My wife, former US Navy Radioman, who was 'bout #2 in her classs in Morse (and never got to use it the entire time she was in) is not surprised. Neither am I...

That is SOOOO cool!! Amazing!

I think my daughter is somewhere around 120 characters per minute now. What's crazy cool is she can be texting someone while talking to someone else.

In Crypto school in the Navy I got up to 42 wpm (5 characters per word for 210 characters per minute). I received the Samuel B. Morse award, and went on to get my ham license. I never did anything with it after the Navy, so my skills have waned, and I reckon I am somewhere around 14 wpm these days.

We used our code skills to id chinese, cuban, and russian contacts at sea, while at the same time fixing their location by df'ing their signals and coordinating with other operatives.

Definitely a lot of pucker factor back then. That was a different life.

There were some instructors who were real speed freaks on code, like somewhere around 65 wpm. It sounded like teletype at that speed, and I could only get the characters with the longer code strings, maybe one in five, at that speed. Those guys were amazing.

Now ask the average American which one they can understand.

I'm a ham, and I have to agree with Nishnabotna. Add in the 6 months+ to learn morse code, spread the time over every SMS message you send in your life, and now compare the time...

Then of course there is the problem of predictive texting

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hcoT6yxFoU

Excellent! That's why I still have "Learn Morse Code" on my list of things to do before I die.

Brian,, Get a flashlight with a signal button, a copy of the Morse code, make a list of opposite letters; ie: A=.-; N=-.

Get about 5 feet from a wall and start flashing the signal onto the wall going through the alphabet via the opposite letters. You'll know the alphabet within an hour. 1 hr per day for a week and it will be a while before you forget the Morse Alphabet (good for about 6 months) and then you repeat the process.

By flashing your transmittions onto the white wall, you will be simultaneously learning to receive Morse Code.

This is from a retarded ,,,,,,uh, I mean, Retired USCG Signalman.

I respectfully disagree a little. I recently went through the process of learning morse code. Most successful systems have some points in common:
- do not start writing or reading dashes and dots, that prevents you from learning the actual signals
- signals are visual or acoustic so learn to see or hear them from the start
- decide how fast you want to be and learn the characters at that speed (adjust spacing for total speed)
- do not start transmitting before you can reliably read the signals; transmitting is about automation once accomplished it´s hard to correct mistakes; you should be able to identify mistakes when you start transmitting (better yet get someone verify correct forming of the signals)
- practice daily; 10 minutes per day will take more time than 1 h per day but will still do the trick

There are lots of free PC-programs to help you learn morse code. I transferred practice lessons to a MP3 player and practiced in my lunch breaks. I can read about at about 16 WPM and transmit at about 22 WPM (on the HAM-bands you don´t send faster than you can read though).