so ive been trying to get into CW for about three months now and i finally passed my element 1 back when that was still a thing... wait no i mean i just wanted to learn it for fun, no test needed anymore obviously. anyway i built up enough courage to actually get on the air last week and it was kind of a disaster honestly.

im using a Bencher BY-1 paddle that i picked up used and a Yaesu FT-991A with the built in keyer. the problem is my dits and dahs just dont feel right when im sending. like i know what i want to send but by the time my hand does it the letters come out mushed together or i get extra dits i didnt mean to send. i have the speed set around 15 wpm which is where i can copy okay but sending at that speed feels way harder than i expected.

is this a tension adjustment thing on the paddle or am i just not practiced enough yet? i fiddled with the screws a little bit but i honestly dont know what im doing with that. the gap feels about like a business card thick on each side which is what someone told me but maybe thats wrong for my hand. any advice from people who actually got through this frustrating phase would be great

oh man i remember this exact feeling, it does get better i promise. the business card gap thing is a starting point but everyones hand is different so dont treat it as gospel. i ended up with my contacts way closer than that, like almost touching. what helped me was slowing WAY down, like embarrassingly slow, maybe 10 or even 8 wpm and just drilling individual characters until my hand knew them without thinking. 15 wpm sounds manageable for copying but your hand needs more muscle memory than your brain does if that makes sense.

also check that your keyer is set to iambic mode A or B and figure out which one feels better to you. some people have strong opinions about this. i personally run mode A and never looked back but theres guys who swear by B. the 991A keyer is decent enough that its probably not the equipment, its almost certainly just rep time. get on one of the CW practice nets, they're super patient with slow senders and nobody is going to laugh at you.

yeah the tension thing is real. I went through like four different paddle setups before I landed on a Begali that felt right and even then it took months. One thing nobody told me early on — try adjusting the weight of your keying hand, like where you rest your wrist. I was tensing up my whole forearm without realizing it and that causes all kinds of timing garbage. Also if the 991 keyer has a speed pot on the front just twirl it down during practice sessions, theres no shame in that at all.