so ive been trying to learn CW for about three months now and just picked up a used set of Begali paddles off a guy at the club swap meet last weekend. really nice paddles honestly, way better than the cheap bencher clone i was using before. anyway i have them hooked into my ic-7300 and using the internal keyer set to iambic mode B.

the problem is when im trying to send certain letter combinations like C or Y or anything with a dash-dot pattern i keep squeezing both paddles at the wrong moment and getting extra elements inserted. i know thats kind of the whole thing with iambic mode B is that it remembers your last squeeze but its driving me crazy because my sending sounds like garbage and i can hear it on the sidetone. been practicing with the keyer speed set around 15 wpm which might actually be too fast for where im at right now, not sure.

do most people just eventually get the muscle memory or is there some kind of trick to timing your squeeze releases that im missing? or should i just switch to mode A and see if that feels more natural? any advice appreciated, getting a little frustrated but i dont want to give up on this

totally normal what youre going through, dont get discouraged. i went through the exact same thing when i switched to iambic. honestly the best thing i ever did was drop the speed way down, like embarrassingly slow, maybe 10 or even 8 wpm, until the movements became automatic. your brain cant learn the timing if its also trying to keep up with the speed at the same time.

on the mode A vs mode B thing — a lot of operators actually prefer mode A, myself included. mode B is theoretically more efficient but it punishes you hard for releasing at the wrong moment like you described. mode A is more forgiving because it doesnt insert that extra element. try mode A for a week and see if it clicks better. you can always go back. the paddles being good quality will definitely help once your technique settles in, Begali makes really nice stuff.

yeah the C and Y problem is super common when you're starting out with iambic, i remember that frustrating me to no end. one thing that helped me was just doing drills on single letters over and over with the keyer slowed right down and really focusing on when exactly i was letting go of the paddle. like consciously thinking about the release not just the squeeze.

also random thought but have you tried Just Code or one of the other practice programs that shows you a character and makes you send it back? that feedback loop of seeing what you actually sent vs what you meant to send was huge for me. anyway stick with it, three months is still pretty early days and it does click eventually i promise