so ive been at this for a few weeks now and i cant figure out if its me or the keyer. im using an old bencher paddle hooked up to a MFJ keyer, the 493 i think, and most of the time it sounds decent but then ill be sending along and suddenly the dits start running together or i get an extra dah thrown in that i definitely didnt squeeze for. happens more when i try to speed up past like 18 wpm.

i went back and slowed everything down to 12 wpm and practiced a bunch and it sounds clean at that speed. so maybe its just my technique and im rushing? or could it be the keyer settings, like the dit/dah ratio or the weight adjustment? i messed with the weight a little and honestly couldnt tell much difference. would love to hear if anyone else went through this learning curve or has tips for getting past that wall where faster = sloppy

yeah that sounds pretty familiar honestly. when i was learning i had the exact same thing happen around 18-20 wpm, and for me it really was just technique catching up with my brain. the paddle gap adjustment made a huge difference though — if the contacts are too close you get a hair trigger and your fingers start firing dits you didn't intend. try opening up the contact spacing just a tiny bit and see if that helps you stay cleaner at higher speeds.

also one thing that helped me was not trying to speed up gradually during a session. id just sit down and do everything at one comfortable speed for a whole week before bumping it up. the Koch method talks about this but even outside that framework it seems to work. your brain needs time to burn in the patterns at each speed before the muscle memory is really solid. the MFJ keyer should be fine for what youre doing, i wouldnt blame the hardware yet.

check the iambic mode setting too. some keyers default to mode B and depending on how youre squeezing the paddle that can add characters you werent expecting. i switched mine to mode A and a lot of my weird extra elements just went away. might not be your issue but worth poking at while you're in the menus anyway.