so ive been at this for about three months now and i just cannot get iambic mode to feel natural. im using a Begali Traveler paddle into a keyer built into my radio (Elecraft K3) and i keep getting extra dits or dahs squeezed in where i dont want them. like ill try to send a letter and get half of the next one tagged on automatically.

i know theres mode A and mode B and ive tried both and honestly cant tell the difference in practice. my sending speed is somewhere around 15 wpm which is probably not fast enough for iambic to really shine i guess? i watched a bunch of youtube videos and everyone makes it look so effortless. my elmers all learned on straight keys so they just tell me to go back to basics which i get but i feel like im so close to figuring this out.

does anyone have tips for getting the muscle memory right or is this just a thing where you have to put in hundreds of hours before it clicks? also how much does paddle tension and gap setting actually matter - mine are still basically at factory defaults

paddle tension and gap matter more than most people admit when theyre starting out. factory settings on a lot of paddles are actually set pretty wide for beginners to avoid false triggers but once youre working on muscle memory you really want to close the gap down until its juuust barely not making contact. tight gap means less finger travel which means less chance of over-squeezing.

the extra characters thing is almost certainly you holding the paddle a hair too long - iambic keyers are very literal, they do exactly what your fingers tell them. mode B specifically will complete the last element of a character even after you release which catches a lot of people off guard. try switching to mode A and see if that feels more predictable to you. a lot of ops actually stick with mode A their whole life and there's nothing wrong with that.

15 wpm is actually fine for learning iambic, dont let anyone tell you you need to be going faster first. slow down to 10 or even 8 and really feel each squeeze. the click should happen, then you release. clean inputs make clean code.

honestly I went through the exact same thing when I upgraded from a straight key to paddles. what finally helped me was using the Koch method practice software (I used G4FON) but specifically practicing just sending, not copying, just slowly squeezing out letters and listening to what the keyer actually produced versus what I thought I sent. you hear the mistakes differently when youre focused on output.

also one thing nobody told me - make sure your sidetone pitch matches whatever youre using to copy. sounds weird but when my keyer tone was at 700hz and I was used to copying nets at 500hz my brain kept getting confused. small thing but it made a difference for me.