so ive been doing CW for about 8 months now and im finally starting to feel comfortable enough to get on the air but something just feels wrong about how my sending sounds. like the dits and dahs arent quite... balanced? i dont know how to describe it. im using an old Bencher paddle i picked up at a hamfest and running it through my radio's internal keyer (IC-7300). speed is around 16 wpm which feels comfortable for me.

when i record myself and play it back it just sounds sloppy compared to other guys on the air. ive messed with the weighting setting a little bit but honestly i dont even fully understand what that does. does it affect the dit to dah ratio or is it something else entirely. also my paddle tension might be too loose, i keep accidentally sending extra dits when i think im lifting off. any advice from people who have been through this would be great, kind of discouraging when your code sounds like mush

the weighting adjustment on most rigs changes the ratio of mark to space within the characters, so if you crank it up your dits and dahs get a bit heavier and the spaces between elements shrink slightly. sounds like thats probably not your main issue though. what you're describing with the extra dits is almost certainly paddle tension and contact gap — those two things together make a huge difference and most people set them way too loose when they're starting out.

tighten up the tension more than feels natural, like noticeably stiffer than comfortable, and then close the gap a little on the dit side if that's where you're getting the bouncing. give it a week at that setting before you judge it. also 16 wpm is totally fine, dont let anyone pressure you to speed up before your fist is clean. i still know old timers who run 18 wpm and sound like a machine because their paddle setup is dialed in perfectly. the Bencher is a good paddle, definitely not the problem.

oh man i went through this exact same thing maybe a year ago. for me it turned out i was gripping the paddle way too hard when i was nervous which threw everything off. try to let your fingers just rest on the paddles and dont death grip the thing lol. also honestly the best thing i did was use an online CW trainer to just listen to clean code at my speed for like 20 minutes a day — after a while your ear gets calibrated and you hear your own mistakes better when you record yourself. dont get discouraged, 8 months in and youre already on the air which is more than a lot of people can say