so ive been at this for about three months now, finally passed my general and jumped straight into trying to learn CW because honestly thats what got me interested in ham radio in the first place, all those old movies with guys tapping away in the dark lol. anyway i picked up a used Bencher BY-1 paddle off ebay and hooked it into my IC-7300's built in keyer and i just... cant get it to feel natural. i keep squeezing both paddles at the wrong time and getting these weird extra dits or dahs that totally mangle whatever i was trying to send.

i've watched probably every youtube video on iambic mode A vs mode B and i think i understand the theory but when my hands are actually on the paddle my brain just goes blank. im currently practicing at like 12wpm with a 20wpm character speed (farnsworth method i think?) and people keep telling me different things. some say slow everything way down, some say keep characters fast. also my paddle tension is probably off, i have no idea what im doing with that adjustment screw.

has anyone else gone through this learning curve and actually come out the other side? feels like ill never get it

oh man yeah the iambic squeeze thing tripped me up for probably six months, not gonna lie. what helped me more than anything was just... putting the keyer in straight key mode for a while and forgetting the paddle existed. sounds counterintuitive but it forces you to think about the rhythm of each character instead of relying on the squeeze to bail you out.

also the tension thing is huge and nobody talks about it enough. too loose and your fingers are all over the place, too tight and you fatigue real fast. i'd back off the tension screw until the paddle almost moves on its own, then tighten just a tiny bit until there's a little resistance. took me forever to land on the right spot and honestly it changed everything. give yourself more than three months too — most people i know who stuck with it say it really clicked somewhere between 6 months and a year of daily practice. 15-20 minutes a day beats an hour once a week every time.

just chiming in because im basically in the same boat as you, been on CW about 5 months and still feel like a disaster most days. one thing that actually helped me recently was the G4FON koch trainer software — its free and you can set it up farnsworth style. i do a session every morning before work and i think im finally starting to hear letters instead of counting dots and dashes if that makes sense.

also i switched to mode A on my keyer after reading that its a bit more forgiving for beginners even though everyone seems to prefer mode B eventually. might be worth trying if you havent already.