so ive been putting off learning CW for about three years now and i finally just ordered a cheap set of paddles off amazon and hooked them up to my radio. the radio has a built in keyer which is great i guess but im totally lost on the iambic modes. theres mode A and mode B and ive read about both and honestly i still dont fully get the difference in practice when im actually trying to send something.

right now im just doing basic letters and its going okay but my dits and dahs feel really uneven. i set the weight to like 50 which i think is default and the speed is at 13 wpm which feels comfortable for now. is there anything i should tweak early on or should i just leave everything at default and focus on the muscle memory first? also does paddle brand actually matter this early or am i overthinking the gear thing

honest answer — leave everything at default for now and dont mess with weight or sidetone pitch or any of that stuff yet. i went down that rabbit hole early on and it just distracted me from actually learning the code. the difference between iambic A and B is real but it wont matter to you for months, most people just pick one and stick with it. mode A is fine to start.

the paddle brand thing is... yeah youre overthinking it a little but also not entirely wrong. a cheap paddle with wobbly contacts or weird tension can genuinely make learning harder. that said ive seen people learn on terrible paddles and be totally fine. just make sure the tension and spacing feel adjustable and you can dial it in. if the amazon one has those adjustments youre probably okay for now. come back to the gear question in six months when you actually know what you want from a paddle.

im kind of in the same boat as you, been at it maybe two months now. one thing that helped me a lot was just using the keyer to send random letters and then trying to copy what i sent, feels a bit silly but it actually works. also G4FON and lcwo.net are both really good for practice if you havent already found them. 13 wpm is a solid starting point, some people say learn fast from the beginning but honestly i dont think it matters that much just be consistent