so ive been a ham for about 8 months now and finally decided to take the plunge into CW. passed my extra a few months back and always thought id get around to learning morse eventually. well i bought a cheap chinese iambic paddle off ebay and been using it with the keyer built into my ft-891 and honestly my sending sounds like garbage. like letters are running together and i keep getting extra dits when i dont want them.

i set the speed to 13 wpm because thats where im comfortable copying but the paddle tension feels really off. ive messed with the gap adjustment a little but im not sure if im doing it too tight or too loose. also not sure if i should be using mode A or mode B on the keyer, ive just had it on whatever the default was. any advice from people who actually went through this would be great because im starting to wonder if i should just practice more or if the paddle itself is the problem

oh man i remember this phase, it really is frustrating at first. a few things that might help — first the gap on a budget paddle is almost always way too tight from the factory, most people need to open it up more than they think. you want maybe a business card thickness on each side as a rough starting point and then fine tune from there. too tight and you get exactly what youre describing, letters mushing together because the contacts are too sensitive.

as for mode A vs mode B, honestly for a beginner mode A is probably easier to work with because it stops the iambic sequence as soon as you release the paddles. mode B keeps going a little longer which trips people up. stick with A for now until your muscle memory gets better. also dont be discouraged, 13 wpm is a fine speed to start, just keep at it. the paddle technique stuff takes weeks to really click and a lot of it is just your hands learning what to do without you thinking about it. if you can swing it eventually, a better quality paddle makes a real difference but dont go crazy spending money until you know the cheap one is actually holding you back versus it just being the learning curve

yeah the mode A vs B thing confused me too when i started. im still pretty new to CW myself but one thing that really helped me was slowing way down on a straight key first just to get the rhythm of each character in my head before going back to the paddle. probably not what everyone says to do but it worked for me. also there are some youtube videos from guys doing slow CW demonstrations and just watching how relaxed their hand looks kind of showed me i was gripping the paddle way too hard