so ive been a technician for about two years and just upgraded to general a few months ago and i always told myself id learn morse even though its not required anymore. well i finally bought a cheap set of iambic paddles off ebay and a little keyer and ive been practicing with the K7QO code course which everyone seems to recommend.

heres my problem — when i copy audio im slowly getting better but when i actually key anything it sounds like garbage. like i know in my head what the letter should be but my hand doesnt cooperate. is this normal? i tried slowing the keyer way down to like 8 wpm but then i start counting dits and dahs in my head which i know is wrong. someone at the club said just push through it but that feels bad too. also not sure if im holding the paddle wrong or what, nobody at my club really does CW anymore.

anyway any advice from people who actually went through this would be great. not trying to be a contest operator just want to make some actual QSOs someday

yeah what youre describing is completely normal and honestly almost everyone goes through it. the hand-brain disconnect is real and it just takes time. one thing that helped me a lot was not practicing sending separately from receiving — like try to copy what you send right after you send it, so your brain starts associating the sound with the motion rather than the letter name if that makes sense.

on the speed thing, 8 wpm is fine but a lot of people actually recommend keeping the character speed higher (like 15-18 wpm) but putting big gaps between characters. thats the Farnsworth method and it stops you from counting because the individual letters come too fast to count. most keyers and software let you set character speed and word speed independently. worth trying if your keyer supports it.

and yeah paddle grip matters more than people say. your thumb and finger shouldnt be squeezing, more like just resting with light contact. if your hand tenses up you start rushing and everything sounds choppy. took me probably six months of on and off practice before my first real QSO and it felt amazing when it finally happened so stick with it

I'm in almost the exact same boat, just started learning CW about 3 months ago. The Farnsworth thing the other guy mentioned is legit, it made a huge difference for me. I was using the LCWO website which lets you dial that in pretty easily.

One thing nobody told me — apparently the cheap ebay paddles can have really inconsistent contact gaps and that makes it way harder to learn good timing because you're fighting the hardware. I'm not saying you need to spend a lot but if it feels physically weird to use maybe check that the contacts are adjusted right. There should be stuff on youtube about setting paddle gap. Mine was way too loose out of the box and i didnt realize for weeks.