Zach, first, congratulations on your successes so far!  You'll find
that Amateur radio is a Great, hobby, service, sport, friendship
builder, and lots more!
W1AW, on line, on air or however, proved to be one of the best helps I
ever had in upgrading from Technician to General back in 1996, so
start listening on line until you can get a receiver.
In terms of receivers, there are several good portables, which will,
when conditions are average or better, give you good back yard
listening,
that will fill the bill; and depending on your budget you don't have
to spend more than $15 tops:
In terms of dependability, ease of use, permanency of memories, sound,
etc, my first choice would be the Sony ICF-7600GR.  GR, rather than G,
as it has 100, rather than 20, memories, and its' memories are Non_
Volatile/they'll stay "memorized," until you either do a hard reset of
the radio, or purposely erase them;/where as the volatile memories
will be lost if there's no power applied to the radio, either via
batteries or external power, for more than about 3 minutes.

Both the G and GR models ship, new, with soft case, wind up/maybe
20foot antenna, earbuds, manual, and I believe a 6volt, "wall wart,"
type power supply.
New, the Sonys sell for between $100&160 depending on which model and
where you buy.  Used, they'll run for between $75-100.
Amazon dot com, Universal Radio, and lots of other folks sell them
new, and there are several sources for used units.
On the lower price end of the new radios, with which I'm familiar, is
the Kaito KA110./I've owned three of them, use one at the present, and
like it.  It's a little querky in its' operation, but its' 190 non
volatile memories, its sensitivity, and smaller size, make it a pretty
strong contender.  It comes with a soft case, ear buds, rechargeable
batteries, wind up antenna, soft case, wall wart supply, and a manual.
They sell for $65-85$s new,/Amazon dot com, Universal radio and
others, and from under $50 up.
*There are lots of other good choices, especially in terms of used
units, and if you want to talk with me, I'll do my best to describe
some of the other units available.  I've played with, and used,
several of them.  Certainly don't know anywhere near enough about the
overall picture, but have a little experience.
I wish you very well in your searching.  Sincerely, Danny Dyer, Wb4idu.

On 6/25/13, Doug and Sheilla Emerson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Zach, yes, you can receive code practice on Echolink. Look for the ARRL
> station W1AW. W1AW sends code practice several times a day on H F as well as
>
> 2 meters in the Newington area as well as Echolink. Years ago when I was
> learning Morse Code, I found that listening to W1AW really helped me.
> Remember what I told you. The stupid question is the one you didn't ask.
> Good luck getting your General ticket. 73. Doug, N6NFF
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Zach Shifflett
> Sent: Tuesday, June 25, 2013 9:06 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: short wave / cw receiver
>
> Hey all,
> I'm wondering if there are any portable shortwave receivers out there
> that are relatively accessible, and that can receive cw.
> Now that I've had my license for a couple weeks and have familiarized
> myself with basic procedure, I'd like to get started studying for
> general.  First though, I want to learn cw.
> I've been doing cw training tapes I found online, as well as using the
> g4fon cotch trainer, but what I'd really like is to be able to listen
> to some code on the air, and copy that.  I feel like that'd be the
> best practice, to actually use realtime, on air code.
> I'd also like to see what kind of stuff I can pick up on the low
> frequencies where I live.
> I don't even know how good a portable receiver like this would be, as
> I know you have  to have decent antennas to even be able to pick up
> most of this stuff.
> Please forgive a stupid question from a total newbie, but everybody's
> gotta start somewhere, eh?
> I'd just really like to start listening to some code on air and
> copying it. Maybe this is also something I could do with echolink.
> Are there even shortwave stations you can pick up anymore?
>
> Thanks in advance for all the great advice I know will come.
> This list is really great, and I look forward to actually being able
> to talk to some of you guys once my echolink approval goes through.
>
> 73
> Zach, kk4ruz
>