so ive been trying to get back into CW after maybe 10 years off and i picked up a used Bencher BY-1 a few months ago. nice paddle, feels good, but im running it into my IC-7300 and the iambic keyer just seems to be fighting me. like ill try to send a clean E or I and it comes out as EE or III or whatever. i know my timing is rusty but i dont think its entirely my fault lol.

the keyer speed is set around 18 wpm which maybe is too fast for me right now but i was running that speed fine years ago. i messed with the weight setting a little and that helped a bit but not really enough. i also tried switching from mode A to mode B in the radio menu and honestly i cant tell the difference. is that normal? i thought mode B was supposed to feel different.

anyway just wondering if anyone else went through this coming back to CW after a long break and whether its just a matter of grinding through it or if there are actual settings tweaks that helped. also open to hearing if anyone thinks the BY-1 is a problem paddle for this kind of thing or if its fine and its just me

oh man i went through exactly this about two years ago. came back after a long break and felt like i had never touched a paddle. honestly the best thing i did was just drop the speed way down, like embarrassingly slow, maybe 12 wpm, and just send random QSOs to myself for like 20 minutes a day. the muscle memory comes back faster than you'd think but only if you're not fighting the keyer constantly.

on the mode A vs B thing — a lot of people genuinely cant feel the difference unless they're doing really squeezed iambic technique where the timing of releasing the paddles matters. if you're not doing that it probably wont matter much either way. try mode A and just forget about it for now.

the BY-1 is a solid paddle, i wouldnt blame the hardware. maybe check your contact gap and tension though, sometimes a used paddle has been messed with and the contacts are inconsistent. can cause exactly the kind of doubling you're describing if the contacts are bouncing.

i'm sort of in the same boat as you, just started learning CW a few months ago and the iambic stuff is confusing to me still. i ended up just switching to single lever mode for now because i kept getting extra dits when i didnt want them. my elmers says it's a crutch but honestly it helped me focus on the actual letters instead of fighting my hands. might be worth trying just temporarily?