so ive been a tech for a few years and just upgraded to general last month, been wanting to get into HF and honestly the thing that got me excited about ham radio in the first place was hearing CW on the bands when i was a kid. my grandfather was a telegraph operator back in the day which is probably where that came from.

anyway i picked up a used Begali Traveler paddle at a hamfest and its sitting on my desk mocking me. i have a Yaesu FT-891 and im pretty sure it has a built in keyer but i havent actually figured out how to configure it yet. do i just plug the paddle straight into the key jack and set it to iambic mode or is there more to it than that. also is iambic A or B better to learn on, i keep reading conflicting stuff about this and it just confuses me more.

i can copy maybe 5 wpm on a good day, which is basically nothing i know. any advice on how to actually practice would be helpful too, not just the keyer stuff but like how people actually get to where they can hold a QSO without panicking

congrats on the upgrade and welcome to the best part of ham radio in my opinion. that Begali is a really nice paddle for learning on, good choice at the hamfest.

for the 891 yeah just plug the paddle into the key jack on the back, its a 3.5mm stereo tip, then go into the menu and set the keyer mode. i think its menu item 16 or 17 for keyer type, you can set it to iambic A or B or bug mode. honestly the A vs B debate is way overblown for a beginner, just pick one and stick with it, most people say start with A and dont look back. the built in speed adjustment is usually the up/down buttons in certain modes, check the manual for that part.

for practice, just use the keyer to send to yourself while youre watching TV or whatever. dont even worry about listening at first, just get your hands used to the paddle. LC Coot has a good youtube channel, and the ARRL code practice files on their website are old but they work. G4FON software on a PC is also really solid for copying practice. the main thing is just do a little bit every single day, even 10 minutes, rather than hour long sessions twice a week.

oh man im kind of in the same boat, been at it for about 6 months now and just had my first real CW QSO last week on 40m, was pretty nerve wracking but the other guy was super patient. i use the code practice mode on my radio a lot just to keep the rhythm going.

one thing that helped me was just calling CQ really slowly like 8 or 9 wpm and not worrying about copying faster than that. most people will slow down to match you if you send slow, at least the nice ones will. also jusgt write down what you hear and dont panic if you miss something, context fills in a lot of gaps