so ive been trying to get back into CW after maybe a 15 year break and i picked up a used Bencher paddle and hooked it to my radio's built-in keyer. problem is everything i send sounds kind of... mushy? like the dits and dahs arent clean, they kind of run together. im practicing at around 12 wpm which honestly feels painfully slow but even at that speed its not sounding right.

i messed with the weight setting a little bit but i dont really know what im doing there. the tension on the paddle feels ok i think, maybe a little loose. is this a keyer issue or is it my technique? ive been using iambic mode A but honestly i barely understand the difference between A and B. any help appreciated, been at this for two weeks and getting frustrated

the mushy sound is almost always tension and gap adjustment on the paddle itself, not the keyer. the contact gap especially — if its too wide you end up mashing the lever before it actually makes contact and then overcompensating. try tightening the tension just a little more than feels comfortable and close that gap down. it sounds counterintuitive but a tighter paddle actually gives you more control, not less.

also dont stress about mode A vs B right now. honestly for getting back into it at 12 wpm it barely matters. get your paddle feeling right first and worry about keyer modes later. the weight adjustment i would leave at 50% default until everything else is sorted. a lot of people chase weight settings when the real issue is mechanical.

yeah i went through basically this exact thing when i started. what helped me was just listening to a lot of CW — like pull up the W1AW practice broadcasts or even just tune around 40m in the evenings and just listen without trying to copy everything. your brain starts to hear what clean code sounds like and then when you send it you kind of self-correct without even thinking about it. took me a few weeks but it clicked eventually