so ive been putting off learning morse code for probably two years now and i finally just bought a cheap iambic paddle off amazon to get started. got it hooked up to my radio's keyer and i can make dits and dahs which is progress i guess but i have no idea if im actually doing this right.

the main thing confusing me is the iambic mode stuff — my radio has mode A and mode B and i honestly dont know which one to use or if it even matters at this point when im only sending like 8-10 wpm. ive been watching some youtube videos and everybody seems to have a strong opinion about it but nobody really explains it for beginners.

also my paddle feels kind of stiff and i keep accidentally sending extra dits when i dont mean to. is that a tension adjustment thing or just me not being used to it yet? the little screws on the side i assume are for tension but i dont want to mess something up.

just trying to figure out if im on the right track before i build any bad habits. ive been using the lcwo.net site to practice receiving which seems to work pretty well so far

mode A vs B honestly doesnt matter much at the speeds you're working at, and even most experienced ops just pick one and stick with it. i've been using mode A my whole CW life and never had a reason to switch. id just leave it wherever it defaults and focus on the actual sending for now.

the stiffness thing is almost certainly the tension adjustment — yes those side screws control the gap between the contacts and the spring tension. loosen them just a tiny bit at a time and test. you want the paddle to feel light but not so loose that it bounces. it takes some fiddling and honestly every paddle is a little different. cheap amazon paddles can be hit or miss with consistency but theyre totally fine to learn on, i started on something similar.

one thing i'd add — dont get too caught up in the keyer and paddle stuff right now. the real work is training your ear and your brain to copy. lcwo is good but also just get on the air and listen to actual QSOs on 40 meters around 7.050 or so, even if you cant copy everything yet. hearing real sloppy human fists versus computer perfect tones is a big adjustment

im basically in the same boat as you, started a few months ago. i went through like three different paddles before settling on one that felt right for my hand so dont be surprised if the amazon one ends up not being your forever paddle.

the thing that helped me the most honestly was slowing way down on lcwo and just being really deliberate about each character instead of trying to rush to higher speeds. also i heard somewhere that you should learn to recognize the sound of the whole letter rather than counting dits and dahs and that totally changed things for me once it clicked