click Start Game. Balloons begin floating up immediately.
4. Type the target shown on any balloon, or key it on the box paddle. In Listen Mode, copy the target by ear first. On a phone or tablet, tap it on the on-screen keyboard. Any balloon in the air can be burst at any time — not just the lowest one.
5. If a balloon reaches the ceiling it sticks and stacks on top of previously stuck balloons. A column five balloons deep ends the game.

Target Sources and Listen Mode

The launch point still decides the base character set, and the settings panel decides what kind of targets appear on the balloons.

Levels and Scoring

Every 10 successful bursts advances you to the next level — use the BURSTS / LEVEL control in the sidebar (5–50) if you want more practice at each speed or a faster ramp. A burst scores 10 points regardless of level, and a wrong answer costs 5 points — though your score never drops below zero.

Keep an eye out for the golden balloon: it wears a little crown, glows and sparkles, and bursting it is worth 50 points. It only appears now and then, and never more than one at a time.

Three correct bursts in a row make a comic-style STREAK star pop up below the ceiling, complete with its own fanfare. It keeps counting your run — until the next wrong answer makes it vanish. While the star is up, every burst pays a bonus on top: as many extra points as your run is long, capped at +20 — the tenth burst in a row scores 10 + 10, and the pop shows exactly what it paid.

Start Level

Advanced players can skip the early levels. Use the − and + buttons in the sidebar to choose your starting level before the game begins. As you reach new levels during a game, the start level advances automatically so your next game picks up where you left off.

Click Reset Level to set the start level back to 1.

Sound

The game plays short synthesised sound effects for balloon bursts, misses, streaks, level-ups, and game over. Use the Volume slider at the bottom of the sidebar to adjust the level; the setting is saved automatically.

Personal Best

Every completed or aborted game records your final score and level to the Personal Best leaderboard — top 10 Balloon Burst runs, ranked by score with the level reached shown alongside each entry.

CW Summit Game

A timed speed-climbing game for copying characters, groups, words, or callsigns at rising WPM.

CW Summit sends one Morse target at a time. You answer with the OpenShack Box paddle or with the keyboard. Correct answers push the current WPM upward; missed answers pull it down according to the ladder rules you set. The whole run becomes a scrolling mountain profile, so you can see where you climbed cleanly, where you slipped, and whether you crossed your personal best peak.

How to Play

1. Open Improve → CW Summit from OpenShack. In builds that show a Summit button inside the Morse Trainer, that launch uses your current Koch character set.
2. Choose Start WPM, Duration, and Volume on the front panel. Runs can be 1–15 minutes, with a start speed from 5–90 WPM.
3. Open the settings panel for input, target source, audio source, Farnsworth spacing, answer timeout, repeats, and the WPM ladder rules.
4. Click Start Game. After a short get-ready pause, CW Summit sends the first target and starts the clock.
5. Copy the target by ear and answer on the paddle or keyboard. Keyboard answers finish with Enter; paddle answers finish when the target length is reached, after a word gap, or when the answer timeout expires.

Targets, Input, and Audio

Ladder Rules and Scoring

The default ladder starts at 20 WPM, steps up 2 WPM after every correct answer, and steps down 2 WPM after every miss. You can set step size from 1–5 WPM, require 1–3 correct answers before climbing, require 1–3 misses before dropping, allow 0–2 repeats, and set the answer timeout from 3–10 seconds.

• A correct target scores current WPM × target length.
• Using a repeat halves the value for that target according to the number of attempts used.
• A first-try answer within 2 seconds earns a 25% speed bonus.
• Streak bonuses begin at three correct answers in a row and are capped at +20.
• Each first crossing of a +5 WPM camp above the start speed adds 100 points.
• Crossing the stored personal-best peak for the active setup adds a one-time 250 point bonus.
• At the end of the run, CW Summit adds a peak-WPM-by-accuracy bonus so a clean climb beats a messy one.

The Mountain Profile

The chart is not decorative: it is your run history. The vertical axis is WPM, with a faint grid every 5 WPM. Each completed target becomes one segment of the mountain. Correct targets appear above the line in green; missed targets appear below the line with per-character feedback, so you can see which characters were copied and where the answer drifted.

The gold dashed line marks the stored personal-best peak for the same input mode, target source, and duration. Camp flags mark the first crossing of each +5 WPM step above your start speed. A translucent ghost line replays the best previous run for the same setup, aligned target by target. The answer strip at the bottom shows live typed or decoded paddle input while you copy.

Personal Best and Saved Settings

CW Summit records score, peak WPM, accuracy, run duration, start WPM, and Farnsworth WPM in Personal Best. Paddle and keyboard runs are separated, and non-character sources are grouped separately for groups, words, and callsigns. Settings are saved automatically, and the best run profile is stored as a ghost line for future runs.

Morse Alphabet Cheat Sheet

A quick-reference Morse alphabet panel showing all letters, digits, punctuation, and special characters as graphical dit/dah pattern cards. The zero digit is displayed as Ø to distinguish it clearly from the letter O.

The cheat sheet can be opened two ways:

• From the trainer toolbar — it stays visible alongside the training window so you can glance at character patterns without leaving the session.
• Standalone from the dashboard: Learn → The Alphabet.

Click to hear a character. Move the mouse over any card to highlight it, then click to play its exact dit/dah pattern — including the prosigns <AR>, <SK> and <ERR> and the accented letters. Opened from the Morse Trainer or Advanced Trainer, cards play at the same speed, pitch and volume you set there; opened on its own, the cheat sheet uses your last trainer settings. Hover a prosign card to see a short note explaining what it means:

• <AR> — end of message (also written +).
• <AS> — wait, stand by.
• <KA> — start of message (also written CT).
• <KN> — go ahead, named station only.
• <SK> — end of contact (end of work), the QSO is over.
• <ERR> — error: the last word was sent wrong and the correction follows (6 or more dots).