so ive been practicing CW for about 3 months now and im finally starting to feel okay sending with my paddle but something feels off with how my keyer is producing the dits and dahs. like sometimes the spacing between elements feels mushy, not crisp. im running a Winkeyer USB into my radio and i've messed with the weight setting a little but honestly i dont fully understand what it does. at what point do you know if its the keyer settings vs just your own technique being inconsistent? because sometimes i wonder if im gripping the paddle too tight or squeezing at weird times and that's causing it. been doing about 20 minutes of practice a day with the Koch method on my phone app and im around 10-12 wpm comfortably. anyone been through this and figured out what was actually wrong

oh man i remember being in exactly this spot a couple years ago. honestly at 10-12 wpm its almost always technique before its the keyer. the Winkeyer is solid hardware, it's not going to be the culprit. the weight setting adjusts the dit/dah ratio so if everything sounds a little heavy or light that can help but i'd leave it close to default for now until your muscle memory settles in a bit more.

the grip thing you mentioned is real. a lot of people death-grip the paddle when they're concentrating hard and that translates directly into inconsistent squeeze pressure. try consciously relaxing your hand before each character, sounds dumb but it helped me a lot. also check your paddle tension and spacing, even a tiny bit too much spring tension makes everything feel like a fight. just back it off until it feels almost too easy to move and go from there.

not sure if this helps but i had a similar thing going on and it turned out my paddle gap was way too tight so i was accidentally triggering extra dits sometimes. could be worth checking. also 20 min a day is solid, dont give up on it