so ive been doing CW for about three years now, always on a straight key, and i finally broke down and bought a used Bencher BY-1 off a guy at the club. been messing with it for a few weeks and honestly i have mixed feelings.

the keyer itself is great, im using the built-in keyer in my 7300 and the iambic mode is something i'm still wrapping my head around. like i understand the concept, squeeze both paddles and it alternates dits and dahs, but my brain just isnt wired for it yet. i keep reverting to single-lever mode because it feels more natural coming from a straight key background.

sending is actually smoother now for callsigns and common words but the second i have to send something unusual i totally fall apart. anyone else go through this transition? how long before it started clicking? i feel like im sending worse now than i did six months ago on the straight key which is kind of demoralizing

yeah the iambic thing takes a while, dont get discouraged. i switched from a straight key to a paddle probably fifteen years ago and i remember thinking the same thing. what helped me was just slowing way down in the keyer speed, like embarrassingly slow, and really focusing on the muscle memory for each letter individually before trying to send at any kind of real pace. the iambic squeeze technique specifically i didnt really use much for a long time, i was mostly just single-paddle too and thats fine honestly, plenty of great ops never use iambic mode at all.

one thing that really helped me was using a practice oscillator and just spending 10 minutes a day sending random text, not callsigns or the same words over and over but like newspaper articles or whatever. forces you out of the muscle memory patterns you already have. give it another month before you judge yourself

the BY-1 is a solid paddle, good choice for a first one. i went through almost the exact same thing when i switched and honestly i just kept the straight key on the desk for a while and used whichever felt right for whatever i was doing. no rule says you have to commit fully right away. also check your paddle tension and gap settings — the BY-1 has pretty good adjustability and if the gaps are too wide it makes the transition even harder because you're working too hard to actuate it