so ive been trying to learn CW for about 3 months now and i finally got a decent paddle — picked up a used Bencher BY-1 off ebay and honestly the paddle itself feels great, way better than the cheap single lever thing i started with. but here's the thing, my sending still sounds like garbage and i cant figure out if its my keyer settings or just my technique being bad.

im running it through my IC-7300's built in keyer and i've been practicing around 15 wpm which is probably too fast for where i am honestly. the dits and dahs just blur together sometimes especially when im trying to do letters like C or Y where you have to go back and forth a lot. i watched a bunch of videos and everyone says iambic mode B is better but i honestly cant tell the difference when im actually sending.

does anyone have tips on what keyer settings to actually mess with first, like the weight adjustment or the sidetone or whatever? or is this just one of those things where you have to put in reps and it gets better on its own

honestly the best thing i ever did was slow way way down. like embarrassingly slow. i know 15 wpm feels right because thats kind of where you want to end up but your hands and brain arent there yet and you're just reinforcing bad muscle memory by pushing it. drop to 10 or even 8 and focus on making every character sound clean and crisp before you speed back up.

on the iambic A vs B thing — most people cant tell the difference either and it genuinely doesnt matter that much when you're starting out. what does matter is getting the weight set right on your keyer. on the 7300 i think its in the keyer menu, try bumping the weight up just a tiny bit if your dits are sounding too light or getting clipped. and honestly the sidetone pitch makes a bigger difference to how comfortable it feels than people give it credit for — try somewhere around 600-700hz if you havent already, some people like it higher but that range works for most ears.

the good news is the BY-1 is a solid paddle and wont hold you back at all. keep at it, three months in and actually getting on the air is further than a lot of people get.

im in pretty much the same boat lol, been at it about 4 months with a Vibroplex clone paddle. one thing that actually helped me was recording myself sending with audacity and listening back — like i thought i was doing okay until i heard the playback and it was kind of rough. really obvious where my timing was falling apart on specific letters. Y is the worst, you're right about that one.