so ive been trying to learn CW for about 6 months now and im finally to the point where i can copy maybe 10-12 wpm on a good day but my sending is a mess. i have a cheap bencher paddle i picked up used and a keyer built into my radio (ic-7300) and honestly i cant tell if the problem is me or the settings or both probably

the dits and dahs just dont sound crisp, like everything kind of runs together and when i listen back to recordings of myself it sounds nothing like the code i hear from the DX stations. i have the weight set to 50 and speed around 15 wpm trying to push myself a little but maybe thats the issue. anyone been through this and figured it out

yeah that mushy sound is almost always one of two things in my experience — either the paddle gap is too tight so you're getting contact bounce, or the iambic mode is doing something weird when you're not expecting it. the 7300 defaults to mode B iambic i think and a lot of people find that confusing when they're starting out, especially if you learned on a straight key or just started with paddles.

try bumping the gap on both paddles a little wider than you think you need and slow back down to like 12 wpm even if it feels too slow. clean sending at slow speed will do more for you than sloppy sending at 15. also record yourself every few days and compare, you'll be surprised how fast it improves once you sort out the mechanical stuff.

im kind of in the same boat honestly, been at it about the same amount of time. one thing that really helped me was switching to mode A on the keyer, i know some people swear by mode B but i kept making a mess of my endings on letters. also just spending like 10 minutes a day on the Koch method trainer app even when i didnt feel like it made a bigger difference than anything else i tried