Long Island CW Club

In October 2024, I found my home ham club, Long Island CW Club. Prior to that I had seen it's name around a bit, but since I'm not on Long Island, I set it aside. Oops. That was wrong. Long Island CW Club is an international organization with 6000 or more members. Its mission is to help hams become fluent in CW. The club is the most phenomenal volunteer organization ever. It started before the pandemic with a handful of members on Long Island, New York. Because the club taught their few classes online, it grew, and then grew some more. Now the club serves its international audience with more than 160 class hours every week. The club has more than 100 instructors. Since joining, I've participated weekly in their zoom training classes. In April 2025, I became an instructor in the club. I teach an "Intermediate 1" class each Monday at 7am Mountain time (1300 UTC).

Teaching the Intermediate 1 class is both a worthy challenge and a rewarding experience for me. I'm not yet fluent with CW as a language, but my own experience with learning is helpful to others at this level. The class is taught at 12 words per minute. My own practice and development is at a faster 18 to 20 words per minute. I'm becoming comfortable with head copy at 16-18 wpm for on-air QSOs. But I'm still waiting for the breakthrough. Yeah. That breakthrough where CW is a language as comfortable as spoken English.

... the quickest way to learn something is to teach it. Right?

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